The big problem is that bullets are soft. When they hit anything solid (like bone) they deform. Bullet matching is fine when the bullet is undamaged, but that generally isn’t the case, unless it missed and hit something soft and non-ablatative.
Trying to match damaged bullets is very unreliable.
Apparently CSI had lawyers on both sides cursing it 20+ years ago (when I did a uni module on forensics). Juries expected concise, absolute results. Instead they get probabilities, maybes, and shades of grey.
The big problem is that bullets are soft. When they hit anything solid (like bone) they deform. Bullet matching is fine when the bullet is undamaged, but that generally isn’t the case, unless it missed and hit something soft and non-ablatative.
Trying to match damaged bullets is very unreliable.
Gasp! American cop apologia media had been lying to me?
Apparently CSI had lawyers on both sides cursing it 20+ years ago (when I did a uni module on forensics). Juries expected concise, absolute results. Instead they get probabilities, maybes, and shades of grey.
I dread to think what it is like now.