Wrongful arson Convictions

Wrongful arson Convictions

For many years or even decades, forensic science has been praised for having important contributions to the world of criminal justice.  However, it has also been highly scrutinized for the documented cases where it was used shoddily or incorrectly. Undoubtedly, progress in fire investigation, which is one of the fields of scientific inquiry, is held by the burden of ingrained mythology. Therefore, like the United States of America (USA) and Great Britain, other nations like Qatar have also exonerated many individuals from wrongful arson convictions. According to Bieber (2014), the wrongful arson convictions are classified in two, namely: “no crime” cases and wrong suspect (pg. 32). For that reason, it will be essential to understand and discuss a few flawed of science previously used in arson investigation (arson myths) and guidelines of the NFPA 921 guide.

In the article, Bieber suggested in cases where conclusions are based on Suspicious Burn Pattern, Negative Corpus, Unconfirmed Accelerant Detecting Canines Alert and Unsupported Elimination of Electrical Appliances have indicated a clear violation of the scientific approach (Bieber, pg. 38, 2014). Actually, Bieber claimed that it could because of the cause or origin of the fire is unknown due to unreliable methodologies. If what Bieber suggested is true, then it can be claimed that wrongful arson convictions have led to several cases of injustice in court judiciary systems. Perhaps, to fully grasp how injustice wrongful arson convictions could be, maybe it is important to use one example.

In 2012, seven people were accused of having caused the death of individuals, including 13 children, which took place in Villaggio Mall in Qatar. According to the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre article, the source or the origin of the fire in Villaggio Mall was unknown. Nonetheless, some of the defendants claimed that the fire in the mall was caused by faulty electrical wiring in Nike store. The cause of the fire until today is yet to be identified because of unreliable methodologies used by forensic investigators. Hence, some people have found it difficult to prove or disprove if the prison sentences that the five individual received, in that case, could be one of the instances of injustice due to wrongful arson convictions or not. Moreover, in the article, Bieber gave other few examples of cases that involve wrongful arson convictions. In fact, all examples given by Bieber and the Villaggio Mall example share a common similarity. In both examples, the root cause that led to wrongful arson convictions was cognitive bias and unreliable forensic methodology. Fortunately, policies and guidelines like NFPA 921 guide help forensic scientists to improve outcomes.

According to Bieber (2014), the guidelines of NFPA guide is an essential tool for eliminating errors where conclusions are on Suspicious Burn Pattern, Negative Corpus, Unconfirmed Accelerant Detecting Canines Alert and Unsupported Elimination of Electrical Appliances. Unfortunately, (Authors name), suggested that the guidelines of NFPA guide are not a hundred per cent helpful. When forensic scientists are in cases that involve Accelerant Detecting Canines, the limitations in NFPA 921 will help them recognize the difference between confirmatory and presumptive tests. On the other hand, the NFPA 921 guide will help scientist forensic scientists to minimize cognitive bias and eliminate unreliable forensic methodology by rejecting negative corpus and conducting further researches that correlate with accuracy and reliability of the fire investigator. Also, the NFPA 921 guides will help the fire investigators to come up with valid and specific conclusions that will prevent any wrongful arson convictions.

In a nutshell, the injustices that are caused by wrongful arson convictions can be reduced if the fire investigators continue using the guidelines of the NFPA 921 guide to eliminate the errors that led to cognitive bias and unreliable forensic methodology. Indeed, the AFPA 921 guide is not a hundred per cent helpful but for now, is the option that fire investigators have to reduce injustices caused by wrongful arson convictions.

References

Bieber, P., 2014. Anatomy of Wrongful Arson Conviction: Sentinel Event Analysis in Fire Investigations. In International Symposium on Fire Investigations. Investigations Institute, Florida (USA).

https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/villaggio-mall-lawsuit-re-fatal-fire-qatar