JOHN OLIVER: Crime.
You know that thing that was
almost solved
-by a flasher dog in 1980's.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
But specifically this story
is about
how we increasingly solve crimes
using forensic evidence.
It's that thing that
is just a staple
of TV crime shows.
Pull it from the torso
on the left.
Pull it from
the boat on the right.
Two hearts beat as one.
Matches up perfectly.
-(DISTORTED SOUND)
-That's a match.
-(COMPUTER BEEPS)
-MAN 1: We've got a match.
MAN 2: And it just found
us a match.
WOMAN 1: Visible match.
-WOMAN 2: We've a match.
-Match.
MAN 3: Were you able
to determine
which monkey bit him?
The bite marks match
those of the monkey found
at the scene.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-Wow!
That last one was presumably
from one of the crossover
episodes where the team
from Law & Order,
worked a case with the cast
of Monkey Law and Monkey Order.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-(MONKEY SCREECHES)
-But...
-(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
on TV and in real life
forensic science plays
an important role
in criminal convictions.
Prosecutors often complain
about a so called C.S.I. effect,
where jurors expect to see
forensic evidence in every case.
The problem is,
not all forensic science
is as reliable as we've become
accustomed to believe.
A report in 2009,
by the National Academy
of Sciences found that
many forensic scientists
do not meet the fundamental
requirements of science.
And a report last year
by a Presidential Science
Council agreed saying that,
"expert witnesses have often
overstated
the value of their evidence,
going far beyond
what the relevant science
can justify,"
and that's the thing here.
It's not that
all forensic science is bad,
'cause it's not, but too often,
it's reliability
is dangerously overstated
and one sign of that is that
forensic experts in court
are often nudged to use one
very convincing phrase.
MAN 4: To a reasonable degree
of the scientific certainty...
To a reasonable degree
of scientific certainty...
MAN 5: To a reasonable degree
of the scientific certainty...
Within reasonable
scientific certainty...
To a reasonable degree
of scientific certainty...
MAN 6: Are you able to say that
within a reasonable degree
-of the scientific certainty?
-Yes.
And here's the thing that phrase
does have a persuasive ring
to it. Unfortunately,
as that Presidential Council
pointed out,
it has no generally accepted
meaning in science.
It's one of those terms
like, basic or trill
that has no commonly
understood definition.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-Am I trill?
Is that good or bad?
I mean I do feel trill,
so I'm guessing it's awful.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-And-- when bad science
is confidently presented,
terrible convictions can happen.
In fact, among the hundreds
of people
who have been exonerated
by DNA testing since 1989,
in nearly half of their cases,
there was some misapplication
of forensic science
and there are people
behind those numbers.
Take Santae Tribble, who was
convicted of murder
and served 26 years.
In large part,
thanks to an FBI analyst
who testified that his hair
matched hairs found
at the scene.
And as he will tell you,
the evidence was presented,
as being rock solid.
They said they matched my hair
in all microscopical
characteristics.
 And that's the way
 they presented it to the jury
and the jury took it for granted
that, that was my hair.
But you know, I can see,
why they did.
Because who other
than an FBI expert
would possibly know
that much about hair?
Except of course,
whoever stalled Amanda Seyfried
at the 2009 Oscars.
Breath taking waves,
without loosing
any of their body or bounce.
-Stunning.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-Stunning!
-(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
-Stunning.
-(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
-Stunning.
-(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
Stunning! Stunning! Stunning!
Stunning! Stunning! Stunning!
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
The jurors in Tribble's case,
were actually told
there was one chance
in ten million
that it could be someone
else's hair, and guess what?
He was exonerated.
Because once DNA analysis became
available, his lawyer tested
the thirteen hairs from the case
and not only were
none of them his,
some of what they found
was incredible.
SANDRA LEVICK: Nine of the
 hairs had come from the
 same source,
a couple had come
from different sources
and one was a dog.
INTERVIEWER: Two different
FBI agents who had, eh,
looked at that and analyzed it,
didn't recognize that it was
-dog hair?
-It was a K9.
It was a domestic dog, yes.
My personal conclusion was,
-the dog committed the crime.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Okay.
So, first, it is amazing that
he is able to laugh at that,
but second, if a dog did
commit the crime
there's really no recourse there
because there is actually no law
against dogs committing murder
and that's a fact
that learned in Air Bud 9,
 Fuck the Paw-lice!
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-And--
it turns out,
Tribble is not the only case
where FBI experts
overstated their confidence
in their results.
NEWSCASTER:
 The Innocence Project
 and the National Association
 of Criminal Defense lawyers
 found from the 1970's
 through 1999,
 in 268 cases where FBI hair
 analysis led to a conviction,
 257 or 96 percent of them
 had errors in analysis.
-AUDIENCE: Wow.
-Oh, it gets worse
because nine of those defendants
had already been executed,
-(AUDIENCE SWOONING)
-which is horrifying.
And you would expect
FBI hair analysis
to have a high rate of accuracy
than your friend's hair analysis
of you can
totally pull off bangs,
-because you can't,
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
you absolutely can't,
believe me I couldn't,
just learn--
-learn from our mistakes kids.
-(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
Save yourselves!
-(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
-It's too late for me.
-(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
-And look,
it's by no means,
just microscopic hair
comparison which has had
the reliability
of these results overstated.
Those reports that
I showed earlier suggests
there is weak scientific support
for some aspects
of techniques like
a blood pattern, footwear,
firearm and bite mark analysis.
And you must be familiar
with that last one from
cool scenes like this:
A little 3D magic for clarity
and I give you
the killer's incisors.
(COMPUTER BEEPING)
Oh, Yo!
The computer rated
it "Yellow rectangle."
And we all know yellow rectangle
is the highest level of match
a computer can
give you about teeth.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Look, in the real world,
bite mark analysis
is highly subjective
and unreliable.
The President's Council found
the entire discipline,
does not meet
the scientific standards
for foundational validity.
Which I believe, is science
speak for "Bullshit!"
But people have been sent
to prison
on the basis of bite mark
testimony by experts like,
Dr. Michael West.
The science of bite marks
analysis, is very accurate.
NARRATOR 1: When it comes
 to bite marks,
 West consider himself
 "The maestro."
 He's found bite marks
 on a decomposed body
 submerged in a swamp,
on a corpse that had been buried
 for more than a year.
 He's even used a bite mark
taken out of a bologna sandwich
 to get a conviction.
Now, that sounds impressive
matching a killer's teeth
to a bite mark
in a bologna sandwich,
although, you should know
that the defendant in that case,
got a new trial
after an autopsy report
found that the murder victim
had actually eaten
a small amount of bologna
consistent with the amounts
bitten off the sandwich.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-So, that sandwich,
was irrelevant to the case.
In fact, you could even argue
that it was actually Dr. West,
who was full of, say it with me,
-shit.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And-- that
is not the only issue
that has arisen
from his testimony.
There are now five cases
where he testified
for the prosecution
and where the charges
were dropped
or the conviction was
later over turned
and even West himself
has admitted that
he no longer believes
in bite mark analysis
for identifying perpetrators
and he doesn't think it should
be used in court.
And yet, incredibly,
every time a defendant
has challenged its validity
the court has
ruled it admissible.
And a key reason for that
is that judges often rely
on precedent
to decide what to allow
in front of a jury. So,
if a particular discipline
has been in court before
it is likely that a judge
will admit it again.
All of which means
that as the co-founder
of the Innocence Project
points out,
decisions about the validity
of science are being made
by people who don't necessarily
know much about it.
Historically, we had
a situation where,
two scientifically
illiterate lawyers
argued the bonafides
of scientific evidence
before a scientifically
illiterate judge,
so the 12 scientifically
illiterate jurors
could decide the weight
of that evidence.
And if you think about it,
that's absolutely terrifying.
Trials can often be a situation
when no one
really knows
what they are doing.
It's like a cooking competition
for toddlers,
hosted by a stray cat
and judged by goats.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-Oh.
The tuna was under cooked
and covered
in cold spaghetti sauce.
You then for some reason
cover the whole dish
in honey nut cheerios.
-I loved it.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And look, none of this
is to say,
that there is not reliable
forensic science out there.
Finger prints and DNA
are obvious examples but while
we think of them as perfect,
it is important to know
they are by no means infallible.
The FBI has found
fingerprint analysis
could have a false positive rate
as high as one error
in 306 cases.
And a dramatic example of this
came after the Madrid's
train bombings in 2004
when the FBI arrested this
Oregon man, Brandon Mayfield.
He had never even
been to Spain in his life.
But, three separate examiners,
matched his finger prints
to one on a bag of detonators.
So, he was at that point,
completely fucked!
Until, investigators happen
to determine that,
that fingerprint actually
also matched someone else
who was in Spain at the time
and that blew the minds
of finger print experts.
MARK ACREE:
 We always assume
 that finger prints
 are very very unique,
 but what the Mayfield case
 demonstrates, is that
parts of a fingerprint
can be
so similar, it's possible
for two people to be
 identified to one print.
That's true.
It turns out that two people
can have finger prints
that are so close that even
experts can't tell them apart.
Meaning that we are
now this close
to finally proving my theory.
There is only one Olsen twin.
She's just moving very fast
-back and forth.
-(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
She confuses your eye.
Now, I don't know how this
new information helps me, yet,
but when it does, the end is--
No! You frauds! You frauds!
(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
And then-- there is DNA,
which is the gold standard
in forensic science for a reason
because in perfect conditions
it's seen as the most reliable
form of evidence, but
not all DNA tests are equal
and crime scenes can produce DNA
of widely varying quality.
NARRATOR 2: DNA is very fragile
 and easily mixed up
 at a messy scene.
BRAD HART: So, imagine you come
 across a crime scene.
You may have a pool of blood
but it may not just be
one person's blood, right?
The more contributors to that--
mixture of DNA
the more difficult it is,
to determine, whose DNA it was.
 Whose blood it was.
Exactly, it can be difficult
to tell whose blood is whose,
in a large pool of blood,
which is coincidentally,
the premise
of my new game show.
So, you think you can tell
whose blood is whose
in a large pool of blood?
It premieres on Tuesday night
and apparently,
-it's already been cancelled.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
But the problem here is,
lower quality DNA samples are
sometimes presented to juries
as if they are highly reliable.
In 2003,
a prosecutor in a double murder
told the jury that the odds,
the defendant's DNA match
the glove found at the scene
by chance,
was one in 1.1 billion.
So, that's pretty
strikingly impressive, but
it turned out the glove
actually contained at least
three people's DNA
and a later analysis
put the odds closer,
to one in two.
And you know what?
That's close enough isn't it?
People do confuse
the numbers 1.1 billion
and two all the time.
That's why I'm always
mistakenly saying
that my favorite R&B group
is Boyz 1.1 Billion Men.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And on top of all of this
there is one more fact
that can be impossible
to detect.
And it concerns the relationship
between law enforcement
and the forensic labs themselves
because you would hope
that those labs would work
independently taking in evidence
and spitting out results.
But many labs work closely
with law enforcement
knowing details
of the case that they are
working on
which can prejudice their work
even subconsciously.
Sometimes
it's not intentional fraud
but rather, something, um,
much more, uh, inadvertent.
Uh, which is the kind of bias
that can come from feeling like
you're part of a side
part of a team, that you--
you're part of--
you're attached
to the prosecution
and you wanna get, uh,
get the bad guy.
Yeah, but that's not their job!
At all! They are supposed
to be neutral.
If a referee,
started participating
in a team's end zone
celebration,
you'd have some serious
fucking questions,
like, why have you picked
a side?
And, how long you've been
practicing the dirty bird?
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
So, clearly here a lot needs
to be fixed
and some states have stepped up.
One has done a lot.
Including passing a first
of its kind Junk Science law.
Which enables convicts
to request a new trial,
if the sides used to convict
them was flawed,
and that sounds great and
the pioneering state that did
that by the way,
-was Texas.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Yes, I know!
-Texas!
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
You don't expect Texas
to lead the nation
in science-related criminal
justice reform.
You expect them to lead
the nation
in remembering the Alamo
or naming
their children "Football."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"I love you Football but if you
ever forget the Alamo
-we are done."
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Now, sadly, at the federal level
progress has been slow.
Although, one group,
the National Commission
on Forensic Science
has tried to fix that.
They were founded
to advise the DOJ on how
to address many of the problems,
that you've seen tonight.
And their most recent meeting,
featured powerful remarks
from Keith Harward,
who spent 33 years in prison
for a crime that
he did not commit
based on faulty
bite mark evidence.
Some would say, "Well you're
a free man," well...
I will never be free of this.
There's no possibility--
Excuse me if I get emotional.
That...
I spent more than half my life
in prison...
behind the opinions...
and the expert egos...
of two Odontologist.
There's a death penalty case
in Pennsylvania
that's going on now
and the judge
is going to allow
bite mark evidence.
How many people have to be
wrongly convicted
before they realize
that this stuff's all bogus?
It's all-- made up.
That's a good question
and it's also the kind of speech
that could really inspire
that commission
to do a lot of good work.
Unfortunately,
that was actually their
final meeting
because the commission
was shut down in April
by Attorney General
and xenophobic boss baby,
Jeff Sessions.
And know what?
That shouldn't really surprise
you anyways.
Sessions is a former prosecutor
and he does seem like the kind
of guy who watched
 Dead Man Walking and was
like, hurry up!
Let's kill the guy already!
This movie should be called,
"Dead Man Dilly Dallying".
Let's go people, let's go!
So, we may honestly be actively
going backwards on this issue,
which is dangerous,
because not only are innocent
people getting convicted,
guilty criminals are being left
on the streets as a result.
And if this administration
does not see this as a problem
then we should
at the very least,
do more to educate
potential jurors
about some of the short comings
in our system
and one small way to do that,
might be this:
NARRATOR 3: In this city,
 -when the heat rises...
-(SIREN WAILING)
 so does the murder rate.
♪ (ROCK & ROLL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
Alright everybody, let's get
this stuff back to the lab.
Hey chief, no need.
Look what I found, bite mark.
Bologna sandwich.
Now, that's what I call...
-"Dead meat."
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Whoa!
The fuck is wrong with you?
Dead meat? This is a murder.
-That's a human person.
-That is his wife over there.
-You're a fucking asshole.
-(WIFE SOBBING)
NARRATOR 3:
 He's a crime solver,
 who doesn't like to play
 by the rules.
I'm getting something on these
bite marks here,
but it's far from conclusive.
Would you say
there's a reasonable degree
of scientific certainty?
No.
-That's meaningless.
-Right.
NARRATOR 3: And that's a problem
 for absolutely everyone
 around him.
Chief, the hair matches
the victim's wife. Case closed.
Slow down.
Microscopic hair comparison
is bullshit science.
Chief,
I ran a mitochondrial DNA test
on those hairs.
The wife did it right?
Case closed.
Actually, there were five hairs.
-Three were from... a coconut.
-And two were from... the wife.
One was
from a Cabbage Patch Kid
and the remaining one was from--
-The wife.
-This Golden Retriever.
There's our killer
right there, Chief.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-The victim was shot.
-How can a dog fire a gun?
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-That's a bad dog right there.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And he's about to face some...
"Woof" justice.
We're in doors. Fuck you.
NARRATOR 3: And he won't stop
 asking the hard questions.
How 'bout a certainly reasonable
science degree to--
No.
Yeah, okay.
NARRATOR 3: Because
 he's passionate about his job.
Despite not fully understanding
 what that job is.
If we don't have something solid
by tomorrow,
D.A. is gonna have my ass.
Why would the D.A.
have your ass?
We don't work for the D.A.
-What?
-We don't work for the D.A.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-You do understand that, right?
Please, tell us
you understand that.
-Well, yeah.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
I understand that.
Totally.
NARRATOR 3: Oh, there's no way
 he understands that.
Because this guy, will not quit.
How about
a certainly reasonable--
-Stop talking.
-Okay.
-Keep up the good work.
-Okay.
NARRATOR 3: And even when
 his team abandons him
 he's not afraid to call
 for back-up.
-This better be good.
-Oh, it is.
I brought in some extra help.
Expert witnesses to help
lock in this case.
Take a look.
We got,
the Forensic Dentist,
Twin Boy Detectives,
an old timely prospector
with a divining rod,
sack full of magic eight balls,
and the county's foremost
crime sniffing pony.
-(PONY WHEEZING)
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
None of this is admissible
in court.
Actually, three of them have
testified in court before
and they all got convictions.
Is that the bologna
evidence sandwich?
Oh my God!
NARRATOR 3:
 CSI, Crime Scene Idiot.
(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
