Forensic Fraud : Evaluating Law Enforcement and Forensic Science Cultures in the Context of Examiner Misconduct

Abstract

Forensic fraud occurs when forensic examiners provide sworn testimony, opinions, or documents (e.g., reports and professional resumes) bound for court that contain deceptive or misleading findings, opinions, or conclusions, deliberately offered in order to secure an unfair or unlawful gain. Such misconduct has an undeniably devastating impact: it destroys the reputations of the forensic examiners involved, if not their careers; it erodes public confidence in the institutions where they are employed; it can result in overturned convictions, individual and institutional liability, and costly civil judgments; and it is corrosive to the collective faith in the justice system as a whole. However, owing to alack of research into the phenomenon of forensic fraud that is exacerbated by the constraints on would-be whistle-blowers, in tandem with the denials of forensic science stakeholders, there is a general perception that forensic fraud is primarily the result of a few “bad apples” rather than being cultural or systemic in origin. This dissertation examines the problem of forensic fraud both theoretically and empirically, to assess the relationships between examiner, workplace, evidentiary, and impact variables.

Date of Award	9 Feb 2013
Original language	English
Supervisor	Paul Wilson (Supervisor)