M. Chris Fabricant

“ Forensics are not raised in the laboratory, research environment. Forensics emerge from crime scenes. They’re usually ad hoc experiments that are done to solve a crime. ”

Chris Fabricant is the Joseph Flom Special Counsel and Director of Strategic Litigation at the Innocence Project. The Innocence Project works to exonerate the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reform the criminal justice system to prevent future injustices. As head of the Strategic Litigation team, he supervises attorneys to develop and execute national litigation and public policy strategies to address the leading causes of wrongful conviction, including eyewitness misidentification, the misapplication of forensic sciences and false confessions. He has served as a clinical law professor, trial attorney, and appellate counsel. He has authored a number of articles, published in Fordham Law Review and New York University Law Review & Social Change, among others, and frequently speaks on criminal and social justice topics.

Talks by M. Chris Fabricant

Poor People Science & Wrongful Convictions

Keith Harward was convicted of a horrific murder and served 33 years in prison based on junk science, sometimes referred to as “poor people science.” Chris Fabricant of Innocence Project explains how Harward's conviction for the heinous act was based on little more than a dentist’s testimony that his teeth matched bite marks on the deceased victim. Notwithstanding his innocence, Harward served 33 years before Fabricant and others were able win an exoneration using DNA evidence.

Forensic science is often viewed as the silver bullet in modern criminal convictions, but not all forensic science disciplines are backed by sound empirical data. Fabricant explains how junk science leads to injustice, wrongful convictions, and the failure to apprehend violent criminals responsible. He explains that the term "poor people science" refers to how the courts seem to employ one system to adjudge experts in civil cases against wealthy corporate defendants and a far more lax approach to admitting evidence against criminal defendants with limited resources. Fabricant shares how courts can unintentionally enable destructive precedent that can then lead to the wrongful imprisonment of many.

Pseudoscience and Dubious Forensics

According to the Innocence Project, nearly half of wrongful convictions were a result of misapplied forensics. Forensic science comprises many disciplines and offers valuable methods of gathering evidence, but when misapplied, the consequences for defendants whose life and liberty is at stake are devastating. Steven Mark Chaney of Texas was wrongfully convicted of murder and imprisoned for nearly 30 years largely based on bite mark evidence and testimony built on shaky scientific underpinnings. Chris Fabricant of the Innocence Project discusses some of the major problems with forensic evidence, including unreliability of testing methods in disciplines like bite mark matching and erroneous or exaggerated expert testimony, and how misapplied forensics have sent clients to prison for decades for crimes they did not commit.

Watch Part 2 of Pseudoscience and Dubious Forensics.

Pseudoscience and Dubious Forensics (Part 2)

Watch Part 1 of Pseudoscience and Dubious Forensics.

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