* LA Times: Establishing national forensic science standards is crucial when evidence determines life or death.

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Editorial from the LA Times … 9-21-09 …

• Establishing national forensic science standards is crucial when evidence determines life or death.
• With the busiest death chamber in the nation, it was only a matter of time before Texas positioned itself to become the first state to admit that it executed a person who was wrongfully convicted. And now that day is at hand.
  • According to a nationally respected fire engineer, the so-called scientific evidence used to convict Cameron Todd Willingham of setting a blaze that killed his three daughters in 1995 was not scientific at all.
  • In his scathing report to the Texas Forensic Science Commission, Craig Beyler found that the arson investigators on the case had a poor understanding of fire dynamics and based their conclusions on erroneous assumptions, sloppy research and a dash of mysticism.
  • Willingham’s case is heartbreaking: He lost his children to fire and his wife to divorce, spent 12 years in prison and died still protesting his innocence.
• But his is not an isolated case. There are thousands of Willinghams in prisons across the country.
  • If not on death row, they are nonetheless serving decades-long or even life sentences after having been convicted on the basis of erroneous scientific conclusions made by poorly trained “experts.”
• In 2006, Congress charged the National Academy of Sciences with studying the application of forensic science in the U.S. judicial system. Its findings, released last year, are grim.
  • Almost every branch of forensics but DNA testing — hair and fiber analysis, arson investigations, comparisons of bite marks — lacks the extensive scientific research and established standards to be used in court conclusively.
• In February, the science academy issued a report calling for Congress to create a national institute of forensic science, and there is more than enough evidence that one is desperately needed.
• As an independent agency, not part of the Justice Department, it would be charged with conducting research, setting national standards for forensic disciplines and enforcing those standards.
• Right now, standards vary wildly.
• The Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on the science academy’s recommendations this month, and it is to be hoped that the end result is a national forensics institute.
• The fate of thousands hangs on the correct analysis of a thread, a hair, the fibers of a rug. We can do better by them, even if it’s too late for Willingham.

read the entire editorial at …
HTTP://WWW.LATIMES.COM/NEWS/OPINION/EDITORIALS/LA-ED-FORENSICS21-2009SEP21,0,2528495.STORY

NOTE: There was a long article in the NEW YORKER recently on the Willingham case.