By Karen Lotter
“The CSI Effect is real, and it’s profound,” says jury consultant Robert Hirschhorn, who also says he purposely selected jurors familiar with CSI and forensics-type shows for the Durst trial in Galveston Texas in September 2004.
In the Durst trial despite plenty of non-forensic evidence, prosecutors couldn’t convince a jury that real-estate millionaire Robert Durst had murdered his friend and neighbor, Morris Black, even though Durst admitted inadvertently killing him. The problem was that Black’s head couldn’t be found. The head, the defense argued, contained key evidence that Durst had acted in self-defense.
Jury consultant for the defense, Robert Hirschhorn sought out jurors who were familiar with shows such as CBS’s CSI: Crime Scene Investigation to spot the importance of precisely such a gap in the evidence. That wasn’t difficult: In a survey of the 500 people in the jury pool, the defense found that about 70% were viewers of CBS’s CSI or similar shows such as Court TV’s Forensic Files or NBC’s Law & Order.
Read the rest Investigating The CSI Effect: Is Society Placing too High Expectations on Forensic Science ?.
