Forensic science grew out of police laboratories. Terms like "Sperm Fraction", "Match", "Absence of Evidence", "Can Not Exclude" and "Defense Hypothesis" are misused and can lead to wrongful convictions. The presentation will show examples of wrongful convictions and discuss solutions implemented by some forensic laboratories. The presenter has worked on more than 3 dozen DNA exonerations and will show examples of misleading testimony, undocumented forensic laboratory findings, incorrect mixture analysis, and great variance in statistical measures from the same underlying data. The exonerations covered include Christopher Tapp, Amanda Knox, Charles Fain, and Kerry Robinson.

Dr. Greg Hampikian is professor of Biology and Criminal Justice at Boise State University (BSU), Director of the Forensic Justice Project and Co-Director of the Idaho Innocence Project (IIP) at BSU. He also directs the BSU Wastewater Epidemiology Lab (BSUWEL), and lectures at the University of Idaho College of Law. His casework has been featured in Science, on the BBC, CNN and Dateline. His book Exit to Freedom with exoneree Calvin Johnson Jr., chronicles Mr. Jonson’s 17-year fight to prove his innocence using DNA. Hampikian has helped establish innocence organizations in Armenia, France, and Ireland, and served as a DNA expert in more than 3 dozen exonerations including Amanda Knox (Italy), Freddie Lawrence and Paul Jenkins (with Montana Innocence Project), Kerry Robinson (with the Georgia Innocence Project), and Christopher Tapp and Charles Fain in Idaho. In both Idaho cases, his lab worked with police to identify new DNA genealogy matches that led to arrests, decades after the crimes. His New York Times Op-eds, include "The Dangers of DNA Testing", "When May I Shoot a Student?", and “Men Who Needs Them?" In addition to forensics his lab currently works on COVID-19, HIV, cancer, and has pioneered the study of absent sequences in nature called Nullomers.