As part of its five-part series on foren­sic sci­ence and wrong­ful con­vic­tions, the Chicago Tribune exam­ined how sci­en­tif­ic devel­op­ments in fire inves­ti­ga­tions have called into ques­tion cru­cial expert tes­ti­mo­ny in many cas­es, includ­ing some death penal­ty pros­e­cu­tions. As a result of untest­ed the­o­ries, shod­dy analy­sis and a resis­tance to rig­or­ous review, long-time arson inves­ti­ga­tors are now see­ing their con­clu­sions con­tra­dict­ed by col­leagues who ques­tion the reli­a­bil­i­ty of the folk wis­dom that has dic­tat­ed this pro­fes­sion for decades. What was once accept­ed as truth is now being exposed as inac­cu­rate find­ings through research and lab­o­ra­to­ry tests, and some experts believe that thou­sands of fires may have been mis­in­ter­pret­ed as arson over the last 50 years because of reliance on myths. For exam­ple, Ernest Willis was freed this month after spend­ing near­ly two decades on death row in Texas for alledged­ly set­ting a 1986 fire that experts now say could not have been an arson. ​“God knows how many inno­cent peo­ple have been con­vict­ed. You’ve got tons of hold­outs — good old boys who’ve inves­ti­gat­ed 5,000 fires and they are doing it the same way they’ve always done it,” said Gerald Hurst, a fire inves­ti­ga­tor whose expert tes­ti­mo­ny helped to exon­er­ate Willis and sev­er­al oth­er wrong­ly con­vict­ed per­sons. Long-time fire inves­ti­ga­tor John DeHaan, who has been a fire and explo­sives con­sul­tant in California for more than 30 years, echoed Hurst’s obser­va­tion and not­ed, ​“Most of the fire inves­ti­ga­tion in the mid-1980’s was taught by word of mouth by peo­ple who had been doing if for 20 years. There was­n’t a lot of sci­ence in fire inves­ti­ga­tion. It was oral tra­di­tion.” DeHaan also stat­ed that among arson inves­ti­ga­tors there is a neg­a­tive reac­tion to incor­po­rat­ing sci­ence into their method­ol­o­gy, and that many of these pro­fes­sion­als still pro­vide expert tes­ti­mo­ny based on out­dat­ed method­ol­o­gy. (Chicago Tribune, October 17, 2004). Read the DPIC Summary of the Series. Read the com­plete Chicago Tribune series. See DPIC’s Studies page.

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