Forensics' Scientific Legitimacy Crisis

New empirical reviews find common forensic practices—blood‑pattern analysis, cartridge‑matching, and drug‑sniffing dogs—have high error rates and weak underlying validation. The gap between courtroom acceptance and laboratory evidence is growing, prompting calls for mandatory proficiency testing, peer review, and judicial gatekeeping. — If courts keep admitting unvalidated forensic claims, wrongful convictions and unjust sentences will persist, making forensic standards a live public‑policy and legal reform issue.