Mr Mallard Case Study

In addition to this the judge presiding over the case could not establish the movements of Mr Mallard on the day of the murder. Thus it has been stated by His Honour Michael Kirby that Mr Mallard’s movements on the day of the murder was impossible for him to be able to commit the murder of Mrs Laurence, in terms of the times that Mr Mallard was allegedly sighted. This clearly indicates that the judge and jury that presided over the Mallard case placed too much emphasis on the forensic evidence presented before them in determining the guilt of Mr Mallard, such as the chemical analysis Mr Mallards clothing and the splattering experiment, that they overlooked the timeline in which the murder took place with the movements of Mr Mallard. As stated
by His Honour Michael Kirby, if this timeline events and Mr Mallards movements was cross examined and further scrutinized and less emphasis were placed on the forensic evidence presented by the prosecution, Mallard would have been found not guilty of murdering Mrs Laurence (Sahgah et al., 2009). Hence there is a crisis in forensic science in the judicial system because for the Mallard case it ultimately did not depend on laboratory or scientific proof to acquit Mr Mallard of murder but by a careful analysis of the timeline of events that took place on the day of the crime.
In addition to the Mallard case, the miscarriage of justice involving the improper use forensic evidence was evident in the 2006 case of Jama, which clearly highlights the crisis in forensic science. In the Jama case, Mr Farrah Jama, a 22 year old Somali migrant was wrongfully convicted of drugging and raping a 48 year old women known as M at a nightclub. This terrible miscarriage of justice was due to the DNA evidence found on the victim matched the DNA of Mr Jama.

Even though the victim and other patrons at the nightclub did not recall the presence of a ‘black youth’ attending this establishment, which catered to mature demographic; these flaws in the factual mosaic of this incident were blatantly ignored by the police and investigating authorities due to the presence of DNA evidence, that linked Mr Jama to the victim.
Thus the down fall of forensic science in Jama, was that the police and the authorises investigating into this case failed to recognise the fact that the DNA evidence found on the victim was subjected to a high probability of contamination. Hence when this evidence was presented to the jury in court, they too were blindsided about the potential flaws of the DNA evidence. This is because juries believe that DNA is objective ‘truth’ to the incident and not subject of human influence thus they have the preconceived notion that ‘DNA does not lie’ and hence accept DNA evidence at face value (Wise 2010). Thus in the Jama case during the trial, the prosecution told the jury to not be concerned about the lack of other evidence in the case. This was due to the fact that prosecution claimed, the DNA evidence found was irrefutable and directly linked Mr Jama to drugging and rape of the victim beyond reasonable doubt (Rout). As a result of this Mr Jama was convicted and charged with the crime. However it was not until the defence team for Mr Jama demanded that Victorian Court of Appeal closely scrutinized the validity of the
forensic evidence presented at the trial. It was only then that it was discovered that the DNA sample found was extracted one week earlier in the same room of the hospital that the victim (M) stayed in, when she was taken by police. In essence there is a crisis in forensic science, as DNA evidence in this specific case diverted the judge, jury and investigating authorities’ attention away from the fact that there was an absolute deficit in objective evidence to confirm the incidence of the alleged rape, thus allowing this unconscionable miscarriage of justice to occur on an innocent man.

Accordingly reviews conducted the National Academy of Sciences in the United States, have found that multiple flaws that could easily be highlighted in criminal cases where there is significant reliance on circumstantial DNA evidence to determine the guilt or innocence of a person (Committee on Identifying the Needs of the Forensic Sciences Community, National Research Council, 2009) . The Academy found that there are immense pitfalls in the police and prosecution practices in understanding forensic science methodologies and results but also the failure to conform to stringent controls and methods for the conduct of DNA examinations to avoid contaminations of the sample which will be used as evidence to prosecute the alleged accused.

Thus the Academy strongly proposes that investigating first responders to the crime such as police officers be better trained in properly detecting, transporting, analysing and knowledge of the short falls of DNA evidence.
This is particularly important when the guilt or innocence of the accused depends on this evidence. In the same vein lawyers are to be trained in the use and misuse of DNA, so they can decipher whether the DNA evidence is circumstantial or directly related to the crime. Thus in the Australian judicial system, similar measures have now been put in place by the various courts of appeal to avoid mistakes in convicting the innocence or guilt of an individual during a trial (Vincent). However more still needs to be done to avoid these miscarriages of justice from occurring in the
future.

Moreover from the analysis of the Mallard and Jama cases one can clearly see that there is a definite crisis in forensic science for prosecuting individuals in criminal cases. This is because forensic evidence presented in trials greatly influence and divert the judge, jury and investigating authorities’ attention away from the fact that there is a high probability that the forensic evidence had been contaminated or circumstantially found at the scene of the crime.