I agree heartily with everything said here. Perhaps this comes from my visceral hatred of any show with the letters C, S, or I in it, but I think it’s a fair criticism. The author quotes a statement demanding independence of the forensic system from the prosecutors, but I agree with this reaction:

And indeed, access to competent, neutral forensic scientists is a fundamental must for many criminal defendants. But it is not enough.

To me, it seems that the first step in this should be to reduce the physical number of crimes — starting with silly things like marijuana possession. Now, this is of course an incomplete step, as there will still be unfair prosecutions of things everyone agrees should still be illegal, like murder — but it’s a step that is relatively simple to effect. It might be politically impossible, I don’t know, but it appeals to my simple mind.

As to a complete solution for “zealous prosecutors + defendants with no resources,” I’m at a loss. I simply don’t know what policy levers you could pull to affect this, outside the good suggestion of independence for forensics teams. You could mandate more money for public defenders, but the incentives for the other side are still overwhelming.

The post linked above dove-tails nicely with Radley Balko’s critical analysis of certain forensic techniques and policies.