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Forensic Science

Q&A June 16
Have We Been Wrong About ‘Psychopaths’?
In a new book, Rasmus Rosenberg Larsen questions how courts and prisons use psychopathy diagnoses — and whether they should at all.
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A Black man with glasses and a black fedora, black vest and red button-down shirt.
Inside Story October 3, 2024
Discredited Hair Analysis Is Fueling Efforts to Overturn Convictions
Rapper Common talks about his work bringing music into prisons, and incarcerated people fight their convictions from debunked forensic science.
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Feature December 15, 2023
Old-School Hair Analysis Is Junk Science. But It Still Keeps People Behind Bars
The technique, developed before DNA testing, can’t definitively tie suspects to crime scenes. Try explaining that to juries — or some judges.
By Rene Ebersole
In a courtroom, a White man sits at a table peering over thick-rimmed black glasses. He is dressed in a gray-striped shirt. To his left is a woman standing in a white suit jacket and to his right is another woman, seated at the table next to him.
Death Sentences September 15, 2023
He’s Facing Execution For His Daughter’s Death. Now, Science Suggests It Was An Accident.
Robert Roberson is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to examine “shaken baby syndrome” and the state of forensic science.
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A body wrapped in plastic lies among fallen autumn leaves in front of a wooden fence. Barbed wire lines the top of the fence.
Feature March 17, 2022
He Teaches Police “Witching” To Find Corpses. Experts Are Alarmed.
At the National Forensic Academy, crime scene investigators learn to dowse for the dead, though it’s not backed by science.
By Rene Ebersole
Eric Lander, left, who was just appointed to be President Biden’s science adviser, showing Peter Neufeld, right, who went on to co-found the Innocence Project, how to look at DNA in 1988.
Looking Back January 26, 2021
This Scientist Helped Free the Innocent Using DNA. Now Biden Wants Him in the Cabinet.
Some experts hope Eric Lander, the president’s choice for new science adviser, will crack down on bad forensics in courtrooms.
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Feature April 19, 2018
Framed for Murder By His Own DNA
We leave traces of our genetic material everywhere, even on things we’ve never touched. That got Lukis Anderson charged with a brutal crime he didn’t commit.
By Katie Worth
The Texas Forensic Science Commission asked analyst Grant Fredericks to review a surveillance video from a 2008 Texas robbery. His findings showed that the robber, caught in the surveillance video, was much shorter than the man convicted of the crime.
News December 12, 2016
Was the Robber 6-foot-3 or 5-foot-6?
Testing the reliability of video analysis.
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President Barack Obama delivering the State of the Union address in 2011.
News January 20, 2015
‘My Fellow Americans’
Reimagining the president’s State of the Union speech.
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