Author Grisham laments bad courtroom science (evidence, justice, news, American)

[RedJacket]

Best-selling crime author John Grisham told lawmakers that faulty science is all over the US justice system, and urged nationwide improvements to forensic techniques."It is time to clean up the bad science," said Grisham, who serves on the board of the Innocence

Project, a group that works to exonerate wrongly convicted people mainly through using DNA evidence. The Project has helped 280 such victims to date.

"Faulty science is rampant in American courtrooms. It is procured by prosecutors, often well meaning, it is tolerated by judges, offered by experts and considerably believed by jurors in good faith," Grisham told the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

AFP: Author Grisham laments bad courtroom science

It must be hell rotting away in prison knowing you're innocent. Our legal system needs a good overhauling.

Right now, justice is far from blind.

[Strel]

Originally Posted by RedJacket

Best-selling crime author John Grisham told lawmakers that faulty science is all over the US justice system, and urged nationwide improvements to forensic techniques."It is time to clean up the bad science," said Grisham, who serves on the board of the Innocence

Project, a group that works to exonerate wrongly convicted people mainly through using DNA evidence. The Project has helped 280 such victims to date.

"Faulty science is rampant in American courtrooms. It is procured by prosecutors, often well meaning, it is tolerated by judges, offered by experts and considerably believed by jurors in good faith," Grisham told the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

AFP: Author Grisham laments bad courtroom science

It must be hell rotting away in prison knowing you're innocent. Our legal system needs a good overhauling.

Right now, justice is far from blind.

The ONLY way you can fix this - and it may not be worth it - is to have independent, court-appointed expert witnesses. A professional pool of disinterested experts that work for the court, are paid by the court, and are beholden to no party.

Problem is deciding who gets to do it.

[WhipperSnapper 88]

Originally Posted by Strel

The ONLY way you can fix this - and it may not be worth it - is to have independent, court-appointed expert witnesses. A professional pool of disinterested experts that work for the court, are paid by the court, and are beholden to no party.

Problem is deciding who gets to do it.

If you work for the court you are already on a side, the prosecution. The courts aren't an independant medium or objective body in which trials are conducted through, they are a part of the state government, governed by state laws and so forth.