Here’s more evidence that fire investigation, as a forensic domain, hasn’t come as far as some might suggest (Go to: [www.philly.com]).

I did not attend this trial but from what I have gathered from following along in the general media and reading the original fire reports and court documents, the government’s expert appears to have testified that there were three, distinct areas of origin found in the living room and adjacent dining room.

Knowing that NFPA 921 correctly defines “multiple fires” as “…two or more separate, nonrelated, simultaneously burning fires” (NFPA 921 (2014), 24.2.1), and goes on to provide examples of multiple fires as “fires in different rooms, fires on different stories with no connecting fire, or separate fires inside and outside a building” (NFPA 921 (2014) 24.2.1.1), it is surprising – and frankly, baffling – how such a conclusion can be made at the Dougherty fire.

(See attached scene-photo with arrows added to illustrate the approximate locations of each of three areas of origin)

Again, this type of testimony –although in sharp conflict with NFPA 921 – is as common as it is disturbing. But because NFPA 921 is viewed by most of the fire investigation community as a simple guide, this form of testimony and the conclusions on which is based is regularly admitted in court.

The difference between this type of testimony and the claptrap leading to the conviction and execution of Todd Willingham is illusory. In both cases the state’s expert witness followed a non-existent standard, applied the unmeasured and, in this case, clearly unreliable methodology of Fire Pattern Analysis, as viewed, measured and interpreted only through the mind of the investigator.

And keep in mind there is no suggestion here that prosecution’s expert was not experienced and well educated in the practice of fire investigation…the problem here, as in most cases of misapplied forensic technique, is not the experience or education of the examiner, but rests in the capacity of the forensic technique to accurately answer the question being asked.

The Dougherty case is a prime example of why modern fire investigation has far more in common with forensic odontology (see: [theintercept.com]) than it does a legitimate forensic discipline, and why the broader forensic science community does not take fire investigation seriously.

That the prosecutor at the Dougherty trial would characterize the defense expert as a whore (“would whore himself out and say anything”) for having the gall to confront the State with a counter narrative which conforms to NFPA 921 and is willing to acknowledge the obvious limitations of analysis based on a fire scene examination, is a different subject entirely.