Popular television crime dramas, with their super-sleuth forensics teams and equipment so cutting-edge it borders on science fiction, have left us with an odd picture of what forensic pathologists do. In the name of plot convenience and ratings, show runners have given us worlds in which good-looking medical examiners obtain results almost instantly, deriving volumes of detailed information from minuscule, improbably preserved clues.
The phenomenon has become so pronounced that some decry a trend of unrealistic evidentiary expectations among jurors, dubbing it the “CSI Effect.” It’s time to set the record straight and find out…