Junk Science and Judicial Arrogance Are Killing Us

[Igel]

1. A lot of forensic techniques are called into question.

Yeah, blood spatter.

But also things like bite marks. Some have questioned whether the striations left by hammers and rifling on bullets is truly probative.

Handwriting analysis? Body language? Psych evals?

I've seen some sketchy interpretations of sound spectograms and speech analysis.

But courts have to observe precedents unless there's sufficient evidence and argumentation--not just some evidence or some argument or other--that the precedent is flawed and not to be honored, and if the science is written into the law, say at the state level, they're sort of stuck implementing the law even if they red-flag it as a problem. Until they have the balls or evidence (usually both) to declare the law simply unconstitutional, state- or federal-wise.

(I keep Loper out, because it's not ruling on the science but on whether the statutory language clearly extends to include some bit of science but not another bit--not saying which science is good or bad, gold or junk, but kicking it back to Congress for clarification, a different category of objection. Effacing the distinction is just an excuse to bash SCOTUS, and there's more than enough grounds for that without fouling the informational well.)