Science Thursday

03.01.12

A new report details sources of human error in fingerprint analyses, a Texas crime lab files a complaint against another Texas crime lab, and a neuroscientist cautions the public on the use of brain imaging in court. Here’s a roundup of this week’s forensics news:

 

A new report by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Institute of Justice

documented potential sources for error

in latent fingerprint analysis and made recommendations for future steps to advance error reduction.

 

An independent crime lab in Texas filed a complaint against the Austin Police Department crime lab alleging that

drug samples were lost, contaminated or incorrectly classified

, resulting in “significant issues” in three cases.

 

The Indiana Supreme Court confirmed that in at least five cases where State Department of Toxicology

retested evidence

, the samples did not reveal any of the substances originally reported.

 

In an opinion piece in Nature magazine, a neuroscientist discusses the

misinterpretation and misapplication of brain imaging technology

.

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