The State of Forensic Science in America

     Maneka Sinha, a professor at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, in a 2021 article published in the Alabama Law Review, painted a bleak picture of American forensic science with quotes such as these:

     "Twenty-four percent of wrongful convictions involve junk science dressed up as scientific analysis."

     "Ironically, the extent to which lay people without scientific training tend to trust forensic science and mistakenly believe that it brings neutrality, fairness, accuracy, and certainty to the criminal justice process has allowed forensic evidence to do just the opposite."

     "Forensic science is so deeply resistant to change that it is beyond reform in the sense that tweaks around the edges cannot fix it."

Maneka Sinha, Alabama Law Review, Vol 73, 2021