Jim Dwyer: False Convictions, Forensic Failures

You wouldn't know it from watching CSI, but forensic science may not be so scientific after all. In recent years the use of DNA evidence has exposed just how badly traditional crime lab techniques can fail, helping to convict the innocent while the guilty go free. Jim Dwyer, Pulitzer Prizewinning reporter and columnist for the New York Times, has been covering wrongful convictions and DNA-based exonerations for years. He and I talked about the many ways conventional forensics can go wrong, as described and demonstrated in his recent eBook "False Conviction: Innocence, Guilt and Science."