Double Loop Podcast

Eric Ray and Glenn Langenburg continue their discussion with Alicia Wilcox on her research into how juries hear forensic testimony. This time we focus even more on questions of opposing experts, error rates, and what's the most important thing for an expert to have. A degree? Years of experience? An accredited lab?

Glenn Langenburg and Eric Ray join with Dr. Alicia Wilcox from Husson University in Bangor, Maine in a discussion of her research juries and their understanding of forensic testimony. Even though forensic scientists may try to present data in precise and sometimes mathematical way, jurors tend to interpret forensic testimony according to whether the evidence fits well into the story that they have constructed of the crime.

Eric Ray and Glenn Langenburg discuss last year's article, Using the PCAST Report to Exclude, Limit, or Minimize Experts by Eric Alexander Vos published in Criminal Justice. We note the extreme bias of the article to exploit the emotions of the judge and jury instead of logic, reason, or data, and we find the serious flaws in many aspects of the paper.

Glenn Langenburg and Eric Ray follow up from last week's discussion of Glenn's recent Daubert hearing with a 2016 article from Jonathan Koehler entitled, Intuitive Error Rate Estimates for the Forensic Sciences. As Glenn suspected, the findings of this article are suspiciously close to the center of the group of choices that participants were presented with. Although there are some larger themes that are interesting, the exact values of the error rate estimates from potential jurors do not match personal experience or even some of the cited prior works.

Glenn Langenburg and Eric Ray return after another hiatus to share travel stories and then to discuss a Daubert hearing that Glenn recently testified in. Short version: having all this new research is way better than when we didn't have it.

Glenn Langenburg and Eric Ray continue their interview with Anja Einseln regarding the merger of ASCLD-LAB and ANAB. Validation of methods and reasons for labs to choose accreditation are some of the many topics covered this time around.

Glenn Langenburg and Eric Ray first revisit a couple of additional aspects of our previous discussion on defense interviews in Illinois before diving into the deep end of accreditation. Anja Einseln joins the Double Loop Podcast as our guest expert on ASCLD/LAB, ANAB, and all things accreditation. In the first half we talk about some of the changes that will be coming with the recent merger of ASCLD/LAB and ANAB and what it means for latent print units in accredited labs.

Eric and Glenn tackle a topic that will be a major concern of labs across the country in the next few years, the merger of ASCLD-LAB and ANAB. Some of the changes include the elimination of Latent Print Appendix, the elimination of the Administrative Review requirement, and slight wording changes that may result in huge changes to latent print reports and notes.

Glenn and Eric continue to discuss the 2017 International Conference on Forensic Inference and Statistics. This time Glenn tells about some troubling trends emerging from Illinois where forensic scientists are refusing to answer questions related to the foundational validity of the discipline. He also touches on new work on a different type of Likelihood Ratio approach from Cedric Neumann and colleageus.

Glenn discusses the recent 2017 International Conference on Forensic Inference and Statistics that was held in Minnesota. Specifically, Glenn helped lead a project that looked at how lay people from different backgrounds interpreted different types of forensic results and how those interpretations were used in a courtroom setting.

Eric sits down with Amanda, Harres, Vanessa, Jack, and Judith from the Austin Exclusionology class to talk about latent print topics and to ask questions back at the Double Loop Podcast. Glenn later joins Eric in commenting on how the discussion went and to give his own comments on conclusion language, GYRO, and how juries interpret our results.

Eric and Glenn sit down for an interview with Sandy Siegel and are also joined by a crew of Texas examiners (and one from San Diego). Sandy talks about her start in the field, her time in Austin, and then her new position with the Houston Forensic Science Center. The HFSC is a public/private entity that is separate from the police department and may be a new example for how to structure crime labs in many other jurisdictions.

Glenn Langenburg and Eric Ray follow some good advice from Niki Osborne and interview Dr. Theresa Stotesbury from Trent University in Ontario. Theresa has developed a synthetic blood substitute using sol-gel for use in bloodstain pattern analysis training. We learned a lot and can't wait to find out more.

Eric Ray and Glenn Langenburg catch up after an extended hiatus and then review the recent PCAST report. The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology issued a scathing report calling for the end of many forensic disciplines. The Double Loop Podcast responds.

Glenn and Eric first cover the new resolution that came out of the IAI 2016 Conference. They then perfectly segue into a conversation on the recent decision to order the release or retrial of Brandon Dassey based on problems with his confession and initial attorney.

Glenn Langenburg and Eric Ray finish their discussion of the OJ Simpson trial, the FX OJ dramatization, and the OJ 30 for 30. Mark Fuhrman, Lance Ito, Dennis Fung and all the rest, and how the climate in LA at that time directly led to the verdict.

After the success and interest of Making a Murderer episodes, Glenn and Eric travel back to the 90s to discuss the physical evidence from the murders of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman and the trial of OJ Simpson.

Glenn and Eric received some more emails about the Avery case and fill out yet another episode with the topic. They even manage to debunk a fingerprint myth from the case.

Glenn and Eric read a couple of emails from non-examiners that came across our Making a Murderer episodes. We ended up spending this whole episode talking about the ideas and comments from those emails. Unrelated to the episode is the image thumbnail. This is the Christmas gift to our patron in Indianapolis. Turn the image upside-down and it says 'fingerprint'.

Glenn and Eric answer some questions from an email that came in after the Making a Murderer episodes. Is all the extra time used to shield ourselves from bias worth the effort? Do the fact-finders and the general public want our conclusions expressed as associations instead of identifications? Which of our customers decides? The officers, accreditation boards, judges, attorneys, jurors, legislatures?