[notahacker]

The comments section adds an interesting counterpoint to the Guardian's spin: he was also jailed on the evidence of the victim identifying his photograph, picking him out of an identity parade based on appearance and voice and testifying against him in court.

Whilst DNA evidence has subsequently exonerated him, there were pretty good reasons for the jury at the time to consider the case proven beyond reasonable doubt that didn't involve placing too much faith in dubious "expert witness" testimony about hairs.

[saint_fiasco]

Isn't eye witness testimony even more dubious?

It's possible the jury wouldn't have convicted him on eye witness testimony alone, but the fact that the physical "scientific" evidence agreed made it seem more legitimate.

[rayiner]

Eye witness testimony, especially for cross-racial identification, is very dubious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-race_effect#Cross-race_i...

[fnordfnordfnord]

>The victim had seen her assailant only fleetingly and in the dark, and the composite drawing that had been based on her description – the one that the police officer had thought looked just like him – referred to a black male of “medium complexion” when Odom’s skin is very dark.

[ptaipale]

Interesting that you get downvoted for saying that.

There are good grounds to be somewhat suspicious of forensic evidence; however, my understanding is that technical evidence like this is usually far, far more reliable than e.g. eyewitness statements. Those are horribly unreliable, and experienced investigators (or should we say "investigators") are able to convince their witnesses of having seen things that did not really happen at all.

[notahacker]

Eyewitness statements aren't reliable (hell, I've given an eyewitness description that wasn't that reliable, judging by the reaction of the police officer who had just taken a statement from somebody else), but I'd see it quite hard for a court in a pre-DNA testing era not to have convicted when a reasonably certain and consistent testimony from a rape victim is supported by the supposed forensic experts at the time, especially not if the chief argument for the defence was a weak alibi offered by the accused's mother.

Though since they've had DNA techniques sufficient to overturn the expert witness evidence for rather a long time now it's surprising it took this long to overturn.