For example, bite mark “evidence” has been long disproven as having no basis in fact, but that doesn’t stop prosecutors from using it.
There are a lot of forensic analyses like that: you can’t really use them to pinpoint a suspect; but they’re great at proving that a whole class of suspects couldn’t have been responsible.
The real problem with police is the thought process that leads to playing Guess Who with suspects. Only one person of interest has no alibi, and can’t be excluded? They must have done it then, even if we have literally no proof positive that they did, and have no idea what the evidence in favour of all the people we haven’t looked at yet would be.
- Thorough background on why it is bunk (start page 83): https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/mic...
- Some stories of people imprisoned (often for decades) by bite mark analysis before being exonerated by DNA evidence: https://www.innocenceproject.org/all-cases/#bitemark-analysi...
- The story of "bite mark expert" and general piece of garbage, Michael West: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/08/24/...
In what way can this possibly put innocent people behind bars, never mind easily? The article specifically notes that any hits on the system are then checked by real police officers before any further action is taken, and from that point surely the same processes and controls will apply as if an officer thought they'd recognised a person of interest as part of their normal activity.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Bundy#Arrest_and_first_t...