Cottleston Pie

The Curmudgeonly Clerk writes about a Baltimore Sun story that describes how: "lawyers have attributed several recent surprising acquittals to what they call the CSI effect. They say evidence that is not physical or scientific often seems to have little impact on jurors--even eyewitness testimony from a priest." They are referring to the popular "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" television program.

They might be giving the television show too much credence. It's not necessarily causal. The show could be a result of a new societal awareness that non-physical and non-scientific evidence is more dubious that previously thought. A March 2004 column in Scientific American discusses research that demonstrates vividly how weak eyewitness testimony can be. A prime-time Dateline episode focused on the same research. (The research isn't just focused on eyewitness reliability, but natural human inattentiveness to unexpected detail.)

I've seen other programs and read other articles about the unreliability of witness recall (e.g. what color shirt was your attacker wearing?) and police lineups.

In addition, DNA evidence is providing unsettling proof that our justice system can, has, and does convict the innocent, despite significant safeguards. The NYTimes has written about it many times, including this 2001 article (unfortunately, the content of that article is not freely available) and this 2003 editorial (content available). I'm sure I've also seen this covered in popular prime-time news magazine shows like Dateline, 20/20, and/or 60 minutes.

One last thought about those lawyers mentioned in the article: why should eyewitness testimony from a priest be any more or less reliable than that from anybody else? I realize that they are appealing to the popular wisdom that priests are good and honest people. The pedophile scandal aside (it only affects a very small number of priests), I'd suggest that given the nature of their occupation, which relies upon their being predisposed to acceptance of unquestionable positions based upon unverifiable faith, their occupation does not support that they would make a good eyewitness.

I'm only reacting to the reports that jurors are demanding more hard evidence in preference of softer evidence that was "good enough." I think that that's a good direction. The article also suggests that jurors are unrealistic in their expectations about what science can do. That's a matter of degree rather than direction and I am inclined to believe that that probably happens, sometimes exacerbated by entertainment shows such as CSI which are not realistic in many non-obvious ways.