Evidence Theory and the NAS Report on Forensic Science

The NAS Report recommends a wholesale overhaul of the field of forensic science in the United States. Most of the proposed recommendations for reform focus on activities that take place outside of the courtroom, reforms aimed at improving the quality of the evidence that is used for law enforcement and criminal litigation. In many ways, however, the report invites courts to respond to, and to perhaps improve upon, the ways in which such evidence is admitted and presented currently and in the future. It also invites evidence scholars to develop solid theoretical foundations for possible avenues of response and reform.

Toward these ends, I have outlined two general avenues for doctrinal response to problems with forensic science evidence—arguing that macro-level responses in terms of decision rules and sufficiency determinations may provide a more justified response than micro-level admissibility determinations—and I have sketched how such doctrinal reform might proceed in terms of explanatory criteria.