When expert testimony isn’t: Tainted evidence wreaks havoc in courts, lives

Kevin Bridgeman has been out of prison for almost three years, but it’s possible that he never should have been in there in the first place.

A lab chemist is serving three years for falsifying forensics in Mr. Bridgeman’s case and up to 40,000 other defendants. The chemist is already two years into her sentence, but Massachusetts’ highest court has just now determined how to deal with the backlog. This case, while egregious, is not the only example of faulty forensics – although it is usually an instance of bad science, rather than a bad scientist, experts say. From microscopic hair analysis to fingerprinting, forensics that are treated as gospel in the courtroom have been proven to be anything but foolproof…

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