About

Autopsy of a Crime Lab is forthcoming in March 2021 from University of California Press.  Here is a description:

“That’s not my fingerprint, your honor,” said the defendant, after FBI experts reported a “100% identification.” They were wrong; it is shocking how often they are. Autopsy of a Crime Lab is the first book to catalog the sources of error and the faulty science behind a range of well-known types of forensic evidence, from fingerprints and firearms to forensic algorithms.

In this devastating forensic takedown, noted legal expert Brandon Garrett asks the questions that should be asked in courtrooms every day: Where are the studies validating the basic premises of widely accepted techniques such as fingerprinting? How can experts testify with 100% certainty, when there is no such thing as a 100% match? Where is the quality control in the laboratories and at the crime scenes? Should we so readily adopt powerful new technologies like facial recognition software and rapid DNA machines? And why have judges been so reluctant to consider the weaknesses of so many long-accepted methods?

Taking us into the lives of the wrongfully or nearly convicted, into crime labs rocked by scandal, and onto the front lines of promising reform efforts driven by professionals and researchers alike, Autopsy of a Crime Scene illustrates the persistence and perniciousness of shaky science and its well-meaning practitioners.

Watch videos about the book, where I discuss dispelling the myth of a forensic match with Sharia Mayfield, discussing cognitive bias with Dr. Itiel Dror, and forensics and wrongful convictions with exoneree Keith Harward. Listen to an ABC National Radio interview about the book here. Watch a Duke Law book panel with Dean Jennifer Mnookin, Prof. Edward Cheng and Prof. Erin Murphy here and a Quattrone Center panel with Dr. Itiel Dror and Prof. Maneka Sinha here.