This CLE program provides an overview of common deviations from accepted scientific standards across multiple forensic disciplines, with a focus on how these deviations can be identified and challenged in court. Viewers will gain insight into how law enforcement agencies, forensic examiners, and medical professionals sometimes depart from protocols in areas such as toxicology, sexual assault exams, DNA collection, and child abuse investigations. The presentation emphasizes the importance of recognizing and exploiting these departures to create reasonable doubt or suppress unreliable testimony.

The speaker breaks down real-world examples of flawed evidence handling—such as improper storage of biological samples, poor documentation of injury, and subjective interpretation of forensic markers. The program outlines how protocols like SANE guidelines, chain of custody procedures, and lab quality assurance standards can be overlooked or inconsistently applied, leading to serious evidentiary weaknesses.

Criminal defense attorneys will benefit from specific strategies to identify when an investigation or forensic report has strayed from best practices, and how to effectively incorporate those findings into cross-examination, motions, and expert consultation. By learning to spot these deviations, attorneys will be better equipped to discredit unsupported prosecution claims and highlight the unreliability of forensic conclusions presented as fact. 

Note: This program appears in more than one collection on NACDL MyCLE On-Demand. Before purchasing, please ensure that you do not already have access to this program.