No forensic background? No problem

This is how I — a jour­nalism graduate student with no back­ground in forensics — became certified as a “Forensic Consultant” by one of the field’s largest profes­sional groups. One afternoon early last year, I punched in my credit card infor­mation, paid $495 to the American College of Forensic Exam­iners Inter­na­tional Inc. and regis­tered for an online course. After about 90 minutes of video instruction, I took an exam on the institute’s web site, answering 100multiple choice ques­tions, aided by several ACFEI study packets. As soon as I finished the test, a screen popped up saying that I had passed, earning me an impressive-sounding credential that could help establish my qual­i­fi­ca­tions to be an expert witness in criminal and civil trials. For another $50, ACFEI mailed me a white lab coat after sending my certificate.
For the last two years, ProP­ublica and PBS “Frontline,” in concert with other news orga­ni­za­tions, have looked in-depth at death inves­ti­gation in America, finding a pervasive lack of national stan­dards that begins in the autopsy room and ends in court. Expert witnesses routinely sway trial verdicts with testimony about finger­prints, ballistics, hair and fiber analysis and more, but there are no national stan­dards to measure their compe­tency or ensure that what they say is valid. A landmark 2009 report by the National Academy of Sciences called this lack of stan­dards one of the most pressing problems facing the criminal justice system.



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