Criminal Justice, False Certainty, and the Second Generation of Scientific Evidence
The New Forensics: Criminal Justice, False Certainty, and the Second Generation of Scientific Evidence Erin Murphyt Accounts of powerful new forensic technologies such as DNA typing, data mining, biometric scanning, and electronic location tracking fill the daily news. Proponentspraise these techniques for helping to exonerate those wrongly accused, and for exposing the failings of a criminaljustice system thatpreviously relied too readily upon faulty forensic evidence like handwriting, ballistics, and hair and fiber analysis. Advocates applaud the introduction of a "new paradigm" for forensic evidence, and proclaim that these new techniques will revolutionize how the government investigates and tries criminal cases. While the new forensic sciences undoubtedly offer an unprecedented degree of certainty and reliability, these characteristicsalone do not necessarily render them less susceptible to misuse. In fact, as this Article argues, the most lauded attributes of these new forms of forensic evidence may actually exacerbate the Copyright © 2007 California Law Review, Inc. California Law Review, Inc. (CLR) is a California nonprofit corporation. CLR and the authors are solely responsible for the content of their publications. t Assistant Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (Boalt Hall). J.D., Harvard Law School, 1999. I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to David Sklansky for his infinite wisdom, patience, and insight, as well as to Frank Zimring, Eleanor Swift, Jan Vetter, Jonathan Simon, and Chuck Weisselberg. Dr. Montgomery Slatkin, Dr. Michael Eisen, and attorney Bicka Barlow also provided generous assistance. Special thanks to Andrea Roth, Todd Edelman, Tim O'Toole, and Eliza Platts-Mills for their invaluable contributions throughout the process.
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