State Supreme Court Approves of Variable-Prior-Odds Presentation of the Bayesian Probability of Paternity

In 2002, the Supreme Court of Kentucky wrote a disappointing opinion on the admissibility of the "probability of paternity" in a c...

Proposed Uniform Language for Forensic Toxicology

The first document listed in the announcement of "Uniform Language" (UL) documents for forensic science is the Department of Just...

Is OSAC Painting Itself Out of the Picture? Time to Comment on ASTM E1640-14

The Organization of Scientific Area Committees (OSAC) started on the wrong foot with the first standard it chose to place on its blue-ribbo...

“Statistical Lawyer’s Tricks” with DNA Mixtures in the Trial of Tommy Whack

Maryland seems to produce more than its share of significant judicial opinions on DNA evidence. Perhaps this is partly the result of having ...

"Remarkably Accurate": The Miami-Dade Police Study of Latent Fingerprint Identification (Pt. 3)

The Department of Justice continues to communicate the sweeping view that fingerprint examiners make extremely few errors in their work. A f...

Blinding Forensic Analysts to Task-irrelevant Information: A National Commission (NCFS) Speaks Out

This week, the National Commission on Forensic Science (NCFS) approved a “views document” entitled Ensuring That Forensic Analysis Is Based ...

Latent Fingerprint Identification in Flux?

Two recent articles suggest that seeds of change are taking root in the field of latent fingerprint identification. I. The Emerging Paradigm...

Marching Toward Improved Latent Fingerprint Testimony at the Army's Defense Forensic Science Center

The U.S. Army’s Defense Forensic Science Center (DFSC) has announced a change in its practice of reporting a positive association between a...