Inclusive Innovations in Forensic Epistemology and Pedagogy: A Proposed Framework

Abstract

Scientific temper in evidence processing using forensic knowledge reposes public faith in justice system. Forensic science is a blend of various disciplines, including art, pure sciences, and humanities, with experiment-oriented scientific validation. Forensics and law are intertwined precepts enabling translational impact on the legal system in pursuit of truth to ensure flawless justice. Worldwide, forensics intensely involves both doctrinal and clinical perspectives, largely converging on scientific theories and laboratory experiments to construe expert opinion, and similar pedagogy must be adopted in India as envisaged under the New Education Policy-2020. 3 In legal parlance, forensic inputs are secondary evidence, but primarily used for corroboration for exploring missing links in the chain of events. Due to multi-disciplinary content knowledge sharing during forensic studies, though fascinating, poses pedagogical challenges. Globally, imparting significance of procedural law, the backbone of forensic evidence, is largely missing from forensic education. Expert opinion is contested in courtrooms on ground of admissibility in terms of reliability and validity including protection of chain of custody necessary to avoid manipulation or tampering of samples which is prime root cause for miscarriage of justice. This article deliberates upon an entwined framework of epistemology and pedagogy for imparting holistic understanding of law and science in forensic education. We propose three verticals for forensic pedagogy: (i) crime scene management for scientific handling of articles and traces; (ii) laboratory experimentation and forensic report writing and (ii) translating expert opinion into legal evidence and its presentation during the court proceedings.