Balko: Bite mark analysis is winless in scientific reviews, but it is undefeated in court

Radley Balko of the Washington Post continues his fight against bite mark junk science, this time taking on a Blair County, Pennsylvania judge. Balko writes:

Every scientific panel to review bite mark analysis to date has found no scientific basis for its underlying premises: a) that human dentition is unique, and b) even if (a) were true, that human skin is capable of recording and preserving bite marks in a way that preserves that uniqueness in a usable way. So far, the discipline has been found to be scientifically unreliable by the National Academy of Sciences, the Texas Forensic Science Commission, and the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. The latter two panels have called for barring bite mark evidence from criminal trials. Experiments by University of Buffalo scientists Mary and Peter Bush have also found no scientific basis for bite mark analysis.

Unfortunately, none of this seems to matter to the courts. Also of apparently little interest to the courts are the more than two dozen people wrongly arrested or convicted due to bite mark testimony. To date, every single court in the country to hear a challenge to bite mark evidence has shot that challenge down. Bite mark analysis is winless in scientific reviews, but it is undefeated in court.

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