The Matthew J. Ryan Law and Public Policy Forum hosted by Villanova University School of Law and co-sponsored by the Pennsylvania Innocence Project was held on January 21, 2011. The title of this year’s forum was Innocents Behind Bars: The Key to Exoneration.
I was honored to serve on the panel titled “Forensic Investigations: Problems with Contextual Bias.” My presentation focused on three areas:
- the overt government bias in selecting a portion of drug sample for defense re-analysis
- the contextual bias inherent to the typical analysis of marijuana
- the bias-susceptible nature of fire debris analysis
I was humbled to share the panel with three excellent presenters and advocates for justice:
- Professor Jules Epstein, who discussed the different types of bias and used the Brandon Mayfield fingerprinting case as an example
- Michael Rieders, Ph.D., who discussed how contextual case information can sway the interpretation of toxicological data
- Robert Dunham, Esq., who discussed the bias that can occur due to the race of the victim
I think it is important to point out that wrongful convictions extend beyond the capital cases. These cases undoubtedly deserve the attention and effort that they receive, but I want to remind everyone that drug cases, robberies, burglaries, etc., which can also carry incredibly long terms of imprisonment, are also susceptible to fraudulent forensic science that is used to convict. Unfortunately, these cases do not get much scrutiny so we have no idea how many wrongful convictions have occurred.
