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Evidence Commons

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The First Amendment Case For Public Access To Secret Algorithms Used In Criminal Trials, Vera Eidelman Aug 2018

The First Amendment Case For Public Access To Secret Algorithms Used In Criminal Trials, Vera Eidelman

Georgia State University Law Review

As this Article sets forth, once a computerized algorithm is used by the government, constitutional rights may attach. And, at the very least, those rights require that algorithms used by the government as evidence in criminal trials be made available—both to litigants and the public. Scholars have discussed how the government’s refusal to disclose such algorithms runs afoul of defendants’ constitutional rights, but few have considered the public’s interest in these algorithms—or the widespread impact that public disclosure and auditing could have on ensuring their quality.

This Article aims to add to that discussion by setting forth a theory of …


Deceptively Simple: Framing, Intuition And Judicial Gatekeeping Of Forensic Feature-Comparison Methods Evidence, Jane Campbell Moriarty Feb 2018

Deceptively Simple: Framing, Intuition And Judicial Gatekeeping Of Forensic Feature-Comparison Methods Evidence, Jane Campbell Moriarty

Jane Campbell Moriarty

During the Symposium for the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules, held at Boston College on October 27, 2017, the scientists, statisticians, legal academics, and criminal defense lawyers presented a unified theme: the federal courts have not fulfilled their role as gatekeepers to exclude or limit potentially unreliable feature-comparison methods of forensic science evidence (“FCM evidence”). The only voiced dissents came from the DOJ and FBI lawyers, who argued that the courts had been admitting such pattern-matching evidence properly and that the evidence was indeed reliable.