ICFIS 2023

The 11th International Conference on Forensic Inference and Statistics, or ICFIS 2023, is set for June 12-15 of this year. It will be held at the Faculty of Law (Juridicum) of Lund University, Lund, Sweden. While I am saddened that I cannot attend this particular meeting, several years ago I had the pleasure of going to the 2014 International Conference on Forensic Inference and Statistics, or ICFIS which was the 9th iteration of the conference. I wrote a blog post about that meeting some time ago.

I can say, based on past experience alone, that this meeting is well worth attending. That’s particularly true if you are interested in the logical approach to evidence evaluation, but it would benefit any forensic scientist. You will not find a better collection of brilliant people all focused on forensic inference, in the broadest sense.

Forensic scientists, lawyers, academics—they will all be there.

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Science vs Pseudoscience

Years ago, in 2013 to be precise, I was invited to speak at the ICA conference held in Montréal, Québec.  The conference had a special session on “distinguishing between science and pseudoscience in forensic acoustics”. Now, I am definitely not an expert in forensic acoustics.  In fact, I know almost nothing about the field other than what I’ve read from time to time. So I wasn’t there to tell the audience anything about forensic acoustics, per se.

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Book announcement: Forensic Document Examination in the 21st Century

FDE in the 21st CenturyI am very pleased to have been contributor to a new textbook, Forensic Document Examination in the 21st Century.  The text was edited by Jan Seaman Kelly and Miriam Angel and will be published by CRC Press.

My personal contribution is chapter 3 entitled “The Logical Approach to Evidence Evaluation”.   The complete list of contributors is impressive and includes Jan Seaman Kelly, Miriam Angel, Brett M.D. Bishop, Rigo Vargas, Mara L. Merlino, Samiah Ibrahim, Lucinda Risi, Lisa M. Hanson, Carolyne Bird, Linda L. Mitchell, Elaine X. Wooton, Donna O. Eisenberg, Thomas W. Vastrick, Marie E. Durina, Kathleen Annunziata Nicolaides, Khody R. Detwiler, Tobin Tanaka, Larry A. Olson, Zain M. Bhaloo, Peter Tytell, Timothy A. Campbell, and Mark T. Goff.  
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Book announcement: Forensic Examination of Signatures

Forensic Examination of Signatures CoverI was pleased be a co-contributor for Dr. Linton A. Mohammed’s latest textbook, Forensic Examination of Signatures.  Other contributors, along with Dr. Mohammed, were Lloyd Cunningham, William Flynn, and Kathleen Nicolaides, with the Foreword by the esteemed Professor David Kaye.  The text was published June 6, 2019 by Elsevier’s Academic Press (ISBN:  978-0-12-813029-2, https://doi.org/10.1016/C2016-0-04445-5).

The book focuses on the forensic examination and evaluation of signatures which is one of the most difficult areas of Forensic Document Examination.  My contribution was Chapter 11 entitled “Conclusions, Reporting and Testimony”, co-written with Dr. Mohammed.
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David H. Kaye’s “Forensic Science, Statistics & the Law” Blog

David H. Kaye (DHK) is one of my favourite writers. He is truly prolific and always manages to provide great insights for the reader. His grasp of statistics, logic, and the law is second-to-none, and his ability to communicate those very challenging topics to his audience is equally impressive.

As a mini introduction, David “…is Distinguished Professor, and Weiss Family Scholar in the School of Law, a graduate faculty member of Penn State’s Forensic Science Program, and a Regents’ Professor Emeritus, ASU.” If you would like to see a list of his publications check out http://personal.psu.edu/dhk3/cv/cv_pubs.html 

Yes, DHK has written many things on many topics.1  But I would like to focus on his less formal writings from his blog  Forensic Science, Statistics & the Law.

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Measurement Science and Standards in Forensic Handwriting Analysis Conference

The expression “better late than never” applies to this post. Over the span of two days in June 2013 the Measurement Science and Standards in Forensic Handwriting Analysis (MSSFHA) conference was held. It explored the (then) current state of forensic handwriting analysis, aka, forensic handwriting examination (FHE). Presentations varied in content but most discussed recent advancements in measurement science and quantitative analyses as it relates to FHE.

NIST Forensic logo

The conference was organized by NIST’s Law Enforcement Standards Office (OLES) in collaboration with the AAFS — Questioned Document Section, the ABFDE, the ASQDE, the FBI Laboratory, the NIJ and SWGDOC.

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Forewarned…

Forewarned is forearmed or, if Latin is your thing, “praemonitus, praemunitus”. So the saying goes and clearly there is great value in knowing what lies ahead for us. If we know what is coming our way we can, in theory, prepare properly for any challenge.

Challenges are nothing new to forensic scientists. Critics routinely point out issues they have with our work. Some of those criticisms are fair and reasonable, others not so much. Much of the critical commentary affects a discipline as a whole demanding an overall, or group, response by members of each discipline. In my experience, disciplines tend to be behind the curve in their responses to critics. Nonetheless, over time some issues have been addressed, at least partially if not completely, through empirical research. Others have not. To be fair, the activities needed to properly address the critics are not trivial and require both time and resources; scarce commodities in modern forensic labs. Overall, things are improving, albeit very slowly.

Criticism takes on a whole new meaning in the context of a court of law. Indeed, I think that criticism is the essence of cross-examination — a fundamental and important aspect of any adversarial justice system. Although essential, it is rarely an enjoyable part of the proceedings for any expert.

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Certification — ABFDE

What is certification? In my opinion, professional certification is a designation that indicates the holder of the certification has appropriate and adequate qualifications to do some particular, generally well-defined, job or task. As an example I am a forensic document examiner and I have received professional certification from the American Board of Forensic Document Examiners, Inc.

An internet search for ‘certification’ produces a huge list of possibilities, with more such programs being developed all the time as people become attuned to issues of quality and competency. Indeed, almost every profession has some type of certification and a few have several (consider all of the ‘certifications’ in the computing industry). Most, if not all, certification programs are aimed at improving the quality in a given profession by setting minimum standards for the job. The basic idea is that someone meeting or exceeding those standards will produce quality output on the job. Certification programs are generally created or are administered by a professional society, a college or university, or some private body set up expressly for that purpose.

Forensic Document Examination is no exception so it may be worthwhile discussing certification options as well as the pros and cons that I see for those options.

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