DNA evidence is subject to the same errors and abuses as the rest of the justice system.
We now know science in this instance is not neutral and not objective - it's all too often unfounded and used by the government to say things that support the case, but don't have any basis in actual testing or experimentation.
Law professor Erin Murphy examines the blind spots in DNA forensic evidence, from the overuse of under-tested technologies by prosecutors seeking to win cases, to the certainty courts and jurors place in a system with minimal regulatory oversight, and explains how the criminal justice system's problems with racism and classism find their way into the lab.
Erin is the author of the Inside the Cell: The Dark Side of Forensic DNA from Nation Books.
Related Interviews
James Gustave Speth
Sep 25 2021
No time left: On 50 years of US government complicity in the climate crisis.
Rona Lorimer
May 13 2021
