By Liam Mannix
Victoria’s Attorney-General is calling for an immediate national review of forensic evidence over fears flawed police forensics may be putting innocent people in jail.
An inquiry that confirms deep flaws in the accuracy of forensic science could see people convicted of serious crimes walk free.
Attorney-General Jill Hennessy.Credit: Justin McManus
Two major US reports have found there is little to no evidence police can reliably match a bullet to a gun, match a footprint to a shoe, or match a hair found at a crime scene to a suspect.
The call for an inquiry comes after The Age revealed senior legal figures including Chris Maxwell, president of the Victorian Court of Appeal, had lost confidence in the accuracy of forensic science.
Late last month Attorney-General Jill Hennessy wrote to her state and territory counterparts urging them to launch a national review into forensic science.
The review should consider the accuracy of forensic evidence and the laws that govern how it is presented in court, she said.
Changes to evidence laws would need to be made uniformly by all participating states, leading Ms Hennessy to take a national approach.
The matter is set for discussion at the national Council of Attorneys-General meeting in November.
"I’ve also called for the establishment of a working group to consider these important issues – because we need a national approach to ensure science and technology to prove guilt or innocence is used reliably and fairly," Ms Hennessy said in a statement.
For decades, police have used forensic tests to link bullets, hair, bite marks and footprints to possible suspects.
Popular shows like CSI lead juries to believe those forensic tests are 100 per cent accurate.
But many have never been tested, meaning there is little to no evidence they work.
When bite-mark science was finally tested, it was discovered forensic experts could not even tell if a bite came from a human, let alone narrow it down to a single suspect.
Since those problems came to light in 2016, the US and the UK have reformed their forensic evidence system.
But Victoria Police refuse to accept their methods don’t work, Associate Professor Richard Bassed, deputy director of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine told The Age last month.
On Thursday Ms Hennessy's call for a review was backed by Victoria Police and the Criminal Bar Association.
“We continue to be concerned about forensic evidence in court. The risk of miscarriages of justice is always present when the science is doubtful,” said Daniel Gurvich, QC, chair of the bar association.
“With the exception of DNA, no other area of forensic science has been shown to be able reliably to connect a particular sample with a particular crime scene or perpetrator,” he said.
Justice Chris Maxwell, president of the Court of Appeal.Credit: Jason South
"There have been a string of wrongful convictions across the world. The benefit of better DNA testing has shown that very many people convicted on the basis of 'crook science', for example bite mark analysis, were innocent.”
He declined to comment on Thursday.
Federal Attorney-General Christian Porter had told Ms Hennessey he agreed the issue should be discussed at the November meeting, his spokesman said.
A spokeswoman for Victoria Police said they "support this decision and look forward to working with government and our stakeholders".