In one of my favorite TV multi-series, CSI, lab-coated technicians match all sorts of crime-scene trace evidence to suspects – who, confronted with such powerful proof of guilt – confess before the commercial. At a forum on criminal justice issues sponsored not long ago by the Drum Major Institute (my post is here , the DMIBlog's is here) featured speaker Dallas DA Craig Watkins and panelist Barry Scheck spoke forcefully about flawed police and prosecution tactics which produce wrongful convictions. One of the more difficult tricks to defend against is the use of prosecution "experts" who testify about "forensic" procedures which have no scientific basis whatsoever.

Cross posted from the DMI blog. 

The Drum Major Institute hosted an event yesterday on preventing wrongful convictions and exonerating the innocent.  Dallas DA Craig Watkins, Barry Scheck from the Innocence Project, New York State Senator Eric Schneiderman, and Westchester DA Janet DiFiore discussed reforms for reducing the incarcerations of innocent people in Dallas and how these policies could work in New York and what it would take to get them implemented here.  Our liveblog and some video clips are posted below.

One of the greater political mysteries to me in NYS has been the degree to which progressive reform of our criminial justice system has been elusive. Other than a very modest improvement in the bizzarre Rockefeller Drug laws (which mandate very long incarceration terms for narcotics offenders) Criminal Justice reform in NYS has been a political non-starter.

I listened, therefore with great interest to the remarks made by Dallas (Texas) District Attornery Craig Watkins, Monday morning. He laid out his progressive law enforcement agenda to a packed Drum Major Institute forum. Those proposals had gotten him elected in red-state Texas over a knee-jerk tough on crime GOP candidate. He advocates and thinks he's making progress on issues like proper evidence gathering and preservation, trials that are fair for defendants, review of past cases to correct wrongful or wrong convictions. (DMI has posted an account of that meeting at their DMI Blog . My post is not a full account of that interesting event. If you want to know more, go there.) If Watkins can do this in Dallas, why are we not doing similar work in NY?