Double Loop Podcast

Glenn and Eric continue to discuss the 2017 International Conference on Forensic Inference and Statistics. This time Glenn tells about some troubling trends emerging from Illinois where forensic scientists are refusing to answer questions related to the foundational validity of the discipline. He also touches on new work on a different type of Likelihood Ratio approach from Cedric Neumann and colleageus.

Glenn discusses the recent 2017 International Conference on Forensic Inference and Statistics that was held in Minnesota. Specifically, Glenn helped lead a project that looked at how lay people from different backgrounds interpreted different types of forensic results and how those interpretations were used in a courtroom setting.

Glenn and Eric catch up on how things went at the 2017 IAI Educational Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. Glenn covers a panel discussion on the appropriate use of identification, a new workshop of the PCAST calculations, and discussions about what our error rates should be vs. what juries think our error rates should be.

Eric sits down with Amanda, Harres, Vanessa, Jack, and Judith from the Austin Exclusionology class to talk about latent print topics and to ask questions back at the Double Loop Podcast. Glenn later joins Eric in commenting on how the discussion went and to give his own comments on conclusion language, GYRO, and how juries interpret our results.

Eric and Glenn sit down for an interview with Sandy Siegel and are also joined by a crew of Texas examiners (and one from San Diego). Sandy talks about her start in the field, her time in Austin, and then her new position with the Houston Forensic Science Center. The HFSC is a public/private entity that is separate from the police department and may be a new example for how to structure crime labs in many other jurisdictions.

Glenn Langenburg and Eric Ray follow some good advice from Niki Osborne and interview Dr. Theresa Stotesbury from Trent University in Ontario. Theresa has developed a synthetic blood substitute using sol-gel for use in bloodstain pattern analysis training. We learned a lot and can't wait to find out more.

Glenn Langenburg and Eric Ray read through a new paper from Amy Jeanguenat and Itiel Dror on how workplace stress can affect forensic decision making. The paper makes several great points about how forensic scientists deal with many stresses unique to their careers, including facing outside criticism and working in a culture with zero tolerance for errors.

Eric Ray and Glenn Langenburg delve deep into the data from the White Box and Black Box studies regarding the exclusion decision. Ulery, Hicklin, Roberts, and Buscaglia publish on their exclusion data revealing a strong correlation between exclusion accuracy and the presence of a core or delta in both impressions. Glenn and Eric also look at how minutiae count and latent quality affect exclusion accuracy and then discuss the utility of the exclusion decision itself. Interesting stuff.

Glenn Langenburg and Eric Ray share exciting and groundbreaking news! The FBI latent print unit has officially moved beyond Approach 1. Their examiners may now utilize the inconclusive decision even when better exemplars are not needed. Hopefully, many other Approach 1 agencies start looking to adapt their procedures and move in this same direction.

Glenn Langenburg sits down and interviews Niki Osborne about her work in New Zealand and at the University of California - Irvine in examining how contextual information can influence forensic opinions, especially in the fields of bloodstain pattern analysis and questioned document / handwriting.