For a quarter century the “Innocence Project” has garnered public attention for using DNA evidence toward the exoneration of persons wrongly convicted of crimes, often by means of forensic techniques that, in light of DNA no longer seem authoritative. And yet DNA collection/interpretation remains a mainstay of fact-making within a forensic science closely tied to policing and prosecutorial institutions. Relying on a survey of programmatic statements in textbooks and similar sources from the eighteenth century onward, this paper explores a broader question of the deployment of science within legal institutions, i.e., was there an intrinsic bias in the forensic science enterprise itself? Did writers see their enterprise mainly as ancillary to the work of prosecution or mainly as the protecting innocent persons from popular prejudice or misleading appearances? While to some degree the answers to such questions reflect the structures of legal systems, they also reflect views about the nature of science, its appropriate organization, and its role in civil society. I shall briefly explore too the translation of those assumptions into procedural maxims, by addressing the tension between empiricism and interpretation evident in such texts.
