Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System

Description

From CSI to Forensic Files to the celebrated reputation of the FBI crime lab, forensic scientists have long been mythologized in American popular culture as infallible crime solvers. Juries put their faith in “expert witnesses” and innocent people have been executed as a result. Innocent people are still on death row today, condemned by junk science. In 2012, the Innocence Project began searching for prisoners convicted by junk science, and three men, each convicted of capital murder, became M. Chris Fabricant’s clients. Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System chronicles the fights to overturn their wrongful convictions and to end the use of the “science” that destroyed their lives. Weaving together courtroom battles from Mississippi to Texas to New York City and beyond, Fabricant takes the reader on a journey into the heart of a broken, racist system of justice and the role forensic science plays in maintaining the status quo. At turns gripping, enraging, illuminating, and moving, Junk Science is a meticulously researched insider’s perspective of the American criminal justice system. Previously untold stories of wrongful executions, corrupt prosecutors, and quackery masquerading as science animate Fabricant’s true crime narrative. PART I: VIRGINIA V. KEITH ALLEN HARWARD & THE RISE OF JUNK SCIENCE ONE: Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System TWO: The Dentist as Forensic Scientist THREE: Credentials, Case Law, and Ted Bundy FOUR: Virulence FIVE: Lethal Nonsense SIX: Junk Science in the Supreme Court SEVEN: Life, Liberty, and Daubert PART II: TEXAS V. STEVEN MARK CHANEY & THE DNA REVOLUTION ONE: The Innocence Project TWO: The National Academy of Sciences Hearings THREE: Steven Chaney’s Path Forward FOUR: The Thirty-Eight Words that Moved the Junk Science Debate into Criminal Courts FIVE: The Principle of Finality in the Age of Mass Incarceration SIX: Denying Innocence SEVEN: Executing the Innocent EIGHT: Steven Chaney, Back on the Chain NINE: Status Quo PART III: MISSISSIPPI V. EDDIE LEE HOWARD & A JUNK SCIENCE RECKONING (OF SORTS) ONE: A Junk Science Recall TWO: The First Shots of the Bite Mark Wars THREE: Steven Chaney’s New Lawyers FOUR: Keith Harward’s Lost Lottery Ticket FIVE: The Bite Mark Wars Get Nasty SIX: Steven Chaney’s New Prosecutors SEVEN: Keith Harward’s Checkmate PART IV: EDDIE LEE HOWARD, STEVEN MARK CHANEY & THE DENTISTS’ LAST STAND ONE: Our Heroes TWO: The Texas Forensic Science Commission Hearings THREE: Steven Chaney Faces His Trial Prosecutor EPILOGUE PHOTOGRAPHS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS NOTES