Why?

Why provide private forensic services? Isn't it akin to being a paid whore? What need is there for it?

Some background. I came from the police side of forensic science services. A bit different from the crime lab side, as I came with a gun and arrest powers. But my initial training in the field was that of criminalistic ethics. As a fingerprint specialist, as a crime scene investigator, I was taught my loyalty was to the evidence. Find the evidence, and permit it to speak factually. My fellow practitioners of the age all shared that ethic. Many had suffered for  not wavering to support a case...transfers, lack of promotion, looked down upon by investigators and administrators. But they could always hold their heads high, knowing they were doing the right thing, and being shown right over time for it.

Criminalistics is thing police work. Therein lies its strong advantage; a physical examination of the evidence should produce similar results. Some types of evidence are more open to interpretation than others, and this may lead to differences of opinion, but this is the rarer side of the field. DNA is DNA, chemical analysis is chemical analysis, a fingerprint is a fingerprint, a toolmark is a toolmark. Quality may vary, and some results may require a more experienced or skilled practitioner, but given equals, the same results should be reached.

Facts of life. No one is perfect. We all make mistakes, some minor, some glaring. Some people are smarter, more talented, more imaginative, more energetic than others. Not everyone is pure of heart and mind. There have been a variety of folks passing off intentionally skewed results to ensure a conviction, warranted or not. And then there is the gradual (or perhaps not so gradual) loss of ethical and moral standards of the past 30 years.

The American criminal justice system is especially unique in its provisions for the accused to review and challenge testimony. It is a protection we enjoy more than any other citizenry on the Earth. The Founding fathers recognized that people make mistakes, and that charlatans  can slip into the system.

The private examiner is an important safeguard. Whenever physical evidence can be examined impartially, it provides an important check for our system. It is quality control - verifying quality work as much as rooting out substandard or fallacious work. Indeed, the independent examiner helps to increase the credibility of the law enforcement or crime lab specialist, and ultimately increases their prestige among the entire legal community.

Yes, a good private examiner may be responsible for an accused having charges dropped or being acquitted. Why? Because there was something that was not well done about the original work. If not incompetence or fraud, it should be a learning point for those involved.

But one more point; some day the person on trial may not be some career criminal. It may be any one of us, and if not a case of guilt, could be due to poor interpretation or evil intent on the part of someone in the system.  When this happens, any one of us wants to know there is a check and balance there, able to ensure that the evidence is accurate and correctly interpreted.