Forensic Science Evidence and Expert Witness Testimony: Reliability through Reform?

This book discusses the intense practical and theoretical challenges of forensic science evidence and the pivotal role it plays in modern criminal proceedings. A global team of prominent scholars and practitioners explores the contemporary challenges of forensic science evidence and expert witness testimony from a variety of theoretical, practical and jurisdictional perspectives. Both the methodological integrity and the reliability of forensic science have been questioned in recent official reports and inquiries. The wide-ranging contributions to this book offer thorough and far-reaching explorations of the institutional organisation of forensic science, its epistemological and methodological foundations, and its procedural regulation, applications and evaluation in jurisdictions across Europe and beyond. The development and reform of expert evidence law and procedural regulation are reconsidered from a range of legal and scientific perspectives. Brimming with comparative and interdisciplinary insight, this book also explores the transnational dimensions of contemporary forensic science, assessing its value and appropriate uses as expert evidence in criminal investigations, prosecutions and trials. This contemporary book will be essential reading for scholars, advanced students, practitioners and policymakers concerned with the role of forensic science in the administration of criminal justice. Contributors include: S. Carr, E. Cunliffe, G. Edmond, S. Farrar, A. Gallop, R. Graham, L. Heffernan, E.J. Imwinkelried, A. Jackson, A.C. McCartney, M.M. Muhamad, E. Piasecki, P. Roberts, M. Stockdale, G. Tully, J. Vuille, T. Ward, T.J. Wilson