Defense,Prosecution Play to New 'CSI' Savvy(jurors want forensic evidence)

[DeepModem Mom]

Defense, Prosecution Play to New 'CSI' Savvy
Juries Expecting TV-Style Forensics

By Jamie Stockwell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 22, 2005; A01


A Prince George's County jury would not convict a man accused of stabbing his girlfriend to death because a half-eaten hamburger, recovered from the crime scene and assumed to have been his, was not tested for DNA.

In the District, a jury deadlocked recently in the trial of a woman accused of stabbing another woman because fingerprints on the weapon did not belong to the suspect. An Alexandria jury acquitted a man on drug-possession charges in part because a box containing 60 rocks of crack cocaine that he was accused of tossing from his car during a traffic stop was not tested for fingerprints.

Prosecutors say jurors are telling them they expect forensic evidence in criminal cases, just like on their favorite television shows, including "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation." In real life, forensic evidence is not collected at every crime scene, either because criminals clean up after themselves or because of a shortage in resources. Yet, increasingly, jurors are reluctant to convict someone without it, a phenomenon the criminal justice community is calling the "CSI effect."

"There is an increased and unrealistic expectation that every crime scene will yield plentiful forensic evidence," said Alexandria Commonwealth's Attorney S. Randolph Sengel, who talked to jurors after the drug trial. "As a result, we spend time now explaining to juries the absence of evidence." And when interviewing potential jurors, Sengel said, he and his team of prosecutors have "recently taken to reminding them that this is not 'CSI.' "

The shows have had an effect on courtrooms nationwide, according to lawyers, judges and jurors. Some prosecutors are calling experts to the witness stand simply to explain to juries why forensic evidence might be absent. Defense lawyers are exploiting the lack of scientific proof to plant doubt, even when there are eyewitness accounts, confessions or other compelling evidence....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/21/AR2005052100831_pf.html

[Cha]

1. Making them work for them.

I don't know how "unrealistic" it is to test for fingerprints.

I love the CSIs once I got past the squeamish part and it does make you think more about what goes down in a real life crime.

William Peterson Rawks! And I know he hates bush and all he stands for!

[jayctravis]

7. Every cop show I've seen

has them doing it in their sleep, dialogue while they're brushing every available surface.

[merwin]

11. When you try to fit that much time into an hour, some realistic

events become slightly unrealistic. As a whole, though, many of these shows are a good intro to the profession.

[keopeli]

2. Conditioning Your Audience

"The shows have had an effect on courtrooms"

"prosecutors are calling experts"

"Defense lawyers are exploiting...doubt."

[merwin]

3. Pesky evidence! It would be SO much easier if Jurors would convict based

on skin color, or temperment, or general oddness. Life would be SO much easier!

Come on, how hard is it to get some hard evidence? I am 100% for not convicting a murder suspect based on purely circumstantial evidence.

[MO_Dem]

4. Me too! eom

[daleo]

5. To think, a jury might want some hard evidence

before sentencing someone for homicide. Don't they realize that the government doesn't always have the money to collect evidence for a trial, even though it does have the money to lock those same people up for decades?

[Gyre]

6. You sound a bit bitter

Do you want unconvicted criminals walking the streets with you, your wife and kids? This is making it substantially harder for prosecutors to send guilty people away because of 'unrealistic expectations' caused by a fictional TV show. To me this just illustrates how dumb and lazy the American people have become. I think the burden of proof "beyond a reasonable doubt" is quite sufficient a hurdle for a DA to get a conviction. You want it to be "beyond all doubt" I guess, because that's what DNA gives a jury WHEN it exists, and WHEN it's relevant.

Gyre

[daleo]

9. I don't think sound evidence is an unrealistic expectation.

And I don't live in a state of fear about criminals walking the street, as much as I do about governments that can't be bothered prosecuting criminal cases fairly.

There is a middle point between the surreal claims of the O.J. Simpson trial and perfectly reasonable standards of evidence. Too often the poor are convicted on shoddy evidence and class or racial prejudice, and prosecutors' single minded focus to get a conviction regardless of whether or not a defendant is guilty. The police and prosecutors should be held to decent standards of evidence in all cases, and that includes properly performed analysis of forensic evidence when it is available. Plenty of people have been exonerated by DNA evidence years after being convicted.

If the government can afford to put people up in jail, they can afford to do a thorough job during trial.

Ultimately, these determinations are in the hands of the jury, though.

[merwin]

10. That's good and all, up until you're the one that gets locked up on

circumstantial evedince. In the cases they are citing here, it looks like there is no hard evidence linking the person to the crime.

[bpilgrim]

12. if it's good enough for the BUSH CRIME FAMILY, it's good enough for us

they are the ones i am most concerned with.

peace

[bpilgrim]

8. GOOD

the NYT and the rest will scream bloody murder over us worrying our silly little heads over this but will bend of backwards to protect their FUHRER.

peace