Does CSI undermine common sense in the jury box?

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Jessica Luton

I'm a graduate student in UGA's Health and Medical Journalism program. Previously, I was a reporter for a small, community newspaper for three years. I write about health and wellness, technology, crime, politics, food and so much more.
Number of posts: 1
Email address: email
Twitter: Twitter

Posts by Jessica Luton:

Guilty or Innocent?

Does CSI undermine common sense in the jury box?

by Jessica Luton | 1, Add your Comment | May 8, 2012

Science says no, but court officers not reassured.

If real-life technology solved crimes as easily as the methods seen on “CSI” and similar TV shows, there’d be a lot more convictions for criminal offenses in the U.S. “CSI,” which Nielson says consistently draws more than 10 million viewers a week, takes fans to a world where forensic investigators obtain damning evidence with lightning speed, using tools and methods that sometimes aren’t actually available.

Read on →

The Straw House I Built

Or rather, helped build. Partially. Last week I attended a straw bale house building workshop in West Virginia. The workshop was hosted by Andrew Morrison of StrawBale.com, who runs similar workshops all over the world where one can go and assist with the building of a bale house and learn all about it to go home and build one's own. He's really great, super knowledgeable, funny, and an excellent teacher. He seemed to be everywhere at once, always available for questions, but never hovering or breathing down anyone's necks. Wait, straw? What kind of crazy person builds a house out of straw? Actually, Read on →

A Sick and Broken Spirit

As it says in my by-line, in the several items I've posted previously on "Like the Dew," I recently ran for Congress. But I am not a politician, nor possessed of a personal ambition to hold public office. I ran, rather, because for the past nine years I have had a message that I regard as so urgent that I've been willing to do whatever I can to spread it far and wide in order to persuade my fellow citizens of its truth and importance. I believe that for the past decade or so America has faced a crisis as pr Read on →

The Power of Music in a Discordant World

When I sat in that old church built in the Gothic style surrounded by the music that the organist was playing, I was thankful to be in such a peaceful setting, far away in body and spirit from the violence that holds so many lives hostage in this world of cruelty and tumult. In a church where people pray for peace, forgiveness and love--all of which seem so lacking in our world--I wonder at times how we manage to reconcile what we wish the world were like and how it actually is. Sitting there in such a calm and safe spot, Read on →

Time to focus on Southern Crescent of Shame

A few years back, Columbia public relations guru Bud Ferillo made a film about several economically distressed counties that he dubbed the “Corridor of Shame.” This area, which stretched along Interstate 95 in South Carolina from Dillon County to Jasper County, got a lot of attention when then-presidential candidate Barack Obama toured an old Dillon middle school in the run-up to the 2008 election. But did you ever wonder whether South Carolina’s Corridor of Shame was an anomaly -- or whether something similar was happening on the other sides of our state borders? Unfortunately, similar conditions continue, extending north to Tidewater Virginia and curving Read on →

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Jessica Luton

Posts by Jessica Luton:

Guilty or Innocent?

Does CSI undermine common sense in the jury box?

Worthy of Comment

Also on the Dew

The Straw House I Built

A Sick and Broken Spirit

The Power of Music in a Discordant World

Time to focus on Southern Crescent of Shame