Forensic scientists’ conclusions: How readable are they for non-scientist report-users? (original) (raw)

2013, Forensic Science International

The primary ethical responsibility of forensic scientists is to communicate their findings and expert opinions clearly and correctly to audiences that typically do not have any scientific training [1]. Non-scientist audiences of forensic scientists' findings and expert opinions (or scientists' interpretations of, and inferences from, their scientific findings) include police investigators, lawyers, judges, and jurors. To use scientific findings and expert opinions as decision-aids within the criminal justice system, non-scientist audiences need to understand what forensic scientists present to them and its significance. According to Willis [1], forensic scientists' responsibility extends to ensuring that nonscientist audiences understand the strengths, weaknesses, and uncertainty associated with the findings and expert opinions. Miscommunication or misinterpretation of these findings and opinions has the potential to lead to flawed decisions and has been implicated in past wrongful convictions [2]. Past research has aimed to address the issue of communicating scientific expert opinion to non-scientists through exploring the impact of forensic scientific testimony on fact-finders' verdicts. Issues in communication included conveying the strength of evidence [3-5]; juror characteristics; and the channel of communication (e.g., traditional testimony versus a multimedia presentation [6]). These studies highlighted the complexity of communicating scientific expert opinion, but they focused on courtroom communication. In fact, relatively few cases go to trial; of these fewer are jury trials [7] and fewer still contain expert testimony. Scientific advances in recent decades [5] have meant that police investigators, lawyers, and judges may increasingly encounter forensic scientific evidence in their roles within the criminal justice system. Forensic scientific findings may be used to direct police investigations [8,9], or to make prosecutorial decisions [10]. However, exposure to science does not equate to comprehension of