Plenary address – Australian Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) NSW chapter quarterly meeting

Experience tells us that major institutional players (prosecutors, expert witnesses, judges) are reluctant to identify or respond to significant errors which may give rise to wrongful convictions. I refer to this as a ‘cognitive bias’. Those who are involved or closer to the problematic issues have been more resistant to providing effective responses. I refer to this as the issue of proximity. Australian players are therefore be more willing to accept that major institutional errors have occurred in jurisdictions such as the USA, Canada and the UK, than in their own country. We refer to significant forensic errors in USA crime laboratories and flawed forensic pathology issues in Canada. The UK provides substantial evidence of wrongful convictions arising from the work of their Criminal Cases Review Commission over the last 30 years and the Post Office scandal cases. In Australia, we have identified major forensic flaws which have occurred in cases in Tasmania and South Australia. We have published case studies explaining them and provided numerous submissions concerning them to the relevant forensic and legal authorities. Whilst the other jurisdictions have responded to the problems, the Australian responses to date have been to engage in denial, prevarication and delay.