The case against Steven Barnes in the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl seemed circumstantial, at best. Two hairs that looked like the victim's; some dirt on a truck like that taken from the crime scene; a pattern on the bumper that resembled a design on the victim's popular brand of jeans, and that was enough.
He spent the next 20 years in prison before DNA testing exonerated him, becoming one of hundreds of people convicted in whole or in part on forensic science that has come under fire during the past decade.
Some of that science, analysis of bite marks, latent fingerprints, firearms identification, burn patterns in arson investigations, footwear patterns and tire treads, was once considered sound, but is now being denounced by some lawyers and scientists who say it has not been studied enough to prove its reliability and in some cases has led to wrongful convictions.
Two reports by scientific boards have sharply criticized the use of such forensic evidence, and universities that teach it are moving away from visual analysis essentially, eyeballing it and toward more precise biometric tools. Hope we use it right. Just a thought.
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