Professor Imwinkelried Quoted in ABA Journal on Scientific Evidence and Arson
Professor Edward Imwinkelried and his longtime coauthor, Professor Paul Giannelli of Case Western Reserve University, are quoted in a recent ABA Journal article on arson evidence.
In the past, arson investigators relied heavily on generalizations such as the rule of thumb that the location of the greatest damage at a fire scene was the origin of a fire. However, the aftermath of the 1991 Oakland Hills fire raised doubts about the validity of many of those generalizations. The fire destroyed 3,000 houses, and forensic scientists discovered that many of those houses displayed the characteristics that had once been thought to be strong indicia of arson.
As Professor Imwinkelried remarked in the article, "It's as if God constructed an experiment to see if some of the old bromides people had been relying on for so long were actually grounded in science. And it turned out they weren't."
Professor Imwinkelried explained that those discoveries have prompted forensic scientists to rethink--and test--many of the traditional generalizations. In the same article, Professor Giannelli noted that there is growing trend in the case law to hold that testimony based on the traditional bromides does not pass muster under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. 509 U.S. 579 (1993).
Professors Imwinkelried and Giannelli are coauthors, along with Andrea Roth and Jane Campbell Moriarty, of Scientific Evidence (5th ed. 2012).