I’ve written previously about the decline of GSR (Gunshot Residue analysis) as a forensic mainstay here and here, as have other commentators. And now the FBI, operators of the biggest forensic lab in the world, have announced that they will no longer perform GSR analysis in their labs. I have no idea why people are expressing shock at this development, it’s been brewing for some time and the conclusion was inevitable. The truth is, it’s a flawed technology that produces too many false positives and exposes one of the bigger problems in the forensic lab community: rampant contamination.

Of course, the FBI won’t admit that their decision is based on the failure of GSR to produce reliable results, for whatever reason. Their spin follows the trend in declaring that there are other “higher priorities”. Meaning, “we prefer actual science”. I’m not sure what they hope to gain from this spin, because every defense lawyer in the U.S. that’s ever lost a case based on GSR is now preparing their petitions anyway.

Read the story here.

RP

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 30th, 2006 at 5:58 pm and is filed under News, Junk Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.