Opening the Black Box: Defendants’ Rights to Confront Forensic Software

Forensic software is used in the criminal justice context to make assertions about the presence and nature of DNA, to deploy police resources to certain areas, or to guide bail and sentencing determinations. Software, however, is far from impartial or infallible. The authors explain why law and public policy require disclosure to the public and independent experts of the software source code and other software development records, including training data sets.