Course Reflection

     Over the course of this semester, writing this research paper was never a hassle. There were times when writing was the last thing I wished to do. However, the topic I was writing and researching never failed to interest me with the more that I learned. Forensic sciences and criminal justice have always been my main interests. Though it never started through shows like CSI or Criminal Minds. I was always intrigued with the actual raw footage of real investigations and documentaries, and video clips of courts in session. So know that shows like CSI, Castle, The First 48, etc are arising in pop culture, they started portraying forensics in an inaccurate manner. I have heard many a comment from friends about how cool it is and how they try to sound like experts, while I just whisper in my head, “No, that's wrong.” So just how damaging can this be to real investigations, all in all? That is what I set to find out for myself.

      I knew I wanted my paper to be concerning the criminal justice or forensics fields, since that is the area I am most interested in as well as the fields I am working on to achieve as a career. At first, I asked “With the infectious 'CSI Effect' prevalent in the many fans of popular crime scene investigation shows, how does it affect jurors in real life criminal cases?” My question stayed constant throughout my project, yet I brought in the perspective addressing how the prosecutors are affected by the CSI Effect in the courtroom as well. It is for an audience of mostly young adults and older, old enough to be picked to be on a jury. This paper would be to try to demonstrate how the inaccurate portrayal of something as serious as criminal investigation can actually be harmful in making sure justice is done in the courtroom.

      My research was conducted through textual analysis of past studies I found on the topic and through my own survey posted online for a wide diversity of university students to take based on their own willingness. For my textual analysis, there has been extensive research done on the CSI Effect in general, whether it is a myth or an actual pandemic. There are even statistics on how it has affected real life cases because of what jurors wrongfully believe of court cases. For example, in my paper I mentioned a survey which showed that “people who watched CSI demanded much more physical evidence than non-watchers, which positively correlated with acquittal rates and wrongful convictions.” My survey results, though hypothetical, showed that many people are likely to refer back to crime drama shows that they watch to help them with their decision if they were to ever be on a jury.

      A counterclaim I provided was prosecution misconduct, how it, as I found, “may instead be due to faulty prosecution practices due to law schools not teaching enough criminal law, as well as prosecutors taking advantage of the fact that jurors mostly rely on crime shows for help.” For example, the case I used to demonstrate this was “the bloody underwear from the Miller v. Pate case. The prosecution claimed the underwear was Type A, which matched the defendant, when in reality it was just red paint and the prosecutor was well aware of it.”

      My main issue writing this paper was making sure I had the right citations throughout, as I noticed from my drafts of my literature review after it was turned in and reviewed. Another big issue I had was thinking of my questions to ask for my survey. Since the situation would be hypothetical, I had to make sure the questions fit. I also had to condense the survey in order to be able to post it, so questions like “Of those hours that you watch television a week, how many of them are watching the news?” had to be removed. The consent form was also rendered obsolete since the survey was online for the willing.

      However, I believe my writing improved as I continued to write this paper. By the time I had to write my literature review, I was well practiced in synthesizing sources and did not have to make many drafts. For example, in my section “Juror Expectations in the Courtroom,” the following paragraph is where I believe my synthesizing was best, it is not choppy and each source transitions smoothly with each other as well as with my own words:

      “Jurors schooled on primetime crime drama television shows tend to have unrealistically high expectations in the courtroom during criminal cases, according to research. They believe that forensic labs are “fully staffed with highly trained personnel, stocked with a full complement of state-of-the-art instrumentation and rolling in the resources to close every case in a timely fashion.” (Houck 85) They demand much more physical evidence than is realistically possible because of what they saw on CSI: Miami last night, where everything was found, untouched, right on the crime scene within the hour, and Horatio says something witty as he takes off his sunglasses. Jurors do not realize just how complex and time-consuming the process is, and how little it actually produces in the end. For example, when there is no DNA, the acquittal rate in a jury tends to be higher (Mann 181). In fact, a research survey on a Michigan state court jury, done by Shelton, concluded that people who watched CSI demanded much more physical evidence than non-watchers (332), which positively correlated with acquittal rates and wrongful convictions.”

      Using all of the resources provided, including the student examples and the in-class discussions and peer-reviews, I believe I achieved a very well-thought out, mature research paper that helped me improve my overall writing that I was also able to utilize for a similar research paper in another course this semester.