SCIENCE-RELATED ETHICAL ISSUES PROFESSIONAL CREDENTIALS
A scientist may be called upon to demonstrate personal credentials or qualifications when applying for a job, a promotion, or attracting clients to a business. For forensic scientists, however, additional situations exist where professional credentials are needed. The most important example is when a forensic scientist is being qualified as an expert witness in court. A judge must declare someone to be an expert before they can testify in trial. When an expert witness is challenged or at least questioned about their qualifications as an expert, specific questions may be asked about education, training, number of expert testimonies, for whom they testified, payment, and other relevant questions. The witness is under oath and lying about or misrepresenting one’s qualifications or credentials is perjury. Misrepresenting credentials on the stand does not mean the liar will be caught, but it is a precursor to being caught: Testimony is a public record and transcripts can be reviewed and their accuracy checked. “The internet never forgets” and a few simple clicks on a search engine can reveal much. Misrepresentations of credentials include getting an educational degree (claiming a PhD without having one or claiming a degree was earned from a particular institution when, in fact, it was not), professional licensures, or certifications (falsely claiming certification as a specialist from a certifying body or the improper action of equating having attained actual certification with being “eligible” to be certified), employment history, and data about previous testimonies such as number of testimonies, locations, and areas in which the expert was qualified. Training and continuing education also play a role in professional ethics. Some areas of forensic science, such as fingerprints, firearms, and questioned documents, require long periods of training in order to become an expert. In other areas, such as illicit drug analysis, the training period may be shorter because the formal scientific education is paramount. It can be difficult in some cases to ascertain how long and how rigorous the training is in a particular agency or discipline. There are issues such as how relevant is the training to actual casework, how much learning is there compared to hands on training, who in the laboratory is actually carrying out the training, and how is it determined that the scientist is fully trained and is now competent. It can be difficult to answer these questions. In these cases, the more documentation that the scientist can produce about what was covered and completed in a training program helps establish their credibility. The other component to professional credentials in establishing the expertise of a witness is continuing education. All scientists, forensic, and others have the duty of maintaining currency in their field. They must be aware of the latest techniques and methods, research on limitations and errors in areas of their expertise, new instruments, and other current issues. The importance of staying current in one’s field cannot be overemphasized and it must be a continual process. There are a number of ways that this can be accomplished. One, of course, is to regularly read the litera ture in one’s field, such as journals, textbooks, and reference books. One of the best ways to keep up with what is going on in a scientific field is regular participation in activities that create and enhance awareness of current trends in the discipline, such as trainings, workshops, conferences, webinars, online courses, and others. These types of activities are available in virtually all areas of forensic science.
