Re:Yet another scientific body has debunked bitemark analysis
by vkou on Thursday October 20, 2022 @06:26PM
(#33281615)
That's the whole point of the adversarial system. The prosecution finds experts that state one opinion, the defense finds experts that say a contrary opinion, the juries pick out whose opinions they want to believe. That's the whole point of expert witnesses - they are the only witnesses in the courtroom who are there for their opinions.
The problem is that one side of this equation has a cottage industry of well-funded experts to pick from, but there isn't a cottage industry of well-funded 'bullshit debunkers' to work for the defense.
Re:Yet another scientific body has debunked bitemark analysis
by eesmith on Friday October 21, 2022 @03:47AM
(#33285582)
That's incomplete, to some extent.
The Daubert standard says the judge is a gatekeeper who can rule that a given expert's opinion will not be presented to the jury unless the expert's opinions are relevant, reliable, and based in scientific knowledge.
Re:Yet another scientific body has debunked bitemark analysis
by tinalumfoil on Friday October 21, 2022 @08:43AM
(#33287395)
It's more than that. The judge usually has a good relationship with the prosecution, and the judge is deciding on what the jury is allowed to see and what expert witnesses are allowed to testify as expert witnesses.
I think a bigger issue here, at least in the US, is prosecutions seems to have a really easy time finding experts, often on the same payroll as the prosecution, who say the things needed to get a conviction and jurors are encouraged to blindly trust that.