From the start, a faulty science
The nation's leading forensic experts held their annual meeting in 1970 at Chicago's Drake Hotel, and all of the old guard was there. Fingerprint experts. Document examiners. Pathologists. Mingling among...
All Stories
Unproven techniques sway courts, erode justice
Settling into the witness chair of a Kane County courtroom, Stephen McKasson tutored jurors in a murder trial on the wonders of a rarely used divining tool: lip prints. The...
Critics tell experts: Show us the science
In exonerating scores of prisoners in recent years, new DNA testing has turned an unflattering light on a whole array of forensic evidence. Two of the oldest disciplines have responded...
Release protesters, judge says
A judge ordered the release of nearly 500 protesters arrested during this week's anti-GOP demonstrations just hours before President Bush accepted his party's nomination Thursday night. Legal advocates contended that...
NYC trying to take edge off protests
Madison Square Garden sits girdled in "sally ports," a system of modern-day castle doors designed to foil truck bombs or other terrorist attacks. On the eve of the Republican National...
High school drug raid rattles town
LaTise Simpson grew up amid the poverty and violence of Altgeld Gardens, the sprawling public housing project on Chicago's Far South Side. She moved to the relative quiet of this...
Campaign dispatches
Winning a close race is more than a matter of feet and inches. Just ask Howard Dean, who, during a question-and-answer session at a Spokane, Wash., rally, endorsed pushing Americans...
Campaign dispatches
Though he didn't get to see any of the Super Bowl as he flew from Michigan to New Mexico, Howard Dean heard about the flap over Janet Jackson's televised unflap...
Campaign dispatches
Missouri Democrats will have to make their choice in Tuesday's presidential primary without benefit of a last-minute televised debate in St. Louis. The Missouri Democratic Party said Friday that it...
Campaign dispatches
Sen. John Kerry was waxing Thursday about his affection for a very important endorser, Rep. Jim Clyburn, when he was brought up short. "I've had some good times with him,"...