IIE Lunchtime Seminar - Prof David Caudill (Villanova University School of Law) and Dr Graham Spinardi (University of Edinburgh)

Prof David Caudill (Villanova University School of Law)

Fire investigation expertise in arson trials: in tension with mainstream science.

Abstract: There is already a strong critique of (and a growing literature on) forensic expert testimony offered by fire investigators, typically in criminal prosecutions for arson, as to the cause and origins of fires; numerous scholars have identified, however, the weaknesses in the purported scientific basis of fire investigation expertise in the 1970s and 1980s (much like the recently-publicized identification of weaknesses in forensic bite-mark and fingerprint identification expertise).  This paper presents an historical analysis of the development of fire investigation expertise in order to identify where things went wrong and why (I focus on the institutional structures that led to questionable testimony, and I compare fire investigation to other types of failed forensic “science” that lack a scientific foundation but continue to be admitted by some judges). I survey the legal cases involving arson over the last 100 years as well as the growth and development of fire chemistry, engineering, and safety during that period. The paper’s contribution to STS lies primarily in the identification of social and institutional structures that ended up supporting a shaky field of forensic fire investigation, through the cooperation of inactive judges, notwithstanding the gap between “legal” science and “conventional” science, that is between forensic fire expertise and the scientific discipline of, and publications concerning, fire investigation.

Bio: Professor Caudill earned his J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center, and was Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review, and Articles Editor of the Houston Journal of International Law. He earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from the Free University of Amsterdam, and his B.A. in philosophy from Michigan State University. More recently he has completed postdoctoral graduate work at the Science and Technology Studies Program at Virginia Tech, and at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute.  He received a SKAPP grant in 2007 to study local water pollution controversies, and he was the 2007/2008 Société de Chimie Industrielle (American Section) Fellow; he was in residence at the Chemical Heritage Foundation (Philadelphia) in the spring of 2008.After graduating from the University of Houston Law Center, Professor Caudill clerked for the Honorable John Brown of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit before joining Gray, Cary, Ames & Frye in San Diego and then Graves, Dougherty, Hearon & Moody in Austin. While in Austin, he also taught as adjunct professor at the University of Texas. He joined the Washington and Lee faculty in 1989. He also has taught as visiting faculty at the University of Texas, Southern Illinois University, Cardozo School of Law and the University of Florida, and is currently a Senior Fellow at the University of Melbourne Law Faculty.

Dr Graham Spinardi (University of Edinburgh)

The role of ‘science’ in US arson trials: Are old myths being replaced by new ones? 

Abstract: The last 25 years has seen a revolution in the way that fire investigators provide evidence in US arson trials. The previous approach – resting on what are now termed as ‘junk science’, ‘witchcraft’ and ‘folklore’ – has been largely superseded by fire investigation practices based on the science-based guidelines first set out by the US National Fire Protection Association in its 1992 Guide for Fire and Explosion Investigations (NFPA 921). It is widely believed that the use of NFPA 921, bolstered by the potential for Daubert challenges, has reduced the numbers of miscarriages of justice in arson cases. This transition hinges on the way that expert knowledge is constructed and deployed in court, and the ways that expert knowledge claims are interrogated in the legal process. Evidence can now be ruled inadmissible if it fails the Daubert test, and expert witnesses can be cross-examined as to the credibility of their knowledge claims, and assessed with regard to the guidance of NFPA 921. Many of the myths associated with previous fire investigations methods are now discredited, although use of Daubert and NFPA 921 remains patchy within the US legal system. However, a more fundamental concern lies in the way that ‘science’ is viewed in Daubert and NFPA 921. Along with the general concerns about forensic science that have been raised by others (e.g. Cole and Edmond), there are specific features of fire investigation that are problematic. In particular, unlike most forensic experts, fire investigators act as both legal investigators and scientific experts, able to develop a case and testify to the facts of evidence at the same time. Daubert and NFPA 921 may have helped get rid of earlier fire investigation myths, but there is a risk, as Lentini argues, that the old myths ‘have been replaced with new ones.’

Bio: Dr Graham Spinardi graduated in Ecological Science at the University of Edinburgh, before doing a PhD in the sociology of technology at the Science Studies Unit. After many years carrying out research on military and aerospace technologies, he is now investigating social aspects of fire safety in an interdisciplinary research programme supported by the Ove Arup Foundation and the Royal Academy of Engineering. His latest research project (with Rush, Bisby, Hadden and Walls) is 'Improving the Resilience of Informal Settlements to Fire', funded by the EPSRC.

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