Jeff Sessions has decided that his Justice Department doesn't need independent experts in forensic science working to help the department make sure the tools they use are as reliable as possible. So he's kicking them out.
The Justice Department will not renew the National Commission on Forensic Science, a panel of judges, defense attorneys, researchers and law enforcement officials that had been advising the attorney general on the use of scientific evidence in the criminal justice process. The department will instead appoint an in-house adviser and create an internal committee to study improvements to forensic analysis, Sessions said.
Their tasks will include a broad look at the personnel and equipment needs of overburdened crime labs.
"As we decide how to move forward, we bear in mind that the department is just one piece of the larger criminal justice system," said Sessions in a statement, adding that most forensic science is done by state and local laboratories and used by local prosecutors.
The Obama administration formed the commission in 2013 to address wide-ranging concerns about problematic forensic techniques.
They don't care if crime labs are using the best technology, or if people are being wrongly convicted by bad science. Because why would they? Lock 'em up. That's the Sessions' philosophy. It includes "reconsidering an effort launched last year to review forensic sciences practiced by the FBI." In 2015, the Justice Department revealed it was looking at cases in which experts overstated the forensic evidence going back decades.
It's hard to imagine that Sessions' in-house team of underlings, reporting to him, will keep an open mind about the possibility of wrongful convictions. No, his focus will be helping prosecutors, whether the tools he's providing are scientifically valid or not.