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urt’s attitude towards fingerprint evidences. In Mayfield, Brandon Mayfield was arrested and detained in the FBI’s custody for 17 days of killing 191 people with the matching to the fingerprints found on the package of detonators. He was then released because of the misidentification of his fingerprints by three FBI experts who are informed that the Spanish experts matched the print to another man [11]. In Maryland, death penalty punishment on the defendant is concerned, so the admissibility of scientific evidences should be carefully examined to avoid wrong ruling. The court considered fingerprint evidences are inadmissible after considering Mayfield [1]. It is because the court found that the analysis, comparison, evaluation and verification (ACE-V) process of fingerprinting is unreliable [1], with all the limitation mentioned above.

“CSI Effect”

Overview of CSI Effect

CSI effects are the effects caused on the general public or professionals such as jurors, after watching the forensic-related television show. “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” is one of top ten dramas in United States, with worldwide viewers. [12] With high popularity of the show, other forensic-related dramas such as “Cold Cases” and “Bones” are further created. [13] According to one of the weekly Nielsen rating in 2006, about 30 million people watched CSI on one night and about 70 million people watched at least one of the forensic-related dramas [13]. In 2006, a study of all jurors in Washtenaw County, Michigan shows that 42.4% jurors are CSI-viewers [14]. CSI shows feature forensic scientists of being smart and powerful, providing viewers a general picture on their work from the recovery of scientific evidences to the presentation in the courtroom. Within an hour, cases are solved without doubt by a large amount of forensic evidences, which are analyzed within a few minutes. No mistakes are arisen in the analysis. Yet, they are all unrealistic and providing misconceptions about the real world of forensics. The increasing popularity to the show becomes a big obstacle to the work of forensic scientists.

2. Negative CSI effects

2.1 High expectation of physical evidences

In a study in 2005 in 102 prosecutors, 38% stated that they lose a case due to CSI effect, 45% stated that the jurors require more evidences than they should [15]. Jurors usually expect to see DNA evidences in murder or rape, fingerprint evidences in breaking and ballistic evidences in cases involving the guns. Despite the fact that the prosecutors have a strong case against the defendants, they may still lose the case because of the lack of physical evidences. The jurors may acquit the defendants due to the misconception of physical evidences must be present in every criminal case by the CSI shows. In Robert Blake, he was arrested to have murdered his wife with the fact that he tried to hire someone to kill his wife and the gun was found on his cars [16]. The jurors voted to release him because of a lack of gunshot residues and blood on his clothing [16]. In another case, there were two witnesses saw that the defendant shot the plaintiff, the jurors ignored the witnesses’ statement and acquitted the defendant with a lack of forensic evidences [16]. Both cases show that physical evidences outweigh the witness’s statement in making the decision. In Phoenix’s cases, the jurors asked for an expensive DNA test on the b