From an Italian Forensic Science site, this! (from a few years ago)
A google translation. Original linked.
http://www.sos-scienzeforensi.org/i...icle&id=9:delitto-perugia&catid=14&Itemid=122
The turning point in the appeal against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, next hearing on July 25, unleashed criticism of the experts against investigations and scientific evidence. Monster of Florence, Unabomber, Cogne, Yellow Garlasco, murder of Marta Russo, crime of Perugia ... just some of the major cases of crime that confirm, along with dozens of stories less known to the public, the decline of Criminal Italian. Autopsies and repeated inspections, investigative practices and laboratory tests peppered with blunders, omissions absurd and fanciful conclusions; expert reports supported by scientific theories outdated and ... judgments.
This is because the police Scientific and Ris Carabinieri to innovation are lagging behind, being devoid of staff able to update through direct knowledge of the latest research in English written by experts Anglo-Saxon, German, Israeli ...
Edoardo Mori, a retired magistrate after he was before the investigating judge, magistrate, and then finally to the courts: "I am asking for an expert opinion to the Scientific or Ris - says the former judge who runs the site where earmi.it collects, among other things, errors and horrors of scientific studies and not - as are those on the health of a joint call for information to the orderly. "
Marco Morin, among the world's leading experts in ballistics, "Sometimes the assumptions are based investigative processed by police Digos of expert reports produced by their colleagues in the Scientific." Giuseppe Fortuni, professor of forensic medicine at Bologna with four decades of experience in the field: "Despite all the scientific techniques of investigation are less guilty than before."
And former General Luciano Garofano, long head of Ris of Parma, admits the cultural lag, "The police has made leaps and bounds in the technique of the inspection and the laboratory tests, but much remains to be done. At the crime scene should go only pure specialists that we have not. "
In short, pm and judges have too much confidence in the investigation laboratory tests. And the so-called comparative (advice of the expert witnesses) than to construct alternative tests are directed to "dismantle" incontrovertible certainties deemed by the prosecution. You will not need to find the culprit, but at least, and not cheap, may prevent an innocent end up in jail. Obstinacy pm and allowing judges.
It was said of major cases of crime dotted appraisals wrong. Let's just two areas: the gunshot residue and DNA testing. In the trial against Peter Pacciani, we are in 1992, the Court of Assizes of Florence had asked three so-called experts to check whether a baby doll and a diaper Baby had been used to wrap or clean firearms and if on them there were traces of gunpowder compatible with 22-caliber ammunition (those of the so-called gun monster of Florence, never found).
Responding to the first question the experts attributed to sprint weapon 9mm footprint black formed by two concentric blacks found on the fabric. And part of the consultants had good game in demolishing the expertise in that there was no gun with the barrel 4.5 mm thick, which is capable of leaving an impression like that.
Crime of Perugia.
The courts of appeal trial against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, who were convicted for the murder of Meredith Kercher, has arrived in recent weeks an expertise that puts a strain on the truths on which was based the decision at first instance. But, unfortunately, the public trust in the so-called scientific evidence able to nail the culprit.
The DNA found on the so-called murder weapon could not be that of the victim, the bra Mez traces were found more males ... The experts concluded by writing: "Do not you followed the international procedures of inspection and protocols collection and sampling. "And then we wonder whether the United States follow the story with an apprehension similar to that harboring towards a process (against an American) celebrated in Sudan or in Malawi.
Because the limit of the scientific evidence is not scientific: if the crime scene did not observe very strict protocols, all laboratory tests are likely to be perfectly useless.
