State and Federal Court Series: Reliability and Validity of Forensic Science Evidence | Enhancing continuing education and professional development

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Description

Developed by the Joint State and Federal Workgroup of the Illinois Judicial College Committee on Judicial Education, this course will explore handwriting analysis as the first investigative discipline developed specifically to help courts resolve disputes. For most of the last century judges accepted it uncritically in cases involving contested documents like wills, ransom notes and forged checks. In the last decade, though, prompted by a United States Supreme Court decision on ''junk science,'' federal courts have grown increasingly skeptical. This course will explore the validity of handwriting analysis, fingerprint and evidence, bite marks, firearms, and other “junk science”.

Credit Hours: 1.5

Participant Learning Objective(s):
As a result of this course, participants will be able to:

Recognize the latest scientific research and legal opinions concerning the reliability and validity of forensic science evidence
Validate and correctly apply scientific methods to invalidate non-reliable evidence
Recognize which categories of forensic evidence are currently considered reliable vs. “junk science”

Contributors

Hon. Thomas M. Durkin, U. S. District Judge, Northern District of Illinois

Thomas M. Durkin became a United States District Judge for the Northern District of Illinois on January 14, 2013, having been nominated by President Barack Obama on May 21, 2012.

Judge Durkin received a JD degree with honors from DePaul University College of Law in 1978 and a BS degree in accounting with honors from the University of Illinois in 1975. Following graduation from DePaul University, Judge Durkin served as a law clerk to the Honorable Stanley J. Roszkowski of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois from 1978 to 1980. After his clerkship, Judge Durkin served as an Assistant United States Attorney in Chicago from 1980 to 1993, where he held positions as First Assistant US Attorney, Chief of the Special Prosecutions Division, Chief of the Criminal Receiving and Appellate Division, and Deputy Chief of the Special Prosecutions Division. While an Assistant United States Attorney he tried over 50 jury trials.

Before taking the bench, Judge Durkin was a partner in the law firm of Mayer Brown LLP from 1993 to 2013, specializing in complex commercial litigation, white collar criminal defense, and internal investigations. He served on the Board of the Legal Assistance Foundation from 1999 to 2008. He has been a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers since 2000. He was appointed by Chief Justice Roberts in 2015 to the Committee on Federal-State Jurisdiction of the Judicial Conference of the United States.
David Faigman, Chancellor and Dean, University of California Hastings College of the Law

Chancellor & Dean David Faigman is the John F. Digardi Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law and holds an appointment as Professor in the School of Medicine (Dept. of Psychiatry) at the University of California, San Francisco. He received both his M.A. (Psychology) and J.D. from the University of Virginia. Professor Faigman clerked for the Honorable Thomas M. Reavley, Senior Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

He is the author of over 50 articles and essays, and has published in a variety of outlets, including the Chicago, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Northwestern law reviews, Science, Sociological Methods & Research and Nature Reviews Neuroscience. He is also the author of three books, Constitutional Fictions: A Unified Theory of Constitutional Facts (Oxford, 2008), Laboratory of Justice: The Supreme Court’s 200-Year Struggle to Integrate Science and the Law (Henry Holt & Co. 2004) and Legal Alchemy: The Use and Misuse of Science in the Law (W.H. Freeman,1999). In addition, Professor Faigman is a co-author/co-editor of the five-volume treatise Modern Scientific Evidence: The Law and Science of Expert Testimony (with Cheng, Mnookin, Murphy Sanders & Slobogin). The treatise has been cited widely by courts, including several times by the U.S. Supreme Court. Professor Faigman was a member of the National Academies of Science panel that investigated the scientific validity of polygraphs, is a member of the MacArthur Law and Neuroscience Network and served as a Senior Advisor to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology’s Report, “Forensic Science in Criminal Courts: Ensuring Scientific Validity of Feature-Comparison Methods.”
Jennifer L. Mnookin, Dean, Ralph and Shirley Shapiro Professor of Law, and Faculty Co-Director, PULSE at UCLA Law

Jennifer L. Mnookin, Ralph and Shirley Shapiro Professor of Law, became dean of the UCLA School of Law in August 2015. A member of the UCLA Law faculty since 2005, she served as Vice Dean for Faculty and Research from 2007 to 2009, and Vice Dean for Faculty Recruitment and Intellectual Life in 2012-13.

A leading evidence scholar, Dean Mnookin is founder and faculty co-director of PULSE @ UCLA Law (the Program on Understanding Law, Science & Evidence). She is a co-author of two major evidence treatises, The New Wigmore, A Treatise on Evidence: Expert Evidence and Modern Scientific Evidence: The Law and Science of Expert Testimony. She has published extensively on issues relating to forensic science, including latent fingerprint identification, handwriting expertise and DNA evidence, and has advocated for developing a “research culture” in these areas. Dean Mnookin is also known for her scholarship on expert evidence, evidence theory, the Confrontation Clause, and visual and photographic evidence.

In 2020, Dean Mnookin was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, joined the board of trustees of the Law School Admission Council and started serving on the board of directors of the UCLA Technology Development Group. She also served on the steering committee of the Association of American Law Schools’ Deans Forum from 2016 to 2019 and was elected to the American Law Institute in 2011.

Prior to joining UCLA Law, Dean Mnookin was professor of law and Barron F. Black Research Professor at the University of Virginia School of Law and visiting professor of law at Harvard Law School. She received her A.B. from Harvard University, her J.D. from Yale Law School, and a Ph.D. in History and Social Study of Science and Technology from M.I.T.

Mnookin, Jennifer <MNOOKIN@law.ucla.edu>
Hon. Alicia Washington, Associate Judge, 10th Judicial Circuit

Alicia Washington was appointed as an Associate Judge for the Tenth Judicial Circuit in January, 2016. Judge Washington currently presides in Traffic Court at the Peoria County Courthouse.

Alicia was an attorney for the Janssen Law Center. Her areas of concentration included personal injury cases and worker's compensation claims. She protected the rights of injured victims. A Peoria native, Alicia was an avid advocate for clients who were facing life-changing challenges. She began her legal career at Prairie State Legal Services in the Peoria office.

Alicia is a proud Peoria High School graduate. Washington earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Illinois in business administration, a Master's degree in leadership in human service administration from Bradley University, and a Juris Doctorate from Michigan State University.

Among her accomplishments, Washington graduated with distinction from Bradley University with a Masters in Leadership in Human Service Administration. She is a recipient of Peoria's 40 under 40; declared a rising star in Illinois Super Lawyers 2012; she was recognized in the Peoria Magazines InterBusiness Issues as one of the Women of Influence.

She served as a member of the Peoria County Bar Association, Illinois State Bar Association, Illinois Judges Association, Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, the American Association for Justice, the NBA Association, and has also served on the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism since 2017.

Thank you

Description

Contributors

Hon. Thomas M. Durkin, U. S. District Judge, Northern District of Illinois

David Faigman, Chancellor and Dean, University of California Hastings College of the Law

Jennifer L. Mnookin, Dean, Ralph and Shirley Shapiro Professor of Law, and Faculty Co-Director, PULSE at UCLA Law

Hon. Alicia Washington, Associate Judge, 10th Judicial Circuit