Australian forensic scientists: a view from the witness box

Abstract

Forensic scientists occupy an important position in courts of law as expert witnesses. Despite a wealth of knowledge and experience about how scientific evidence is presented, Australian forensic scientists have not, until now, been asked for their perspective on how their evidence is used in the legal system. This paper highlights some of the results of a survey of Australian forensic scientists across a broad range of disciplines, which investigated their views on pre-trial processes, trial presentation of scientific evidence, their interaction with the judge, jury and other forensic experts, and finally, their comments on forensic science and expert evidence in general.

Keywords:

• prosecution
• defence
• expert
• jury
• scientific
• comprehension

Acknowledgements

This work was conducted as part of a PhD at the University of New South Wales (Australian Defence Force Academy), under the initial supervision of Assoc. Prof. Eric Magnusson and completed under the supervision of Prof. W. Greg Jackson and Dr James Robertson. I thank them and the thesis reviewers for their encouragement and assistance; all errors and omissions are mine. Many thanks also to the Australian forensic science community and the National Institute of Forensic Science, without whom this work could not have been completed. The full thesis is available online at http://www.library.unsw.edu.au/∼thesis/adt-ADFA/public/adt-ADFA20070801.133638/index.html. Permission from the University of New South Wales Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC 01164 – 2001) and the Victoria Police Research Coordinating Committee was granted for this research.

Notes

^†The research reported here was conducted as part of a PhD at the University of New South Wales (Australian Defence Force Academy), Australia.