Memory scientists have long been mistrustful of eyewitness reports because memory is malleable. In recent years, says psychologist John Wixted of the University of California, San Diego, research has shown that the initial lineup — the very first memory test — can be reliable, reports Science News. In 2013, Texas became the first state to introduce a “junk science” law allowing the courts to reexamine cases when new science warranted it. Critics have submitted hundreds of pages of arguments to get a judge to consider this new slant on memory science. Texas authorities have remained unconvinced. “Our criminal justice system is generally slow to respond to any kind of science-based innovation,” laments Tom Albright, a neuroscientist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif. Researchers are pushing ahead to improve the science that enters the courtroom. The fundamental question for all forms of evidence is simple, Albright says. “How do you know what is right?” Science can’t provide 100 percent certainty that, say, a witness’s memory is correct or one fingerprint matches another. It can help improve the likelihood that evidence is tested fairly or evaluate the likelihood that it’s correct.
Some progress has been made. Several once-popular forms of forensics have been scientifically debunked, says Linda Starr, a clinical professor of law at Santa Clara University in California and cofounder of the Northern California Innocence Project, which challenges wrongful convictions. One infamous example is bite marks. Since the 1970s, a few dentists have contended that a mold of a suspect’s teeth can be matched to bite marks in skin, though this has never been proved scientifically. A 2009 report from the National Academy of Sciences noted how bite marks may be distorted by time and healing and that different experts often produce different findings. More than two dozen convictions based on bite mark evidence have since been overturned, many due to new DNA evidence. Now, researchers are taking on even well-accepted forms of evidence, like fingerprints and DNA, that can be misinterpreted or misleading. “There are a lot of cases where the prosecution contends they have forensic ‘science,’ ” Starr says. “A lot of what they’re claiming to be forensic science isn’t science at all; it is mythology.”
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