From the site: "As chief prosecutor for Maricopa County, which includes the city of Phoenix, my office prosecutes about 40,000 felonies each year and includes a staff of 300 prosecutors. In June 2005, we surveyed 102 of those attorneys, all of whom had trial experience, and they reported that the CSI effect is no myth: Of the prosecutors we surveyed, 38% believed they had at least one trial that resulted in either an acquittal or hung jury because forensic evidence was not available, even though prosecutors believed the existing testimony was sufficient by itself to sustain a conviction. In about 40% of these prosecutors' cases, jurors have asked questions about evidence like "mitochondrial DNA," "latent prints," "trace evidence," or "ballistics"--even when these terms were not used at trial.
On television, if the CSI people do their job right, the jurors will have little choice but to convict. In real life, the false expectation of plentiful scientific evidence can create a bias in the jury if this issue is not properly addressed at trial. The investigative techniques portrayed on CSI are not always available or even reasonable. Yet almost eight out of ten Maricopa County prosecutors believe that jurors are disappointed in the lack of forensic evidence presented at trial...
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Source: The Yale Law Journal, 1 February 2006
