The topic for the April 20th meeting of the Forensic Expert Witness Association (FEWA) is “The NAS Report on Forensic Science and Legal Challenges to Scientific Testimony.” The presenter is attorney and UCI Professor William C. Thompson, PhD.
In February, the National Academies of Science issued their 254 page report, Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward, that is quite critical of the state of forensic science in the United States. Professor Thompson is quoted in this report several times and will speak on how attorneys challenge science and the impact of this report for experts and the legal system.
William C. Thompson is Professor and Chair of the Department of Criminology, Law & Society at the University of California, Irvine. He has a Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford University and a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He studies the way people interpret (and sometimes misinterpret) scientific and statistical data and has also written extensively about the use and misuse of DNA evidence.
Although primarily an academic, Thompson occasionally represents clients in cases involving novel scientific and statistical issues. He argued the first case on admissibility of DNA evidence before the Supreme Court of New Mexico and was a member of the “dream team” that represented O.J. Simpson during his criminal trial. He has consulted with police departments, coroners and lawyers on a variety of cases involving scientific evidence in the US, the UK, and Australia. He has also assisted in several important journalistic investigations of crime labs, including the investigation that exposed problems in the notorious Houston Police Department Crime Laboratory. It was Thompson who discovered the DNA typing error that falsely incriminated a Houston man named Josiah Sutton.
Thompson served as Reporter for the American Bar Association Standards Committee Study Group on DNA Evidence and was a member of the ABA Task Force on Biological Evidence. He co-chairs the Forensic Evidence Committee of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL). He is also a member of the California Crime Laboratory Task
Force, a body created by the state legislature to recommend ways of improving forensic science in California.
Monday, April 20th, 5:30PM – Radisson Hotel, corner of MacArthur Blvd. & Birch St., Newport Beach, CA 92660 Reservations Required: info@forensic.org or 949.640.9903 Non Members must prepay in advance MC or Visa with exp. date,
FEWA Members $45, Non-members $60