What is the C.S.I. effect? How can officers combat this phenomenon in the courtroom?

Answer 1

CSI means jurors expect more evidence than generally is possible.

How do police respond? By pretending to be more certain of what they saw than they really observed.

Police lab chemists exaggerate the likelihood that the defendant's hair, DNA or other samples matched the crime scene.

Prosecutors often coach the police on how to testify. They are professional witnesses, trained to "testilie" as their in crowd jargon goes. They know how to pretend, convincingly, to a jury that they clinched the case, and proved him guilty, regardless of the real evidence.

Answer 2

The C.S.I. effect is the impact that crime dramas have on jurors when they decide on a verdict in a criminal case.

To combat this, officers that specialize in crime scene processing should be aware of the C.S.I. effect. They need to be ready to testify about what methods were used to collect evidence, why they used this method and why other methods were not feasible. Jurors need to understand the resources and equipment officers use and their limitations.

In a nutshell, preparation is key. Officers and the prosecuting attorney need to be ready to explain what processing a crime scene entails and anticipate what issues a defense attorney may raise.