<
https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/yet-another-scientific-body-has-debunked>
"This week, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released
a long-awaited report on the use of bitemark analysis. This is the disipline in
which a specialist matches an apparent bite mark on human skin and to the teeth
of the person who did the biting. The field has a horrendous track record: More
than two dozen people arrested or convicted with bitemark evidence have since
been exonerated.
The NIST report has been a long time coming. In its landmark 2009 report on
forensic evidence, the National Academy of Sciences singled out bitemark
analysis as a forensic specialty with little to know scientific underpinnings,
and called for further study. This report is the answer to the NAS report, and
it's a thorough rebuke of all things bitemark analysis.
The entire specialty of bitemark comparison rests on three core assumptions.
The first is that each person's teeth are structured and aligned in a way that
causes them to leave unique bite marks. The second is that human skin is
capable of recording and preserving those marks in a way that makes them
distinguishable. The final assumption is that trained analysts are capable of
analyzing marks to include or exclude someone as the person who left them.
The NIST study found no scientific evidence to support any of these
assumptions, and the evidence we do have explicitly refutes two of them.
Studies have consistently shown that human skin is incapable of recording and
preserving the details of a bite, and competency tests have shown that not only
are bitemark analysts bad at matching bites to human subjects, they often can't
even agree on what is and isn't a human bite. Members of the NIST panel will
present a webinar on their findings later this month.
The NIST report is now the fourth major scientific body to find no scientific
validity to support these central tenets of bitemark analysis. In addition to
the 2009 NAS report, in 2016 the Texas Forensic Science Commission found the
scientific support for bitemark comparison so lacking that it recommended a
moratorium on its use in criminal cases. That same year, the President's
Council of Advisors on Science and Technology also recommended a moratorium.
Bitemark analysis has been used only in a small percentage of criminal
convictions. But that only makes the criminal justice system's refusal to
course-correct here all the more damning. At worst, it would require the
re-opening and reinvestigation of a few hundred cases. Yet even those
relatively limited consequences are apparently too much for the courts to
bear."
Via Wayne Radinsky.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
