Once thought to be infallible, the use of unvalidated or improper forensic sciences was a contributing factor in 47 percent of the first 325 DNA exonerations across the country, see The Innocence Project, “Causes of Wrongful Conviction” (last visited Aug. 11, 2018). For nearly a decade the Pennsylvania Innocence Project has been successfully challenging the use of unvalidated or outdated forensic sciences through advocacy for those wrongly convicted, and by trying to prevent these injustices from happening. The Pennsylvania Innocence Project has secured the release of clients convicted based on an outdated arson investigation, invalid “shaken baby syndrome” diagnosis, and a bite-mark comparison. In addition to challenging flawed forensic sciences in post-conviction litigation, the Pennsylvania Innocence Project consults pretrial in flawed forensic science cases.

Although the improper use of forensic techniques played out across the country in individual trials and exonerations, the full scope of the problem only became clear in 2009 with the publication of the National Academies of Science (NAS) report, “Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward.” The NAS committee evaluated the most common forensic science comparison disciplines, including fingerprints, firearms and tool mark examination, bite marks, blood stain pattern analysis and hair comparison. The committee found “with the exception of nuclear DNA analysis, however, no forensic method has been rigorously shown to have the capacity to consistently, and with a high degree of certainty, demonstrate a connection between evidence and a specific individual or source,” see Committee On Identifying the Needs of the Forensic Science Community, National Research Council of the National Academies of Science, “Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward,” 7 (2009).