Friday Roundup: Forensic Oversight, Informant Testimony and Eyewitness Identification

North Carolina’s troubled State Bureau of Investigation crime lab

is still struggling

.

In the wake of California’s new law regulating informant testimony, a former Pennsylvania district attorney

calls for Pennsylvania and Ohio to enact a rules to manage this unreliable evidence

.

The Economist reported on psychology experiments

finding that persuasion and false incriminating evidence contribute to false confessions

.

A San Antonio Express-News op-ed

questions how many of the 708 people convicted of arson in Texas last year were convicted on the same discredited methods that convicted Cameron Todd Willingham.

WAFF TV in Huntsville, Alabama, reported on the

unreliability of eyewitness identification

.

Attorney Kevin Doyle

reviews Brandon Garrett’s 2011 book “Convicting the Innocent”

for America Magazine and and comments on the death penalty.