The Casey Anthony Acquittal: Mismanaging the 'CSI Effect' - Criminal Report Daily

The Casey Anthony Acquittal: Mismanaging the 'CSI Effect'
July 15, 2011

Excerpt:

[ By Dr. Kenneth J. Ryan, a criminologist at California State University. Read his Bio >> ]

Casey-anthony-caylee-350x250 There is a phenomenon in law called the CSI effect, wherein jurors appoint themselves as experts in investigative procedure based on their television experiences.

One does not have to be a fan of that particular show to be affected since in recent history there have been more than 10 programs on network television depicting, falsely, how crimes are solved and court cases are presented. Other than CSI, there are CSI: New York; CSI: Miami; Law & Order; Law & Order: Criminal Intent; Law & Order: Special Victims Unit; Bones; Numbers; Crossing Jordan; Lie to Me, and so on and so on.

Viewers accumulate expectations of the police and prosecutors from these programs that are far beyond realistic, such as: most major crimes are solved in an hour; most major crimes are prosecuted in an hour; juries in major crimes are usually in and out of deliberation over a two-minute commercial break; there is DNA evidence in every case; it only takes about three minutes to get DNA results; there is a confession in every crime; the older expert is always the correct one; there is a known cause of death in every murder; every detective knows everything, but uniformed police know nothing; any private investigator is always smarter than all police detectives; a suspect isn’t officially under arrest until Miranda Rights are read; there is always a surveillance camera somewhere that captured the crime on tape; there are always fingerprints left behind; crime scene investigators interrogate suspects; crime scene investigators make arrests; crime scene investigators always get in car chases, boat chases, airplane chases, bicycle chases and the occasional foot chase; crime scene investigators never get dirty and always wear Canali, Gucci, Prada, etc.; crime scene investigators know everything, all the time, on sight. None of this is true.

More: http://blogs.discovery.com/criminal_report/2011/07/the-casey-anthony-acquittal-mismanaging-the-csi-effect.html