Recent News from Canada

[Cindy Rennie]

Toronto Star Newspaper, May 10, 2009.

"Ottawa urged to establish forensics watchdog".
Standards must be set for 'science' behind evidence, activist says.
Tracey Tyler
Legal Affairs Reporter, Toronto Star

"With a U.S. report throwing doubt on the validity of nearly every type of forensic evidence used in courtrooms, an expert on wrongful convictions is urging Canada to consider setting up a watchdog agency to regulate what is currently touted as "science".

"You can't wait until evidence gets into a court of law to hope truth will prevail", Peter Neufeld, co-founder of the New York-based Innocence Project, told a conference in Toronto yesterday.

U.S. lawmakers are expected to introduce a bill in Congress this summer to create a national institute to establish and rigorously enforce standards after a recent blockbuster report found no forensic method except DNA has been shown to be scientifically reliable.

That report, from the Washington-based National Academy of Sciences in February, put to rest any notion inspired by television shows such as "CSI" that forensic science is foolproof.

Whether it's fingerprinting or handwriting analysis, or evidence that purports to show a bullet came from a particular gun or that tire marks came from a certain car, most forensic methods have no body of research behind them to cerify their ability to link a specific person to a piece of evidence or a crime, the report said.

"A lot of those disciplines came into court without ever being scientifically validated," Neufeld, whose agency has represented more than 100 convicted people exonerated through DNA testing, told lawyers, judges and scientists gathered at the University of Toronto. "They're not novel. They've been around and upheld by courts for 30 or 40 years and, in the case of fingerprint analysis, for as many as 100 years, and everybody just keeps going around and saying 'fine'."

With judges often ill-equipped to assess the validity of what gets held up as science, U.S. legislators have begun moving to set up a national institute that would conduct research into various techinques and set qualification standards of experts. "I would hope that at some point Canada can learn something from what the National Academy of Science has said...and think about the possibility of some sort of national entity that can be set up here," Neufeld said.

Yesterday's conference, sponsored by Osgoode Hall Law School and the U. of T.'s Centre for Forensic Science and Medicine, looked at forensic science lessons from the case of Steven Truscott - wrongly convicted of a 1959 murder - and the recent Goudge inquiry into pediatric forensic pathology in Ontario.

Dr. Michael Pollanen, Ontario's chief forensic pathologist, noted the province has moved swiftly with reforms to improve standards in forensic pathology after last falls's report by Justice Stephen Goudge into shortcomings that led to flawed child death investigations. They include amendments to the "Coroner's Act", which would allow for the creation of a registry of pathologists who are qualified to perform autopsies.

Pollanen said forensic science, like forensic pathology, is at a point where the knowledge behind it and its "institutional supports" need to be strengthened. "

[Cindy Rennie]

You know, I was at that conference on Saturday. When I was filling out my comment card at the end of a very busy day (it should have been a two-day conference), I was left with the overwhelming feeling that the emphasis had been placed on the 'heroic' defense community who were trying to uphold truth and justice in the face of the apathetic (if not down-right evil) scientific community.

In my attempt to validate this feeling, I ran my eye over the list of topics and participants. The conference was set up as a series of presentations followed by a panel discussion. There were scientists on each of the panels, and each had their say. There were members from the Crown Attorneys office ("District Attorney" to you Amuricans), and they were included in the panels, too. On paper, it should have been a balanced presentation of the facts.

In reality, as you can tell from the article, it was a 'body blow' to the status quo.

[Pat A. Wertheim]

Sounds like the conference on the NAS report at Arizona State University last month, both in format and in slant. I think the conference was intended primarily for our critics to attend, but a lot of crime lab folks attended, too. Where better to learn how to defend against their attacks than at a conference where that is the primary topic of discussion? And like yours, the meeting in Arizona included some from the field of Forensics who support what we do. Balanced? Not in the opinion of many there. Valuable? You bet!

[rbostrum]

Sounds like the conference on the NAS report at Arizona State University last month, both in format and in slant.

It was very similar. Which is not too surprising as both the Arizona and Toronto meetings were put on by law schools. In fact, some of the presentors were at both events - Peter Neufeld, Michael Saks and Kent Roach. You may recall that Prof Roach (U of T) was on the panel in Arizona talking about 'Institutional Structure' (with Hassell, Fisher, etc).

The agenda for the Toronto conference was a little different and I suspect that may have skewed the tone just a bit. The conference was entitled "Expert Forensic Evidence in Criminal Proceedings: Avoiding Wrongful Convictions".

Unfortunately, I was not able to personally attend the conference in Toronto but four of our examiners did go down; one of whom was also at the ASU meeting. According to his report the tone was similar but, overall, a little less 'balanced'. I don't know what you thought of the Arizona meeting but I personally found the discussions pretty reasonable overall.

All in all, this conference simply reinforces the point that these issues do not respect borders or jurisdictions. Nor should they, I suppose. Everyone, regardless of where they work, should take the time to learn about what's going on and these meeting provide an excellent opportunity to learn how others view our work.

[Pat A. Wertheim]

Everyone, regardless of where they work, should take the time to learn about what's going on and these meeting provide an excellent opportunity to learn how others view our work.

That's my thought. I didn't go to the ASU conference to hear my favorite hymns sung by the same old choir. I went to learn. But I sure heard complaints from a few of the other crime lab folks there.