A few years ago, we had swarms of new students all wanting to go into forensic science entering our biology program — TV had made the field look cool and sexy and exciting. The flood is ebbing now, fortunately, but I still have to wonder if the effects of the fad aren’t still being felt.
Annie Dookhan is the classic case, an underqualified fake who botched thousands of drug tests and almost certainly sent innocent people to jail…and after her work was discovered, was also responsible for the release of guilty people. But now there’s another example: Shawn Parcells, the so-called expert who was called in by the Brown family.
He has a bachelor’s degree in life science, and that’s it. I am very familiar with what an undergraduate degree in biology gets you: a lot of basic knowledge and preparation, but it most definitely does not mean you are now ready to do autopsies. He also claims to have a Master’s degree in anatomy and physiology, but it’s from New York Chiropractic College. He claims to be heading off to medical school any day now, but he also says he turned down admission to a Caribbean medical school to spend time with his wife.
He has announced himself as a “professor” — he has no position with any university.
He likes to give the impression that he is a doctor. He isn’t.
So why is this morbid glory hound being given so many opportunities for public exposure, and to meddle in high-profile cases?
If we’re going to be a society that despises experts and expertise, lets at least get us some ACTUAL experts to despise
I’ve heard that one of the effects is that many jurors now expect heavy forensic lab work in order to convict someone. It’s probably a good thing in a lot of cases, but maybe not so much when the evidence is security footage of the defendant committing the crime from multiple angles.
How especially unfortunate in a case like this one to have a fraud perpetrated against this family that has already suffered so much that also just gives people another excuse to “justify” this kid’s death.
Are they paying him? Guy should be arrested for fraud the instant he accepts any payment whatsoever.
To be honest, I’m not sure how far I’m willing to believe the intricate details of any autopsy, even if Mr. Parcells was credentialed. Too many forensic sciences remain untested or have been tested and shown to be unreliable, even those that we’ve relied on for generations (such as fingerprinting, bite marks, microscopic hair comparisons, etc.), that I am completely willing to believe that the fine details examiners claim to take away from autopsies are likely taken with untested and inaccurate methodology. I will freely admit that I’m not a scientist, but it seems to me that something like getting the angle of a shot from an examination of a body just shouldn’t be believed until the methodology for determining that has been thoroughly and rigorously examined in experimental conditions. Maybe I’m far off the mark and things like this can be reliably shown from autopsies, but my trust in forensic science as a field is, I think, justifiably low.
It’s not like the expensive equipment and highly-trained professionals are AVAILABLE to police cases. They are too expensive!
And it’s not like that matters, at all. Those people with those equipment can turn up facts. Facts don’t matter to trials in a police state.
pita #5
Totally agree. Far too much faith is being put into the interpretations that forensic investigators arrive at. From J Edgar Hoover to the swarm of today’s fictional forensic TV shows, the lay public has been shown a hugely unrealistic picture. My favorite one so far was the episode of Bones where they took cremated remains of an unknown person and not only ID’ed the person, but figured out that she had been murdered, and the method used, and by whom.
I blame Sherlock Holmes.
re @8:
Good Day, Dr. Watson.
-There are a very small number of forensics programs in the US (gradschool.com catalogs 101, but that includes University of Phoenix, so…). The point is that the number of forensics experts with degrees in forensics is rather small. Many expert witnesses come from genetics/chemistry/criminal justice backgrounds. From what I know*, many of the expert witnesses that are called to testify are vetted in-trial by the judge. After that, the court has its way with the science. We all know the shitsplatter that can ensue.
-The kinds of techniques that are required in forensic DNA and trace analysis labs are extremely canned…meaning that the protocols are highly standardized, and could be performed competently by anyone with a little background in lab science, SO LONG AS THEY FOLLOW THE PROTOCOLS. The problem with Dookhan wasn’t necessarily the lack of training, so much as a disregard for established protocols and professional ethics, as well as failure in oversight. A degree doesn’t confer a conscience.
pita: I agree. Forensics is a fledgling science. I have been involved marginally in research involving post-mortem interval estimation from insect colonization. The way that it is most often done is not very reliable, and also provides no confidence or credible interval, which should be disturbing, given that PMI is often considered a very relevant factor in homicide investigations and trials.
*I know someone (quite well) who has served as an expert witness. She has a Ph.D. in the appropriate biological field and has published in forensic science journals, assisted in investigations, etc.
So why is this morbid glory hound being given so many opportunities for public exposure, and to meddle in high-profile cases?
Partly some blame should be directed toward the FBI — who, supposedly, are the top professionals in the world at forensics, but instead have demonstrated over and over again that incompetence pays. We can’t hold a field to a standard of excellence when those that allegedly set the bar have put it at the lowest possible setting, and then lied about it.
re OP:
Why, why, why, would they not call in an expensive (on Fergusen’s tab) forensic specialist with experiences up the wazoo? Don’t they want a fully detailed and scrupulously accurate autopsy of their murdered son?
And double why:: How can Parcells, with zero experience, try to pass himself off as THE EXPERT???
I fear the Browns were misdirected by, “the most valuable evidence is independent, 3rd party, evaluation.” And Parcells just slipped in under the radar.
Hmm. They offer a degree in Human Anatomy & Physiology Instruction.
This qualifies one to point to a plastic model while mouthing Latinisms, but not, I think, to perform autopsies.
@Pita(#5):
Lets just say that every time you get into surgery these intricate details are what allows the surgeon(s) to perform the operation. Basically every operation is an antemortem limited autopsy of the organ/body part in question.
If there are problems with autopsies it is usually lack of experience or incompetence that is the factor.
Bronze Dog @#2
I was on a jury for a criminal case a couple of years ago. During the jury selection phase, the DA started by saying something about seeing the use of DNA evidence on TV crime shows.
robro
I think in Canada they actually have to warn juries about the CSI effect (as I heard it called in my uni days), because people were too inclined to demand forensic evidence where (a) none was available or (b) other evidence didn’t make it necessary.
+++
As someone working in the field (DNA – and, granted, not in North America) I can say that the science is definitely not as definitive as TV would have you believe. DNA results are, at best, statistical, and dependent on the population against which results are compared. Good, clean, single-person profiles are (compared to the volume of samples that go through this particular lab) are rare, and really the only thing they are 99.99999% good for is elimination of suspects (because if it matches your profile, it could be you or it could be someone with the exact same alleles – not common but possible; but if it doesn’t match your profile, well, it isn’t you – again, though with some extremely rare exceptions, such as (par exemple) women pregnant with XY-fetuses, who may exhibit Y chromosomes in their profiles if samples are taken from blood).
Laypeople, though, are sometimes too easily swayed by forensic experts (and ‘experts’) and the evidence presented, as was shown in a case a couple of years ago in the states where a homeless man was convicted of a rich guy’s death while being unconscious in hospital at the estimated time of the murder. See, the medics who brought him to hospital were called to the scene right after – and cross-contamination is a bugger to deal with, and easy to come by.
Regarding forensic pathology as such, training and work experience under strict supervision should be necessary for rather lenghty periods of time in order to be permitted to be qualified as an expert, but again, education. training and experience don’t automatically mean that the person working will have any decent sense of ethics. Unfortunately, good character is not something taught at university or on the job.
Forensic science as a field, though, is a work in progress, and much of current knowledge and methods will probably be discredited before it can be considered anything near infallible (and even then, I have my doubts about 100% infallibility). I know methods in fingerprinting, at least in Canada, have changed quite a bit over the years, and DNA tests are constantly trying to adjust to become more specific while maintaining affordability and decent deadlines; technological advances have been huge, though I can’t say that equipment and materials have become any more affordable.
The other issue besides the science is presenting the science in court in a manner that is simple enough to be understood, yet concrete enough to have some actual value in a particular case. In Canada, from what I recall, expert witnesses couldn’t be just anyone, and were coached in evidence presentation, and are often (usually) cross-examined regarding their credentials – education, experience, etc. The most difficult thing to remember, for expert witnesses even more so, is that the science must be presented – not an opinion (though they may be asked for that by either side), but the science, as it is (supposed to be) impartial.
Anyway, it’s all very interesting and I could go on for even more.
In this particular case, I’m sad that this ‘expert’ has turned out to be a fraud. He was supposedly under the supervision of Dr Baden, though (yes?) – but I haven’t heard of any particular response from him on the matter, and it would be interesting to see why this person was the one conducting the autopsy, in such a high-profile case, instead of, say, Baden himself.
The problem with forensic science goes back a long way before the CSI-driven fad. And in theory, if CSI has made forensic science an extremely popular course, we should be seeing a higher quality of graduate…if the training is any good. (It’s still unfair on all those students paying for courses with a tiny chance of getting a job in the field.)
In Australia, the most famously bad forensic evidence was presented in the prosecution of Lindy Chamberlain. She was convicted of murdering her baby on the basis of forensics which showed a red stain in her car was foetal blood — the problem was that the test had never been validated and the scientists did not run a control alongside the test (it takes every fibre of my being not to put the word scientists in scare quotes). We now know that the test was probably identifying a sound-deadening substance sprayed on the carpet when the car was still in the factory and not foetal blood as presented by the forensic scientists.
This is far from the only case. Bad forensics has been around as long as there has been criminal law, but it’s particularly sad that 500 years after the scientific revolution, the legal community has yet to catch up. That bad evidence in the Chamberlain case sent two almost-certainly innocent people to jail and cost millions in appeals, inquests, and so on. If someone were to add up the costs of all the miscarriages of justice based on bad forensic interpretations around the world, the figure must be in the billions.
Here is another example of CSIncompetence. A young man convicted of a rape that may or may not have happened. Multiple witnesses who testified that at the time of the “offense” he was at his sick fathers bedside were ignored. Their was no definite evidence of a rape. The victim couldn’t remember anything that happened. The video cameras at the scene had no record of him being there. The whole prosecution case was built on a DNA sample that was later proved to be contaminated by the DNA technician.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/man-jailed-for-rape-has-conviction-overtuned-after-revelation-that-dna-evidence-may-have-been-contaminated/story-e6frf7jo-1225807656413
P’shaw! All you have to do is ENHANCE it! You’ll see the killer in the bathroom mirror’s reflection on the victim’s glasses, through the broken window and during a hailstorm, all taken with a cell phone camera at night from a moving vehicle.
Re. 19
It works fine with the futuristic hologram tech used by the guy in Blade Runner. Therefore it must work with our steam-age imaging tech.
I thought he only ‘assisted’ with the autopsy, which had been conducted by Dr. Michael Baden.
I’m not even sure what that means in this context.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/18/us/michael-brown-autopsy-shows-he-was-shot-at-least-6-times.html
Not that the competition is particularly stiff… but… that video has the best YouTube comments I’ve ever seen.