Podcast
Behind the Bastards
The author of 'Junk Science' mentioned a story in his book about the use of hair microscopy in a rape conviction. The victim was a white woman who claimed her rapist was a black man, but DNA evidence later proved that the hair used as evidence was actually the pubic hair of the accuser.
Fabricant cites this infuriating story in his book, Junk Science.
— Episode: Part Two: The Bastards of Forensic Scien...
Episode: Part Two: The Bastards of Forensic Science
The author of 'Junk Science' mentioned a story in his book about the use of hair microscopy in a rape conviction. The victim was a white woman who claimed her rapist was a black man, but DNA evidence later proved that the hair used as evidence was actually the pubic hair of the accuser.
Fabricant cites this infuriating story in his book, Junk Science.
Quote, the Connecticut Supreme Court adopted the eyeball test and state v. Mark Reed, a rape conviction involving the use of hair microscopy, a technique that matches two hairs together through visual observation of the interior characteristics of human hair.
Hair matching evidence was admissible, not because it had been scientifically validated, but because jurors were free to make their own determinations as to the weight they would accord the expert's testimony in light of the photograph and their own powers of observation and comparison.
Ten years later, DNA proved that the jurors' powers of observation had led to Mark Reed's wrongful conviction.
He was innocent. The negroid hair, a racist anachronism still used in forensics today matched to Reed was in fact the pubic hair of his accuser, the white woman who had identified Reed a black man as her rapist.
Episode: Part One: The Bastards of Forensic Science
The conversation referenced the bookJunk Science, citing Chris Fabricant's commentary on how the FBI relied on flawed forensic evidence in the Mayfield case.
In the book Junk Science, Innocence Project lawyer Chris Fabricant writes, to the FBI Mayfield looked good for it.
book junk science to truly gain acceptance by his colleagues as a forensic scientist and recognition as an expert.
