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112 MANITOBA LAW JOURNAL |VOLUME 35 NUMBER 1
The evaluation was specifically designed to mirror the NAS’s work in evaluating
forensic DNA evidence. 2 The NAS therefore established a Forensic Science
Committee, which was instructed by Congress to:
(1) [A]ssess the present and future resource needs of the forensic science community, to
include State and local crime labs, medical examiners, and coroners;
(2) make recommendations for maximizing the use of forensic technologies and
techniques to solve crimes, investigate deaths, and protect the public;
(3) identify potential scientific advances that may assist law enforcement in using forensic
technologies and techniques to protect the public;
(4) make recommendations for programs that will increase the number of qualified
forensic scientists and medical examiners available to work in public crime
laboratories;
(5) disseminate best practices and guidelines concerning the collection and analysis of
forensic evidence to help ensure quality and consistency in the use of forensic
technologies and techniques to solve crimes, investigate deaths, and protect the
public;
(6) examine the role of the forensic community in the homeland security mission;
(7) [examine] interoperability of Automated Fingerprint Information Systems [AFIS];
and
(8) examine additional issues pertaining to forensic science as determined by the
Committee. 3
The Committee eventually made a series of thirteen recommendations. 4
Characteristic of many of these recommendations and their rationales was a
concern with the normalization of forensic science into mainstream research
science. The Committee, responding to a variety of concerns over traditional
forensic science evidence, proposed far-reaching changes in the way those sciences
work; from the structure of professional organizations and the way results are
presented and validated, to the way research into forensics is funded. These
changes would, if implemented, move the traditional forensic sciences closer to
the DNA-forensics model in terms of their relationship to mainstream science, 5
their use of formal validation studies, and their presentation of results.
2
3
4
5
Academies Press, 2009) online: National Criminal Justice Reference Service
at 1.
See US, National Research Council: Committee on DNA Technology in Forensic Science, DNA
Technology in Forensic Science (Washington DC: National Academies Press, 1992) online: National
Academies Press [NRC 1992] and US,
National Research Council: Committee on DNA Technology in Forensic Science, The Evaluation
of Forensic DNA Evidence: An Update (Washington DC: National Academy Press, 1996) online:
National Academies Press [NRC 1996].
US, Committee on Appropriations of the Senate, Report on Departments of Commerce and Justice,
Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, 2006 (S Rep No 109-88) (Washington DC: 2005),
at 46, as cited supra note 1, at 1.
Supra note 1 at 19-33.
By mainstream science I mean science as practiced by research scientists in universities, as
distinguished from that practiced by forensic scientists.