Forensic Science: The Nexus of Science and the Law

Organized by Stephen E. Fienberg, Margaret A. Berger, David Donoho,
Donald Kennedy, Roger Kahn, and Douglas H. Ubelaker
National Academy of Sciences Building, Washington, DC
November 16-18, 2005

Final Program and Presentations

Meeting Overview

The Sackler Colloquium on Forensic Science: The Nexus of Science and the Law was held on November 16-18, 2005.  This Colloquium reviewed the science in forensic science from multiple perspectives: the perspective of government forensic laboratories, the basic science underlying forensic technologies, and, of course, from the perspective of the courts, which ultimately must judge what scientific evidence should be admitted.

The Supreme Court's Daubert standard has generated some ambiguity for the legal community, but the Court did list several criteria for qualifying expert testimony: peer review, error rate, adequate testing, regular standards and techniques, and general acceptance. The controversy over a recent federal court ruling on fingerprint evidence has reignited some old challenges to "forensic science."

The Colloquium used the term "forensic science" to mean the use of science evidence in legal evidentiary contexts. This is a far broader definition than that adopted by "forensic" practitioners, but much of the focus is nonetheless on traditional forensic tools, those that are gaining currency, and those that might in the future. The criminal justice system and the courts in particular, are slow to adopt new scientific procedures. The acceptance of DNA evidence and the standardization of laboratory procedures for DNA analysis eventually broke through that barrier, well after there was scientific proof of their reliability. But there were numerous questions that had to be answered about using DNA evidence in a forensic context that never had to be considered by scientists engaged in DNA research, issues such as contamination, degradation, and a number of statistical issues. Two NRC Committees issued reports on the topic and they raised issues such as the uniqueness of an individual DNA profile, sample consumption, and a defendant's right to retesting. Some of these questions turned out to cause no problems, but they had to be asked and answered, and most of the courts, considering what a revolutionary form of evidence this was, responded fairly quickly. At issue now is the reliability of other forensic science methods as well as how the courts should respond to novel scientific evidence.