Season 2, Episode 2
Joining the Darkside
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“The role of a forensic science defence expert is often referred to by those working for the police/state/government forensic labs as being on the "dark side."
In Joining the Dark Side, author David Schudel outlines the evolution of a fascinating career that starts out in the dark side and looks at what problems can appear in forensic cases. The book delves into the problems inherent to forensic science, in particular cognitive bias and scientific philosophy. It also looks at the emotional impact and specific challenges behind forensic science and provides the reader with some sage advice on giving evidence in Court."
Enjoy Dr. Schudel's crime fiction:
Saving Lizzie
Compound Murder
Incendiary Man
Listen to more stories from Dave in Secrets from the Crime Lab Season 1, Episode 3.
Want to be on an episode? Have ideas for an episode you would like to hear? Want to sponsor the podcast? General enquiry?
email hello@secretsfromthelab.com
Transcript
S2E2_Darkside
[00:00:00] David: / ... if you have a person who's been arrested and charged with a particular thing, for most defendants, they'll know what happened and they will know whether the accusation and the forensic work that embodies the accusation is true of not. ... The problem with the system ... is the expectation is defendants, were going to say that regardless... defendants always lie so you, you just take it with a pinch of salt. ... and the reason why we see a disproportionate number cases where there's a problem partly is because the defendant knows there's a problem... and so it's just up for you as the defense expert to find it... you will find the problem, but the prompt has come from the defendant ... They'll know/ the truth. And it'll either be that they are lying, in which case you do your review and go, everything's fine .. . Or you do review and go, No, wait a second, there's a problem here.
[00:00:43] Angela: Happy New Year, everyone. And welcome to Secrets from the Crime Lab. I'm your host, Angela Swarts. I just wanted to say a quick, thank you to everyone who found this podcast in 2022. And has listened to it and shared it with their friends and colleagues. I really appreciate your help getting the word out about the podcast. We'd really like to grow it a little bit more in 2023. And so of course, if you would like to collaborate on an episode to talk about your research or some exciting new products and services that you have, that would be of interest to the forensic science community. So if you'd like to collaborate, or if you would like to hear more about a particular forensic science or related topic, you can always email me hello@secretsfromthecrimelab.com. And I will see what I can do for you. Make sure that you sign up for our mailing list as well. There's a link in the show notes for all of the podcast episodes that should take you to my website, practicalforensics.science where you can sign up for our newsletter, which I'm going to be launching sometime soon in 2023. So the episode that follows today is a conversation that I had with Dr. David Schudel about his new book. He's got a very interesting perspective on forensic science having worked on both sides of the equation, prosecution side and on the defense side. So it's definitely an interesting listen for those of you who are in the field or for those who are tangentially associated with the field.
I meant to have this episode out before the holidays. So it would be a wonderful holiday gift for everyone. So my apologies today for not being able to accomplish that. My time management towards the end of the fall semester was not adequate to get this, edited and up in time for that. But it certainly is a good gift if you've got somebody who's going to be graduating soon from high school or from university; it's definitely a good and entertaining read, for them. So without further ado here is the episode with Dave.
Greetings all and welcome to another episode of Secrets from the Crime Lab. I'm here today as promised with David Schudel, to talk about his new book. Thank you for coming back on the show, Dave. Appreciate it.
[00:03:03] David: You're welcome.
So Joining the Dark Side, The Role of the Forensic Science Defense Expert, did you join the dark side just 'cause you heard they had cookies?
[00:03:13] David: Very dark cookies. You, I had no idea. I, I needed a job and I'd said to myself, I'm either going to do forensic science or I'm going to work overseas doing some biology work. That was essentially my options. And I just stumbled into a consulting practice at, in my hometown I didn't even know existed that someone told me about.
And I popped through the door. I'm wearing baseball boots and a pair of jeans and said, do you do forensics? And they said, yes, we do. Do you want a job? And I, yeah, I do. So well leave you CV and, we'll give you a call. I think they interviewed me at the end of that week, and I was working there about two weeks later. And, I didn't realize being consultants that, they were on the dark side. So I literally started, on the dark side and slowly worked my way out.
It’s funny that, because I, over the years I have actually heard it termed that, Oh, they joined the dark side, like it's a bad thing.
[00:03:59] Angela: Mm-hmm. That, the people that are accused of crimes should have an expert to review the forensic evidence.
[00:04:08] David: Yes, I've heard it as well. And it's a common expression in forensics for those people who perhaps are outside of forensic science. Commonly what happens is you spend a career at a forensic laboratory, which might be part of the police or part of the state, and then you decide you're retiring at the age of 50.
And, you'll go into consulting where you'll start doing defense work, because you like forensics, you want to keep your hand in. But ultimately that means you'll be doing, the defense reviews, for the casework that previously you were doing the actual frontline work for. And people will say to you, oh yeah, you're off the dark side, eh?
And, you know, mostly they're joking. But some of them, I don't know if they're joking as much. I think there's a little bit of nervousness about it. And, people worry. I suppose, that you're going to walk back in and point out all the mistakes with all your wealth of knowledge about how the machinery works at the place you just left
I, One of the things that's always struck me about that nervousness is I, it's actually a positive thing to have somebody that's external to your organization, go back and double check your work. And I think you made the point in your book that the majority of the time you're confirming the results that they've gotten. You, you're agreeing with them. It's just that small percentage of cases where you find a few little things or maybe it's not a little thing, maybe. Maybe it's a big thing.
Yes. And it, there's two sides to it. You can go in there. And you might find something on the ground. And as a courtesy, I usually ask the scientist to come and have a look at this. So when it comes round to reading my report later on, they'll have seen what I've showed them. And hopefully at that point they'll just accept the point. There's been a problem. I'll give you a good example. Four identical blocks of drugs. I think there were 250 gram, quarter kilo blocks. And they were, the prosecution had them, as 250, 250, 250, then somebody, like 130. And I looked, them went, there's just no way. And sure enough, it was 250. It'd just been wrongly weighed. And so there were four identical blocks. They were all around 250. And so I pointed out, and the scientist reweighs it and said, yeah, okay, fine. And it, and part of that though is in the, in England and Wales, and well, actually, it's true the United Kingdom, technically it's true, all over. Your duty is to the court. But in England and Wales, there's no ownership of experts. The judges will treat a prosecution and a defense expert as an expert regardless of which side they're working for. So whether I tell the court that this is the problem, or whether the prosecution's expert tells the court, this is the problem, it really doesn't matter. It's really about just finding the solution. The other side of things is you do your lab review and everything looks fine, but when you go back and do your analysis and you look at the bigger picture, there may be issues that come to light, and that's something that's not really about the lab results themselves. In fact the lab results are fine, it might be that there's further work to do, or it may be that within the context of the bigger case, when you include what the defendant had to say, you say, Well, actually this, this can be interpreted a different way.
[00:07:14] Angela: Yeah. So there's several points in what you just said, and I'm going to touch on those a little bit later on in the discussion. But
Why did you feel compelled to write this book? Why this subject? Why do you think people need to read it?
Well, that's a good question. I'm a writer. I probably should have started off writing years ago, but I did start writing. I wrote fiction. So I've written three fiction novels, crime fiction, and tried to get them published. Didn't manage it, not because I think they were bad, it's just an incredibly competitive market. It's a bit like trying to get a record deal. So I self-published those. But I've always had writing in my bones and I've always written short pieces, articles, things like that, and enjoy doing it. Now what happened was I did an egg fraud case and it in a way that's quite a good example of the sort of problems and sort of framework that we work in as a forensic scientist where, for example, at the top you are told never step outside your area of expertise.
[00:08:12] David: That's the mantra. This is egg fraud. This is where they use a scientific technique to determine whether eggs have come from cage hens versus free range. And for people who are taking caged hen eggs, stick 'em in a box and label 'em as free range, They've got a massive markup. So it's a fraud issue 'cause they're getting all this money for something that's actually not true.
And the trading standards have a technique using ultraviolet light where they can determine with a certain volume of eggs, whether they've come from cages or they're free range. And we had a case where the egg producer been, charged with fraud, adamant he was, uh, innocent. His solicitor said, Can we look at the case? It got passed to me and I said, Well, it's not my area, my "egg"spertise, and
[00:08:59] Angela: pun intended,
[00:09:00] David: There were, there was a lot of jokes through this whole process. And so he said to me, but there's no one in the country who does this. and it was true. It's a relatively new technique and nobody from trading standards leaves and becomes working for the dark side. They just retire. And so there is no one in the country who could look at this, and it's an ultraviolet technique. And so I said to the solicitor actually said to me, if you're going to look at this, I might as well advise my client to plead guilty, but he's adamant he's innocent. I said, Well, look, if you tell your client I don't know anything about this, but I'll just apply science. And he said, that's fine. And so we went against the mantra completely, but ultimately it's forensic science and I do know ultraviolet well. So I felt as an ultraviolet technique, this is within my expertise as a scientist, despite the fact I've never looked at it before. But when I finally got to meet the two, trading standards experts who have done the work, you've just got to come clean. 'Cause they already know, fine, you haven't done this before. I know nothing about it. So I got in a room with 'em and said, just for a second, let's pretend I don't know anything about what you do. And they both laughed. And so how would they explain it to me? And they looked at me and they smile and said, Let's go buy some eggs. And we went through the whole thing and they explained how it worked and there are some papers published about it. So you put the whole thing together and I did my analysis and that was the case. But I thought it was quite interesting that forensic science application being so unique, it was something that might be of interest for the people to read.
And so I did an article for Trading Standards International, I think the journal's called, which is the Trading Standards, journal. And they published it. And that was picked up by someone who worked for the Royal Society Chemistry, who did an interview with me. and then did a piece for the Royal Society of Chemistry. And then that was picked up by someone from the publishing, company, the World Scientific, who published the book. And they basically, contact me and said, would you like to write a book? And I suspect they contact a lot of people and asked them if they want to write books. And I felt like I had one in me. So I did the outline and and here we are, took a couple, two and a half years later.
[00:11:03] Angela: it's all about eggs.
It’s, that's where it all started.
[00:11:06] David: Yes, that's where
[00:11:06] Angela: Were you "egg"static to write the book?
[00:11:08] David: Some more cracking those jokes. So that was what started. I like to write. And having been approached by a publisher, I thought, this is my opportunity to try and do something. And so I wrote a book that really follows my career because I think I've had an interesting career, and I hope I've written it in a way that it comes across as interesting.
But as part of it, I've tried to explain in multiple places about the issues about being a forensic scientist, the issues within forensic science, particularly when you're doing defense work, some of the problems that causes cases to go off the rails and turn into very different cases and other issues that, uh, scientists deal with, such as, emotional stress and things like that when you're doing at work, that involves quite awful things at times.
So it's, and then also there's a chapter on giving evidence court. So I've tried to package it together as, a bit of a biography and a bit of a guide to being a defense expert.
Well, and your perspective isn't just from the dark side though, you've worked for government laboratories as well, or even not necessarily a laboratory. You've worked for police organizations as well, so you've seen both sides as it were.
[00:12:19] David: Yes, that's right. I spent. The first five years or so, in consulting, and then I was at the state Police crime lab and then the Cayman Islands Crime Lab, and then I went back into consulting again. So it's probably around 50 50, but probably airing more on the dark side now,
[00:12:35] Angela: I think that, you know, it's the dark side. There's this idea that it's, there's a negative connotation to that a little bit. And one of the things that you touch on quite a bit in your book is talking about bias. Now we're not talking about the negative, horrible bias, like racial bias or gender bias. We're not talking about that type of thing. We're talking about a different kind, more of the subconscious cognitive bias.
[00:13:01] David: Yes.
[00:13:03] Angela: And you dedicated a significant portion of the book to discussing different aspects of this and applying that information to or giving examples of where it happened in cases that you worked as a defense expert.
Yes. And I think cognitive bias is a big factor in, in those cases that do drop off the rails. And there's a very different outcome quite often when it's serious enough that the prosecution might offer no evidence, or in fact, it may just be dropped. There's, you see these subtle effects that have pushed a case forward in a certain direction, and it's not because anyone's doing it out of malice or bad thought.
[00:13:44] David: They're just stuck in a groove. But whereas before, we got expressions like you put the blinkers on, you never, you can never teach a new dog, an old dog, new tricks. Those kind of expressions embody the concept of cognitive bias. The problem I have with cognitive bias is they put the word bias in there and they should have just called it something a bit more user friendly, which is subconscious preferences.
But unfortunately, it is so wrapped up in the literature now, including forensic literature about this, that it's stuck. But a lot of people aren't aware or haven't studied or haven't embraced the concept. And I do worry that it's because the negative connotations of someone suggesting that you're going to be biased.
Whereas if someone said to you, that’s your subconscious preference and that's pulling you in this direction, you might go, Oh yeah, you're right. I never thought of it like that. Whereas someone says to you, it's your bias that's pulling you that way. You go, what? I'm not biased. Don't be ridiculous. This is based on hard science.
[00:14:42] Angela: The knee jerk reaction, that idea that, Oh gosh. How could you say that? I'm not a biased person. I'm a nice person,
[00:14:48] David: Yeah, most forensic scientists, almost all, I say almost all, really, 99% plus of forensic scientists. No one goes into forensic science for the vast amount of money you're going to make. And these jet rounding jetting around the world on private planes and things like that. You go to forensic science because you want to make a difference in the world, and you like forensic science.
And so you go in with a very, your heart and your hand approach to how you do things. So to then be accused somehow being biased just goes against the mantra that a lot of people live by in forensics, which is, I am objective, I am a truth seeker. I am trying to do the right thing. And it, I think you'd always struggling with the balance of those two.
But once you get past that and you start seeing examples of how it happens in, in, in practice, And then you should help you then look for it in the future and then mitigate it to some degree. And there's various ways you can mitigate it, but at least having the awareness to say, when it does catch you, you can nod your head and go, Yeah, I get it, that might be cognitive bias in play. I need to rethink
[00:15:53] Angela: this.
Yeah. It's like keeping an open mind.
[00:15:55] David: Yes, exactly. Or open-minded thinking is part of it. But even with an open minded thinking, you're still surrounded by your upbringing, your experiences, your personal preferences. There’s a lot going on and you can never get rid of it. It's just about managing it the best you can.
A, a good example for me is if I'm working, it doesn't matter if I'm working for the state or as a consultant, but if someone produces a report that I read and I, and it disagrees with something I've said, the very first question I ask myself is, What did I miss?
[00:16:28] Angela: Right?
I must have missed something. there are people out there who will just poke a stick at things for the sake of it, and, whether they think it's going to keep their client happy. I don't know. There are, but a lot of experts, when they produce reports, there's usually something tangible in it, if they're disagreeing with you, there's usually a basis for it. And you've got to embrace that and just go, yeah; I've probably missed something. What is it? And that's when you open your mind and be prepared to possibly have to say, Okay, yeah, I got that wrong.
[00:16:55] Angela: Yeah. I have to say, I know that I've had a few instances in my career where I had a consultant look at the work that I did in a DNA case, and as far as I was concerned as far as my laboratory procedures were or policies and procedures, I followed everything exactly to the letter as I was supposed to, as I had been trained to do for so many years.
And a consultant came in and said, I think you should have used a different type of statistical analysis. Not saying that the statistical analysis that I did was incorrect, just saying there was a better way to determine the weight of the evidence in this case. And I have to say, at first I was like, but I did everything I was supposed to do.
I did everything the right way. But there was something about that person and the knowledge that they had. I was like, Okay, I need to listen to what this person is saying. And I go back and I look and yeah, and I was like, I agreed with them like actually what I was doing, yes, it's what we've always done, but that didn't mean that it was the best thing that we could have done for interpreting that evidence. And what they had suggested was a better method to use. And so you look into that method and you implement a new method and you change what you're doing because the way we've always done it isn't always the best way.
And I know in there's a section in the book where you're talking about, well, there's few areas. One where you mentioned that your mentor, when you first started Keith Borer, he had this philosophy that everyone's, the government scientists are trained by the government. They're all trained the same way. They all have the same thought patterns on things sometimes. And I may be paraphrasing incorrectly, so I'll give you an opportunity to fix that. And then later on you're talking about institutional biases, right? That's been that way for a while. We're just going to stick with it. We're not going to change. It’s set in stone as it were. What are your thoughts around that?
[00:18:50] David: Well, I mean, the status quo is, a comfortable place to be. And if everyone's sharing the same, patterns and procedures, there's a comfort on mass that you are, if they've been properly checked and validated, that gives a resilience to that. But the problem is when the, when there's a weakness arises, it's quite hard to shift it. And, cases gone by. I mean, the classic example being the Greiss test with the, for explosives, which was almost touted as a definitive test for explosives, which it wasn't. But, in that time it was, the belief was there that this is what it means and that's what was put to the court and it was wrong to do so. And so the change happened over time and it's recognized what it is, which is, it is a presumptive test. But wherever we are at any given moment in time, whatever procedures we're using, we are going to tend to think that, these are the best we have and this will work. And the, they're absolutely valid and they do what, what needs to be done.
What we don't know is what's going to happen in 20, 30, 40 years time when they're going to look back at go, and us Actually that was wrong. Shouldn't have done it that way, was a better way to do it. And I think some areas are probably a bit more robust than others. But there are certain areas where, for example, fingerprints has more or less ran the same way for 110 years. And there ha- there has been a number of studies which have shown, the false positive rates in fingerprints. But there seems to be no recognition of that. When you look at the way it's reported. You have an identification, which is unquestionable, that this person's been identified through a fingerprint.
Now, just recently, the Forensic Science Regulator for England and Wales has produced an appendix where they recognize that the identification element of fingerprint comparisons was going to change. Which is interesting because if you are recognizing it's going to change, then by implication it's not right the way it is, but it hasn't moved any further from that point.
But I think that's an area where, potentially in years to come, we might look back and go, there was a different way of doing this with a more statistical approach or an evaluative approach where instead of having to be forced to choose between an identification and inconclusive, you could say, Yeah, I think it's very likely or extremely likely that it's a match, but can't quite commit to it.
And then that becomes the sort of evidential norm; as opposed to the, the black or white situation we have at the moment.
[00:21:23] Angela: Yeah, so I think with, fingerprints are as they're trying, they're changing the terminology now to Friction Ridge. Which I'm still having an issue with remembering that it's different now.
Well, cause it does include feed and palm prints, I suppose.
[00:21:36] Angela: Yeah. So it's more than just your fingerprints. So they've recognized that there's issues. They were one of the first ones that, first forensic disciplines that were examined more closely with regards to the potential of cognitive bias, affecting their work. Probably largely grew out of that Madrid bombing where the guy and a guy in Oregon who was nowhere near Madrid at the time that these bombings happened.
So people can read more about that online. I'm certainly not going to go into all of that case, it's apparent that it's there. They know there's an issue. They know there's an issue with how they're reporting their evidence. There's a recognition that they could do better,
[00:22:20] David: Well, I.
[00:22:21] Angela: but ha has it actually changed at all?
Are people changing how they're reporting these so that they're less, less ironclad? This is absolutely an identification, or, I don't know. I've, I've, Well, fingerprints is not my primary area. I'm not aware of any major change. I think the, for me, the, we've had a couple of, including the Brandon Mayfield cases, which is the one you talk about for Spain. But we've had in the UK some significantly high profile false positive fingerprint cases.
[00:22:51] David: And it, it shows the problems you have when you think it's an identification and it's not, and trying to back away from that position. And there are a number of studies done which have shown the risk of false positives, particularly with, close but non-matching pairs. There was a particular study done just on that.
And what I don't see is a, a wealth of validation studies that are coming out, which is just looking at this problem and trying to get a handle on where, trying to get a handle on the, if you like, the percentage or the frequency of false positives and false negatives from a single pass examination. Just to set some baseline as to where, where the guidelines should be about reporting.
And it's very hard because a lot of it comes down to the quality of the prints. And this is part of the problem because ultimately everyone's fingerprints are different. I'll stick my head out and say that I don't mind. But we're never looking at people's fingerprints. It's not like someone goes to crime scene. Well, that’s not fair. Occasionally someone has left a finger[print] behind. But generally speaking, what normally happens is you're looking at a print that's being taken of someone's hand as a reference. Using a scanner or it's been inked and then scanned in, so it's a secondary print anyway. It's not a, you're not looking at someone's finger and then you're comparing it to a print left at a crime scene, which could be in any old state.
So you've got quality issues at both ends. You've got a quality issue with the reference. You've got a quality issue with the crime scene. So there's no surprise that when you try to compare them, there's going to be difficulties depending on the quality of those two prints. In terms of the sequencing though, which is the one of the cognitive bias effects, one of the concerns was that given a questioned mark, people would go to the reference mark first and then try to find features of the reference mark in the scene mark instead of looking at the scene mark first and just seeing what they could see.
If you look at the scene mark and you do your assessment and you can see certain particular characteristics. You can mark those and you should find those in the reference. But the problem with going it backwards is you might start seeing things in the question mark that you wouldn't have seen had you just looked at the question mark on its own.
But having seen the reference mark and work your way backwards, suddenly you start to see them. And that's a cognitive bias effect, which,
[00:25:14] Angela: Yeah, so it's a circular reason.
[00:25:16] David: exactly what it is. So the current fingerprint, protocols, they push the examiners to follow a linear process where they assess the mark first and then they move to the reference mark having already said, these are features that I can see in this mark. Can I see them in the reference mark and work their way through that way? And that should, in theory, reduce that, the effect of that.
[00:25:38] Angela: So that's the linear sequential unmasking that, Itiel Dror proposed a little while back.
It’s a way of doing it. Yes. Yeah. Because the linear part is, it’s is assessing it without context.
[00:25:50] Angela: Yeah.
[00:25:50] David: and then you move to the next
[00:25:51] Angela: look at your data first. Is this data even worth of sufficient quality to be used for a comparison?
[00:25:58] David: Yeah, exactly. And that's your starting point and not have a reference mark and go, Well, I'll, I'll, I'll work my way backwards and make it of a higher quality.
[00:26:07] Angela: right.
What’s your first pass on this? Is it usable or not usable? And that's how the, And you can see in a high profile case, or well, not high profile, you can see if the pressure's on, in a particular case, you might say, No, this is not usable.
[00:26:19] David: But then, someone else might go, let me have a look at it. And then they look at the reference print and end up working their way backwards and start to see features. And in a way, they might see actual features. The features might be there. And from that they actually tease out the identification.
I suppose ultimately, if all you've got the identification, there's a massive risk. If you can tease out some kind of identification and then collect a whole bunch of other evidence which then supports that person, then that's a different issue because what you're using it more is for intelligence rather than being the sole, evidential forensic component in a case, if you see what I'm saying?
And this isn't unique to; we're not picking on Friction Ridge. This is applicable to any forensic discipline that's based on comparisons, which is most of them
[00:27:09] David: Yeah. Yeah, when you actually start looking at anything where even in fire investigation where you're not really comparing something to that ilk, what you're doing at a fire, scene though is you should be just switching off your head and collecting data. You should just go in there and look at the scene and what's the scene telling you? Forget what people might have told you on the way in, which is often part of the problem.
[00:27:32] Angela: Do you need to put it, do you need to put in earplugs before you go?
[00:27:35] David: just la- Yeah.
[00:27:36] Angela: Hold your hand out palm face to them when they start [talking] to you.
[00:27:40] David: Have a large sign with a please stay 30 feet away from me and talk quietly. You need to. And that's how I was trained as a fire investigator. My mentor, guy called Rexford Wilson and Elwood Willie in, Massachusetts. Both are very clear, you go to a scene; the three Ds of a fire scene were document, document, and document. And you try to do no analysis until later. You're just there to collect information and capture it and record it for posterity, and then you go back and do your analysis. And it's nice to have that philosophy in your head, which ties in with the idea that Yep. You make an assessment first before you move on to step.
[00:28:21] Angela: But that gets complicated somewhat. Not talking about a fire scene or finger mark specifically, but a CSI, for example, goes to a crime scene and maybe they're given a search warrant, right? And that warrant lists specifically what you are supposed to be looking for. So if you found something else, you might document it, but you're, it's not something you're allowed to collect.
[00:28:45] David: That, yes, that's true. And then that ultimately goes down to how do you construct your search warrants in a way that has an open-minded approach. But unfortunately, you're tied in, many ways on those things about what you already have as information, as intelligence and what you, and then what the court will allow you to do. But it, but
[00:29:04] Angela: Right. So that's when the legal system sort of, pushes in on what a scientific process should be...
[00:29:11] David: Yeah, I've seen one, one sad case where they did a search of a ground of a first floor and the body was actually holed up in a concealed area in the basement, which had you gone in the basement, you would've spotted straight away.
[00:29:23] Angela: But you weren't allowed to?
[00:29:23] David: And I weren't allowed to. But, if you take a more typical example where it's a victim's scene that you're going to, as a crime scene examiner, you should be able to go in and assess that scene without too much extraneous information and just to see what the scene's telling you. And not to get sidetracked by look in this room, when in fact the clues might be in a different room. You should be able to process the room in a way that you can gather the data and document, document and document. As, um, a crime examiner you are an expert because when you go to a crime scene, you are making expert decisions as you go on the fly about what you're going to process, where you're going to go, what you're going to stand on, what areas you're going to avoid, what type of evidence you're going to collect. And they'll do that very quickly.
But it's important to go in and have the ability to do that without being pulled in certain directions so they can make a neutral assessment of the scene and then gather the information, document the scene, think what's important, and then if necessary, get some more context and go back and say, I’ve got a bit more context about this. Did I capture that? Do I need to do further work?
And, You know, there's a couple of disciplines where you, there's somewhere between a full on expert witness and then just a lay witness. They sit between those lines. Like I said, the intelligence analysts have seen that where they put together a cell site analysis map, for example, and will even say in the reports, I'm not an expert, but they are because they're doing things that no one else can do. It’s, it makes it interesting a cause, in that I think they find, there's a couple of times I've been to court with, intelligence analysts particularly, who are just quite surprised to be there. Oh, and very much nervous about it. But, there's nothing to be nervous about. And the thing about, particularly in the UK system or the England and Wales system, is that the judges want the experts to confer. And so they encourage a sit down, go through the things together and produce, a joint schedule they call it, of points of agreement and disagreement. And usually in that process when the various issues are brought to light and the different things that have been said and done, invariably there's, it's just points of agreement. And so there's actually no need for either of us to give evidence. They can just read out the schedule of the points of agreement to the jury or the prosecution's, expert, the analyst will give evidence, but the defense don't need to put an expert
[00:31:50] Angela: All
Right. Cause
[00:31:51] David: because they've had this process has
[00:31:52] Angela: yeah, because, so I'm trying to think, So having that expert go to court, and read out what the findings were and explain what those findings mean and the limitations of those findings versus just having them read into the record.
Yeah.
[00:32:10] Angela: Yeah. 'Cause it, some of the issues that I've seen when you look at, people who have been wrongfully convicted didn't happen because there was something flawed in the forensic science or the process of the forensic, analysis or in testing. It was that evidence went to the triers of fact without anyone to explain what that evidence means. Right. Like, I can find your DNA at a crime scene. That doesn't mean that your DNA had anything to do the crime.
[00:32:44] David: yeah. It's about asking the right question and if no one's asked the question and it doesn't occur to anyone, ask the question, you have lay people interpreting expert results, which can be a very precarious situation to be in.
[00:32:58] Angela: Yeah. So I want to jump back to something that was in the book. You talk about Francis Bacon.
[00:33:06] David: Yes,
[00:33:07] Angela: What, what does a 400 year old plus, like almost 450 year old, the philosophical musings of the first empiricist? What did those, Why Francis Bacon? Why is he relevant to forensic science today?
[00:33:22] David: well, what got me started in Francis Bacon was Itiel Dror who, I know you've, interviewed for a podcast and it was one of his papers, mentions it. And I went and actually got, one of the translated copies and read and these sections on the idols of the, of the Human, Human mind. And it was, it just rang a chord. And it rang a chord, not partly because of the relevance of it, to science. But the fact that 400 years ago we've had the same problem. And so when it comes to the work we do, I have to think that in 400 years time, we're not going to get any better at it. Because we've done 400 years and we're just really making the same mistakes. And I think it's interesting that despite this philosophy being highlighted so long ago, we've rarely embraced it for what it is. And that comes a lot of; it's really to do with, cognitive bias effects.
[00:34:13] Angela: Human nature, you can't help it. It’s there based on your experiences in your life and everything. Its just part of being human
I, I mean, one of the, one of the classics from Francis, if I could call him that, Mr. Bacon, I think he prefers
[00:34:28] Angela: Maybe Sir. Bacon. I don't know. Was he a knight?
[00:34:31] David: I don’t know, but when, but he talks about, I'm just going to read the quote or part of it. When he talks about the human understanding gets fixed on a particular thing, "then there may exist to the contrary evidence, abundant evidence, yet they'll just reject it by some distinction with violent and injurious prejudice rather than sacrifice the authority of the first conclusions." And you know that you come to this initial conclusion and then a load of people telling you you're wrong and you go, no, I'm sticking with it. And that's 400 years ago. And it's just, it happens so many times in forensic work and in life and all over the place and it's just a shame that having this, having had this highlighted so long ago that we just haven't managed to move away from it. And it's that, trying to move people away from position, where they're going to have to admit that they might have made a mistake. And I include my, I included myself in this. I'm not immune to it. Well, everybody, everybody has this issue. You have something that you, I believe you've held for so long, if something comes along to that challenges that you have almost an emotional reaction to it, and being aware, self-awareness will allow you to go, Okay, wait a minute. Is there some truth to what's been put before me to challenge my ideas and go, Okay, maybe I should take some time to examine this.
[00:36:03] Angela: But a lot of times people don't do that. They just stick even harder to that same viewpoint and maybe stop talking to people that have been lifelong friends because they're so married to a particular idea.
It’s true. This goes beyond forensics.
[00:36:20] Angela: Yeah, it does.
[00:36:21] David: any number of worldwide debates
[00:36:23] Angela: yeah, and I think, if people start thinking of, political, certain political situations,
[00:36:28] David: Yeah. There’s, there’s many different topics that you, that with, in the friends in the company of good friends you may not want to ever bring up just in case.
[00:36:37] Angela: Just to make sure you maintain that friendship,
[00:36:39] David: you just maintain a friendship and that's, it is human nature. It's sadly, I think one of the things about being a defense expert is you see a disproportionate number of cases where the effects are in play of cognitive bias. And when you think about it, it just makes sense because if you have a person who's been arrested and charged with a particular thing, they are going to know what happened. Well, assuming they were conscious when it happened and not, working there under the influence of drugs or some kind of effect of something else. For most defendants, they'll know what happened and they will know whether the accusation and the forensic work that embodies the accusation is true of not. And they'll say, no, that's not true. The problem with the system is the expectation is defendants, were going to say that regardless. So there's a bias effect, cognitive bias effect that well, defendants always lie so you, you just take it with a pinch of salt. But because a defendant says, I don't believe that's true. If there's a forensic component, it then that will get referred to, a forensic expert to look at on behalf of the defense. And the defense are going to look at it from a very different viewpoint and look through the evidence that's involved, work their way through. Look what the defendant's saying about the case. And the reason why we see a disproportionate number cases where there's a problem partly is because the defendant knows there's a problem because they know what the problem is. And so it's just up for you as the defense expert to find it. You will find it 'cause you are the expert in that area. You, you will find the problem, but the prompt has come from the defendant who was either there or not there at the time, depending what the circumstances are. But they'll know the truth. Mostly know the truth. The truth's subjective in some degrees anyway. But they'll have a perspective on that. That's that'll be set in a certain way, and it'll either be that they are lying, in which case you do your review and go, everything's fine as far as I can tell. Or you do review and go, No, wait a second, there's a problem here. And so that's what, from our perspective, we see a lot of errors, and I don't want. I don't want to make a sound, like it's, again, it's, and none of these are done on purpose. These are not errors made by bad people. These are just consequences of a system where there's a lot of things in play. And invariably the actual analysis is okay, but it's an interpretation issue, which has gone outside of the original scope of work. In some cases, it is actually an error. I mean we had a classic case of the white in fact it's in the book about the white heroin. I mean, you know, heroin's never white. It's not been white for a long time. But a drug scientist reported it as heroin, white heroin in certain ways it was peer reviewed internally. The quality control was signed off. It was an accredited lab, and the drug enforcement officer who valued it should have spotted that as well. But the case went ahead and they prosecuted this chap as a dealer because the amount of, of this heroin that was there, and it wasn't, there's no heroin at all. There'd been an error where they'd managed to, in the, for those of you who know GC-MS (Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry), there's a load log. There's a, there's a little robotic arm that picks up the vials and puts 'em in one after the other. It has a load log. You type in the vial sequence and you test file number one, which might be a blank or a control. And then the cases fall after that, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and so on. And they just ran one of the vials twice by accident, but given it a different exhibit number. So what they thought they'd done was run two vials in sequence, but they hadn't. They'd ran one vial twice and then missed a gap onto the next case and just hadn't spotted it. So what they'd actually discovered was a white powder was, I can't remember from the top of my head. I think it was caffeine or something like that.
[00:40:21] Angela: Oh, glucose. I think I remember
[00:40:22] David: yeah. There we go. And so a simple error. And yet it's somewhere in the whole system, somebody should have gone, this makes no sense, including when the defendant adamantly said, this is not heroin. The fallback position is, it must be because the accredited lab says it's heroin, not, Wait a second. Maybe we should go and retest it. And that to me is, it, is, it's some of the work we do, but I it's a smaller portion of the work. The bigger portion is about interpretation and the bigger it's about interpretation and the bigger circumstances of the case and looking at the bigger picture and seeing well the pieces come together.
[00:40:58] Angela: Yeah, I'm remembering you had another example where you're talking about, a young man that was accused of an arson and basically his whole life ended up being put on hold for the duration of that investigation and going up to the trial and it was the young man with the fire in the waste basket or something in the pub. You remember which one I'm talking about?
Yeah.
Okay. And essentially you just pointed out that; they never even bothered to, to question the other person that was on the CCTV footage.
[00:41:28] David: The one that discovered the fire.
[00:41:30] Angela: Right? Yes. They just assumed that it was this young man, and the investigator was very adamant about it. To the point where you said you recalled him when you were leaving the courtroom. He was upset and he said, we'll get him next time. Maybe when he kills someone.
[00:41:47] David: Yeah. and missing the point, which is, just let an arsonist around just sitting without even bothering looking for him.
[00:41:53] Angela: Yeah. You, not only did you wrongfully accuse one person, but you've allowed the real perpetrator to roam free because you became fixated on this young man who just came in to use the toilet.
[00:42:03] David: Yeah. The argument back there was, he did do it just, there wasn't enough evidence. But actually when you looked at the evidence, it's a very circumstantial case. But the last person who used the bathroom was the person who discovered, allegedly discovered the fire, and he was just in there way too long. If you walk into a small bathroom and it's on fire, you leave immediately.
[00:42:22] Angela: Yeah.
[00:42:23] David: you don't, spend 12.
[00:42:24] Angela: grab the fire extinguisher.
[00:42:25] David: Yeah. And tell people you don't spend 20 seconds in there and then come out and count, walk over to the bartender and then just say, oh, there's a fire in the bathroom. And walk away. No excitement or anything. But the what for me, the biggest thing about that case was he was apparently a regular at the pub. And if that's the case, it should be relatively easy to get a statement. And so they went to the bar manager, and this is at trial, so the bar manager was called as a witness, and the bar manager was asked, Can we find out who this person is? And he said, Oh, I've never seen him since the night of the fire. So to me, all the hallmarks of that was your arsonist. And I said it as I said in the book, if the person had used the toilet, was a decorated war veteran; they probably would've interviewed the person who allegedly discovered the fire. And dug into it. But because he was a 17 year old, he was automatically labeled as a troublemaker even though he had no prior history and he put his life on hold or he had to scrap going to college for a year until it got sorted out. I think his girlfriend had broken up with him. It was all a bit tragic.
[00:43:27] Angela: Yeah. And it's good that they actually got somebody a defense review, which isn't something that a lot of people in the US system have access to. They're like, we have this forensic evidence against you, and then they're pressured to just ex a plea.
[00:43:42] David: Yeah, I think there are worries about the US system because unless you've got money, then no one's going to look at it. And I will say a good proportion of cases that we look at where there is a big problem, you would not spot it if you weren't an expert doing the work.
[00:43:59] Angela: Yeah.
[00:43:59] David: because you have to have that extra knowledge to go, no, here's the problem. I did one that was an electrical fire. And this is a good example where I think the investigator made it, made an early determination based on how the occupants were acting and said, this is an arson. And photographed the thing that, he excluded as starting the fire because there was no burn damage to it. Took a close-up photograph of it and when I looked at the photograph, it's burned. In fact, it's exactly what I'd expect had this been an electrical fire caused by that, yet he photographed it. But in his mind, he saw no electrical damage whatsoever. And it's interesting that how you got from open-minded thinking to go into a fire scene and somehow made a very early determination about what you thought, and then photographed the thing that caused the fire and excluded it. And I don't think it's on purpose because to be fair, he is a good investigator.
[00:44:57] Angela: Just not that day. Not that
[00:44:59] David: Yeah.
[00:45:00] Angela: some blinders on for that particular incident.
[00:45:03] David: Yeah. And I, like I said, these things aren't born out of, malice or bad people or, or for that matter, incompetent people. We're all prone to, the effect of just having that day where for whatever reason you're just led down a path and you didn't spot the obvious. We live it in life all the time. Can't find my car keys. They're right in front of you. Oh, yeah. So they are,
[00:45:23] Angela: Yeah.
I looked there. No, you didn't. Did look there actually. I looked there twice.
[00:45:27] Angela: Just didn't see them.
[00:45:28] David: Didn't see them. And, and it's a, it's a classic, a classic example where in your mind you are thinking they're somewhere else. So when you're looking for where they are, your mind's not really looking 'cause it's already decided there's somewhere else.
[00:45:41] Angela: Yeah. And then you go and get someone else and go, Have you seen my car keys?
[00:45:44] David: And they don't care cause they don't know where they were. So yeah, in front of you.
[00:45:47] Angela: I have to do that with my eyeglasses all the time. I can't find my eyeglasses. Where'd I put my eyeglasses? In my defense, I'm nearsighted, if they're across the room; I'm not going to see them.
Okay. Okay. You need a, you need one of those clapper things for them so to to zone in, on, to, to summon my glasses across the room. It'd be nice if I could just wave and have them appear.
[00:46:07] David: But I think, that we see, I, it's a blind spot, I suppose as a classic example of the, the bias blind spot, which, you just don't see it because of the information being given. I had another, I do a lot of fire cases, so I, I apologize if these are all fires, but it's, it happens in all disciplines,
[00:46:23] Angela: It's okay they're hot stories.
[00:46:25] David: they are never mind. The, we had a case where there was, there were, things weren't quite right, but ultimately, I got to look at the body worn footage from the police officer standing next to the fire investigator and the police officer says, Ah, so, this is arson. Oh, yes, definitely, this is arson. Have you been in yet? No, I've not been in. He hadn't actually entered the room fact that, in fact hadn't entered the apartment, was outside in the corridor and had already decided that was, obviously this was arson. And that whole case also became problematic because, and it was possibility that a candle had set fire, the curtains, but the SOCO (Scenes of Crime Officer) had photographed the candle and it was brand new, there wasn't a mark on it. There wasn't even soot on it. I don't think it had ever been used. And again, if it wasn't for luck, doesn't bring come into it. How lucky were we that the officer had wandered around with the body worn camera on and happened to capture the fact that the brand new candle was in a different part of the window sill where the fire was and there were burned remains of an actual candle, right where the curtain used to be on the window sill. The scenes of crimes officer had gone in. they must have been busy and they'd gone to the scene, many hours later when the fire investigator left and basically it must have been told what was going on and maybe was there a candle and blah, blah, blah. So that they photographed the candle that they saw. But there was no interpretation of that. So when it went to interpretation, the, the prosecution believed that they had a fire in a window, which was really, just took out a curtain and a candle that'd clearly never been used. So it was obvious it was arson. When in fact what they had was a candle that was nowhere near a fire and another candle that was burned and in the remnants of where the curtain used to be. And it's just you, again, if you, if we didn't have that footage, it would've been a very difficult case to try and unravel and it was just a matter of luck in that particular one.
It’s interesting because it's, a lot of times they, I see it in bloodstain cases, so usually it's after the fact and all I have are photographs. And you have to, sometimes they; they don't give you all of the photographs. They just give you some of them, because a lot of times there's a lot more photos taken, during the investigation. And then like, I get all of the photos and I notice things in the photos that they didn't originally give to me that would've were pertinent. I needed to see that information. And I don't think it was deliberate or anything like that, its just there's so many photos that they took. So they were trying to triage and pair it down. And one of the things you were talking about in your book, it might have been in the 1990s crime lab chapter where, And I wonder if it was contributory in your, this fire investigation that you just said, where there's issues with the system, right? The system works a certain way or is supposed to function a certain way. Maybe the system works the way it's supposed to work, but somebody still gets wrongfully convicted down the line. We see that in innocence Project cases. There was one where in their documentary that they did in 2005 where the prosecutor, even though there was exculpatory DNA evidence, they still said, the system worked the way it was supposed to work, right? And you look at when cases come to the laboratory, laboratories have backlogs and they don't have enough people, and you have to triage everything that comes in the door. It's the same thing with CSIs; there aren't necessarily enough CSIs to respond to all of the scenes. So like you said, maybe they were busy that day, and you miss something not because you're bad at your job or you're your biased or anything, it's just that you're trying to do so much within the system that you work in. And like I said, you get, you have a string of horrible sexual assault type cases and you have to decide which one gets moved forward, which evidence in that particular case gets tested. And you have to keep in mind your budget, right? You can't test everything. And I think you also brought up, you, 'cause you were a scientific support branch manager at one point, and you have to decide what evidence can I afford to test?
Yeah, you've got to look at the value of the evidence. Some of it's more obvious than others. So, um, they've managed to arrest somebody a week after a shooting and the, the OIC wants to do, the officer in charge wants to do GSR. As a scientific support manager, I just say, No, it's very expensive and we won't find anything. How do you know that? I said, 'cause it doesn't last that long. And that's well documented. But there are other ones where you have to make decisions about what you have paid to have analyzed and what you don't, essentially on the case circumstances. And you are introducing an element of bias because you are trying to refer to investigation by picking the evidence that's going to give you the best result and then if that doesn't work, then you can triage it down to something else. What you won't know at that point is what evidence may be pertinent that should have been analyzed, that the defense might throw up at a later point, at a later point in time. But the, there is a certain amount of; it's not bias really. It’s, it’s business. But it does create a bias effect 'cause you are actually choosing as an individual using the best of your skills, making decisions about what gets tested and what doesn't. And that was true working in the crime lab. And I really struggled with that particularly when you got a backlog of 2000 cases, I think it was, you, every week I worked there, my backlog grew. So it was pointless trying to reduce it. So you, you couldn't sensibly do it in this one came in. You do whichever one came in first. That’s what you did first. You, you couldn't do it like that because they were clear that there was some that needed a priority. Ones involving children, for example, or kidnapping and all those things. So you had to prioritize them, but there was no real guidance on it, and it was very hard to do that. I don’t know if it's any better now. I would hope by now they've got systems in place and the backlog is, shrunk to nothing. Texas had a big program on that, I know.
Yeah, they had some legislation that was enacted to eliminate the sexual assault kit backlog. And I know other states have been doing enacting similar legislation, which is great because, we're processing these kits now. But what about the other cases? What about the homicides? What about, are they being pushed down the queue because the laboratories are having to focus their testing capacity on sexual assault cases, right? Or what about property crimes? Are we processing property crimes now? And we know there is a link between people that get caught for property crimes are often involved- they don't get caught for the more serious violent crime they get, they get put into the DNA database, for example, because of a property crime,
[00:53:19] David: Oh, I'm a great believer in, trying to solve the smaller crimes, the volume crimes, because I do think you head off a lot of problems further down the line and you create better profiles of the people that may become future harden criminals. You'll have those that captured in fingerprints and DNA. , I think there's a lot to be, in fact the MET polices, just made a commitment to, really go after volume crime, which is quite heartening to hear from them. I was glad that they've come out and said that we're going to do this. But, um, one of the things, I've, I've raised this before with the government is actually budget wise, there's been a bit of a trade off between trying to investigate digital crime and the digital side of investigations and further that, versus sending things away for analysis to a lab. Particularly in this country, because the digital analysis is done by the police. The more detailed forensic analysis might have to be done by a lab and sent away. And this feels like there's a trade off between them, but actually what's happened is the need for traditional forensics is as prevalent now as it was, 20, 30 years ago where our technology kicked off. We still need the masses of forensic, services that we've always needed, but there's been an explosion of digital needs, which is the same size. And so you actually have this growing, body of digital investigation and analysis that's absolutely huge and requires a massive amount of funding, but it can't be at the expense of forensics or traditional forensics. You just have to find the money to pay for it. Because what actually we need are both prongs going side by side because what digital will miss, hopefully traditional forensics will catch and vice versa.
[00:55:04] Angela: Yeah, I can see that. It's going to put huge budgetary constraints on governments. You can't- the cost of digital stuff has got to be enormous.
[00:55:13] David: Oh, it's huge. Even the software prices, the licenses for software is runs in the tens of thousands. And then, the qualified people who need to do all the work and so it goes on. But there's a volume of information out there that's massive and there are a lot of leads and clues and investigation, investigation leads essentially that can move your case further if you've got the right people doing that work. But what you can't have is that happening. But then you don't send the clothing away for analysis.
[00:55:42] Angela: yeah. I can't see that you would do digital forensics in lieu of, as you said, traditional forensics. They need to work together to,
Gather information.
[00:55:54] David: But it's a big funding drive 'cause, to have to fund both is a, that's a lot of money coming out of government source.
[00:56:00] Angela: I want to flip back to something else that you said earlier too. We were talking, the funding reminded me about the accreditation process in the UK and so there's the one aspect of labs that are accredited, you'll do a review of their work and you might find some issues with it, but the fact that they were accredited means that people will, might possibly dismiss your information because no, this information came from an accredited laboratory, you had an example in your book where you were talking about the man that was accused of poisoning the trees,
[00:56:38] David: Yes.
[00:56:39] Angela: right? And so there's that accreditation bias. But then on the other side of that, it's not that. Defense consulting firms don't, wouldn't want to be accredited. It's just that it's also cost prohibitive. And does accreditation mean what everyone thinks that it means?
It’s an interesting, discussion point. The idea of accreditation obviously is to improve quality, which, which it will. But the, but it's not to say that if you're not accredited, therefore you are a reduced quality. And I suppose that's the cognitive bias trap that people might fall into is that if you're not accredited, they're going to think you're not as good. The reality for the defense experts is they generally, sole providers or very small companies and they either can't afford the cost of accreditation or they can't get it. And the only, there has been some development in this area where if you're not actually doing the analysis itself and you're just doing interpretation and seems to be a bit of leeway in the current, codes that are being drafted from the regulation, the forensic regulator's office. But ultimately when you go to court, the risk for me is that the prosecutor might make hay of the fact that you are not accredited, and our expert is, and that'll be the tactic. If they'll take, if they don't like what you have to say, they'll just try and make it out that way. You just don't know what you're doing. The further worry from that is that the, whether the judge will accept you as an expert, if you're not accredited and that's different concern, I would hope that they would have a more and open minded approach. And that expertise is expertise and that you're bringing to the table something given the neutrality of experts that you are bringing in good faith and, for, to be discussed in court. I'm hoping that wouldn't happen, but equally, it is a concern that, the, whether you're accredited or not will actually become the weather vane by which you're judged.
And there are several instances where laboratories that are accredited are not doing good work. Because the ISO standards that forensic laboratories, are held to, there's in room for interpretation in them, but then also when the external bodies that do the accreditation inspections come in and, evaluate the laboratories, it's only a sampling activity. They can't look at everything. Depending on the size of the laboratory, they'll be there for a few days or maybe a week, and really big systems, maybe they'll be there for a few weeks. But it's still a sampling exercise. You can't possibly look, in every closet and un under all of the carpeting to see if somebody's hiding something. You, part of accreditation mean that everybody that's involved in that process is doing things the right way because it's the right thing to do, not just because the policy and procedures exist. I'm not sure if I'm making sense or not, rambling question there.
[00:59:40] David: for me, the, like I said, the goals of accreditation, are, is a good goal. I understand why they'd like various, particularly with volume forensic work, whether it's digital or laboratory based, it's a good goal to have an accreditation standard for the bulk of the work. But at the other side of that, If there is a problem, and accepting that even in accredited lab there could be a mix up or mistake, more often there are interpretation issues, the defense come in from a very different angle and look at the case in a very different way.
And what that gives the court to the criminal justice system is a balance where you're not only having a check by a peer review and then an external check by an accredited authority, which is a sampling check. As you say, what you're actually having is a complete bespoke checking service just for that case. And if at that point, which is the majority of cases, you look at it and go, Yep, it's fine. Then actually what happens is the defense, counsel can go to the defendant and say, look, our own experts check this. I'm going to advise you, you might want to change your, plea to guilty and then go for a reduced sentence.
And that often is a driver for that, which then ultimately negates the need for a trial, saves everybody a lot of time and money. And so it is a, even if we agree there's a beneficial effect to the criminal justice system, that could potentially happen. But what happens is if we disagree, and it's a major point where a backstop at the very end of the process, that might stop an innocent person going to jail.
Now, if the focus becomes on accreditation as the weather vane for quality and you get sidelined because you can't be accredited or you're not accredited, and then the court doesn't accept your evidence on that basis, what happens is you then actually remove the backstop. So accreditation becomes a paradox really, because the intention is to increase quality. Where in fact the worry is, and I'm not saying it will happen, but the concern is that it might paradoxically remove the backstop from a defense check actually discovering something critical to that case. And you've actually, in terms of the forensic lab, yeah, you might consider quality has improved in terms of the entire criminal justice system. You might have actually decreased quality as a result.
[01:02:11] Angela: So I'm conscious of the time here 'cause we've been, we're over an hour already on, on recording this. What do you want or hope that people take away from your book?
[01:02:21] David: I, I think, I hope that they have some laughs 'cause I do like to write in a light style, with some humor and I,
I did crack up laughing at your, your introduction on the book, so just so you
That’s a good start. So I think, I think it's a, I like to tell a story. It's a reasonable yarn. It's a story of my life as I went from England to the US Cayman and back, and that is a story in itself. But then I also think if they are interested in either, defense work, forensic work, the legal process, the cognitive bias material, I think's very useful.
[01:02:57] David: And even if you're not into those things, I think it's just useful as a guide for life, just understanding cognitive bias a little better and thinking about how it might apply when, for example, you're trying to find your car keys and you use it in an open minded thinking, in a more general approach, in, in how you, tackle life. And then there are some, I think the chapters on, the emotional aspects of being a forensic scientist and giving evidence in court might also be useful for those people who are practitioners in the field. It’s interesting that you say that 'cause I think that. One of the things that's overlooked quite often in forensics and maybe it's, it's getting a little bit better as some awareness is brought to it. The, the emotional toll of working cases that involve very horrific events, and that's your day-to-day life. Maybe you're seeing the actual scenes and everything. You know, we, we focus a lot on first responders and I think they do get the brunt of the horrible things. But then also in the forensic laboratory, you see it all the time and it does take a toll. And it's just the, also the stresses of being an expert witness in court.
Oh, uh, all of that. And, it talks a lot about denial, which is a coping mechanism. And I'm not a psychologist. It's really just about discussing it and highlighting certain features and areas that, that have affected myself. I've done cases, in fact, Monica, my wife would, she can tell when I've had a particularly bad day at work, just soon as I walk in the door.
[01:04:19] Angela: Yeah.
[01:04:20] David: And I can't tell her about it because, nobody needs to know what I've done at work that day. Nobody. It's horrible. And yet, but how do you deal with that? Where do you park that? What do you do with it? There’s various different coping mechanisms, but, but the issue of PTSD is an accumulative one in a lot of cases, and it just builds up all the time. So it's just talking about the awareness of that. Well, I will say that although I haven't yet finished the book, the parts that I have read through I really have enjoyed, and I do think that you met your goal of bringing a little levity to things that can be difficult to discuss and
Good
Maybe that will make a difference in people who are first, not seeing that cognitive bias, for example, is an issue in forensic science. You talking through what your personal experience has been with that might help change some viewpoints. Yeah. And I also think, I just wish anyone in forensic science, no matter what they do, if they could just do 20 or 30 defense cases, The world of our discipline would be so different, but we're at where we are and that's really what the book's about, so...
Thank you for coming back on the show. I appreciate it. And I will of course put links to joining the Dark Side, the role of the forensic defense expert in the show notes for anybody who's interested in purchasing it. Also you want to share information on your fiction novels?
[01:05:44] David: Oh yeah, if you, if you search my name, there's a couple of crime fiction novels about fire investigation. Again, hopefully a reasonable yarn written with a bit of humor involved. But it's involving, fire investigator who, moves from the UK to the US and, there's one book set in the.
[01:05:59] Angela: Nothing to do with real life
[01:06:01] David: Nothing to do with real life whatsoever. Um, well, they say right what, you know, uh, the first ones in the UK, second one, second two, sorry, are in Boston. They’re there on Amazon if, if you want to find them.
[01:06:10] Angela: I hope everyone enjoys this episode as much as I've enjoyed recording it with you.
[01:06:15] David: Thanks very much. We'll talk again.