CSI Turns Up the Heat on Experts
Popular television shows featuring forensic scientists - CSI: Miami, Silent Witness, and so on - give juries unrealistic expectations of what a laboratory can do, scientists claim.
Popular television shows featuring forensic scientists - CSI: Miami, Silent Witness, and so on - may not be so popular with the people at the real scene of the crime.
Two scientists have identified what they called the CSI effect. Prosecutors fear the CSI effect because juries have unrealistic expectations of what a laboratory can do, Max Houck, who heads a forensic science department at West Virginia University, told the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington.
"Defence attorneys now worry about the CSI effect because they think the jurors view science as this juggernaut, this infallible, objective method that is always right, always accurate and that spells doom for their client."
He added that everyone started watching CSI "and submission rates for evidence to laboratories goes through the roof".
Two scientists have identified what they called the CSI effect. Prosecutors fear the CSI effect because juries have unrealistic expectations of what a laboratory can do, Max Houck, who heads a forensic science department at West Virginia University, told the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington.
"Defence attorneys now worry about the CSI effect because they think the jurors view science as this juggernaut, this infallible, objective method that is always right, always accurate and that spells doom for their client."
He added that everyone started watching CSI "and submission rates for evidence to laboratories goes through the roof".
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