The details change but the story is much the same. A crime happens and beautiful people in sunglasses and high heels arrive on the scene. They collect the evidence, interview suspects, run some quick tests, interview the suspect again and he confesses. All in all, it takes about 45 minutes.
Not so in the real world, but crime shows like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and a bevy of shows similar in subject matter are big business, and are some of the highest-rated shows on television.
Most agree it is great entertainment, but shows about forensic science have had an effect much greater in scope than an enjoyable Thursday night in front of the TV set would suggest.
The shows have changed the public’s expectations of law enforcement and modern science, insiders say, and have impacted everything from college campuses to jury deliberation rooms.
Recently, NC WANTED sat down with a crime scene investigator and a forensic scientist with the State Bureau of Investigation, as well as a prosecutor with the Wake County District Attorneys Office, all of whom say CSI and the like contribute to a sometimes-distorted view of criminal investigations.
The Good
Shows like CSI aren’t all bad, said Troy Hamlin, deputy assistant director of the SBI laboratory. Despite the inaccuracies, the shows have meant increased awareness of forensic science and all its possibilities. It has meant record number of recruits out of college, and more college campuses offering forensics as a major. To a certain extent, it has meant grants, development of new equipment and as a result, technological advances.
And most of the science in such shows is based in truth, Agent Hamlin said.
“They try. They try,” he laughed. “The instruments they use, we recognize. They’re not using some unknown wonderbox. In basis, they’re using scientific techniques. Where it departs from that is the entertainment part of it. They’re finding things that we can’t find. They are making assumptions where we can’t make assumptions.”
Agent Hamlin met one of CSI’s executive producers at a conference a while back, and remembers scientists giving him a hard time about their unrealistic portrayal, and neglecting to show the quality control and paperwork that goes into such work.
“The response was, ‘Yeah, we understand that, but you know, we’re in entertainment and we have to have ratings. And what we do we feel like we based on scientific fact, but we do have to entertain the audience.’ That was their response to us, which I felt was adequate.”
The Bad
Despite the positive attention forensics have gotten because of exposure on television, many say the shows have fostered a number of misconceptions.
The same person that collects the evidence is not analyzing it in the lab, and is not interrogating suspects, said Paula Carson, statewide crime scene coordinator for the SBI. Not only is it impractical, she said, but it would constitute a potential conflict of interests.
“Probably the best way to describe it is that crime scene investigators, homicide detectives, prosecutors, laboratory analysts, those that process the evidence, we see the worst that mankind can do to one another,” she said. “Sometimes we tend to get a little emotional about what we see. And so it’s good that there are some built-in barriers in order to make sure that lady justice is fair. And that the scales are balanced.”
And of course, it takes more than 45 minutes to process a case, Agent Carson said, recounting instances where she’s spent 36 hours straight at a scene. It’s just not a glamorous job.
But perhaps the most detrimental effects happen in a courtroom, Hamlin said, explaining that because of CSI-type shows, people expect physical evidence to solve every case. It doesn't.
Jeff Cruden, an assistant district attorney in Wake County agreed that jurors’ expectations have changed when it comes to physical evidence. Consciously or not, many people have come to expect it, and doubt a person’s guilt when it’s not there.
Nowadays, he said, he pulls in forensic analysts to testify about why evidence was not found in the hopes of avoiding an acquittal.
“One of the things I always talk to jurors is, when I ask them about the CSI Effect, I tell them I think I saw on the TV the other night, I think they got fingerprints off of water,” Mr. Cruden said. “That gets normally a good laugh out of the jurors but it kind of explains to them, ‘Yes, just because it happens on TV, that’s not necessarily the way it happens in real life.’”
A number of studies have been done on the subject, and data is unclear whether "The CSI Effect" has affected conviction rates. But as for Mr. Cruden, he says he hasn’t lost faith in a jury’s ability to make good decisions.
“If you’ve done your job as a prosecutor and you talk to them (juries) about this effect, and they understand it and your crime scene investigators and your SBI agent has been able to explain to them why certain evidence is not there, my experience is they’ll come to the right decision anyway,” he said. “I want them to hold me to my burden of proof. You know, the defendant’s presumed innocent; they’ll come to what the right verdict is. If it’s guilty, then it’s guilty. If it’s not guilty, then it’s not guilty. As long as they make the decision for the right reasons and if it’s based on the evidence, I’m fine with that.”
