Reperto A

If you are familiar with Loudenberg's other Netflix show The Confession Tapes, you know that there is going to be some bias toward the accused (sorry to burst your bubble but ALL documentaries are biased). However, there is no satifactory conclusion in these episodes because the point is to make viewers think about the real grey area in sciences that are generally considered reliable. If all we ever see is CSI and the like we will just assume that the investigators are always in the right and that is simply not the case. Loudenberg is trying to raise awareness about the questionable use of science to get convictions and I think she nails it in a way that keeps you interested.

Idk why it took me so long to watch this on Netflix. I suppose I'd gotten a bit burnt out on exploiting true crime as entertainment and figured this was just another show describing somebody's gory tragedy for no other reason than to allow the rest of us the satisfaction of saying 'that could never happen to me'. Yes, it can.

However, I found this show to be different. There's alot of eye opening information about forensic science and evidence that the majority of the public aren't aware of but should know as we're the ones convicting people. Those convictions are life altering, and could be for numerous people. Our justice system is crooked and has been crooked. We've known that and I don't see that changing, so maybe it's just left up to us to stop convicting people on junk science made up 'evidence'. They're banking on us being ignorant. Let's do better. Saying you're an expert doesn't make you an expert.

The lady in episode 3 really got me right in the heart. She lost her daughter but was dropping lines like 'they can't take me to court and paint me as a bad, bad person. I bake!' Or 'I'm a Girl Scout, goddamn it!'. She was great and I could really feel and relate to the anger she feels bc of the injustices that came after so tragically losing her little girl. Think of suffering the worst possible tragedy you can imagine and then either you or someone you love who you know is innocent goes down for it. She's angry and probably will be forever. I deeply empathize with her. I'm angry for her too.

The show in interesting and easy to watch, but it makes little to no effort in clarifing that the problems presented are not within the science itself, but people manipulating and miss undestanding results. Every episody shows problems with prosecutors, jury and judges not been able to understand basic scientific methodology and using tests for the wrong purposes. To be honest, just the video evidence episody shows a case of bad science, the other ones are bad judicial system.

When I found this on Netflix I thought it was going to be a series that debunks forensic science to then show the person found guilty of the crime has their conviction finally overturned. That is not what this is all about. It's loosely based around different types of forensic science however, there doesn't seem to be a real point to it. They don't delve into the science nor the crime committed. There are far better shows out there than this one.

It's an interesting series, entertaining and easy to watch. But just as many crime documentaries on Netflix (looking at you "Making a Murderer"), it clearly has a defense advocacy narative and often ignores fairly important details of the cases it uses as evidence of the misuse of forensic science.

For example, in the "Cadaver Dogs" episodes key aspects of the prosecution's case are left out and the series wrongfully implies the defendant was found guilty based on the cadaver dog alone. This is a blatant mischaracterization of the case against D'Andre Lane. The victim's mother, D'Andre's ex, claimed he had been in trouble with the law but that it was never for violent crimes. This is wrong, but the show never challenges this claim, giving the viewer the false impression it is true.

D'Andre had gang affiliations and was sentenced to four years probation for assault with intent to commit armed robbery. And he had been arrested numerous times after on drugs and firearms charges, even spending over 3 years in prison for one charge. He had 7 kids with 7 different women, and cheated on most of them. His current girlfriend heard him hitting his daughter the night before for wetting the bed and said the girl's cries were intense and then went silent. Two witnesses saw the defendant driving the car at the time the car was allegedly hijacked. One actually spoke to the defendant while he was in the car and made a statement saying the little girl wasn't in the vehicle with the defendant. Another witness saw the defendant park the car in the alley it was found a few blocks from the alleged crime scene and saw the defendant get out of the car and walk away alone. The alley where the car was found was a block away from the girl's mother's house where the defendant went right after the alleged hijacking and the mother was the one that had to call police.

This is an entertaining series that does give some idea of the pitfalls of forensic science and how it can be misused or misinterpreted. However, the series does not give a fair representation of the cases against the defendants and gives the impression the prosecutions' cases were far weaker than they really were.