There's a growing public perception, fueled by popular television shows, that law enforcement uses a proven arsenal of scientific tools to solve crimes and convict criminals.

But a Lawrence County author, noted for his true-crime books including a definitive work on the Lindbergh baby murder, has shot that idea full of holes. "CSI," he said, is pie in the sky.

Jim Fisher, a law graduate, former FBI agent and retired Edinboro University criminalistics professor, is author of "Forensic Under Fire: Are Bad Science and Dueling Experts Corrupting Criminal Justice?" published by the Rutgers University Press.

In a review published in Science magazine, C. Michael Bowers described the book as "extremely topical, sharply written and well researched" with Mr. Fisher's conclusion that "bad science, misadventures of forensic experts [and] human error" exemplifies "the inability of our 21st century judicial system to properly differentiate between valid research and junk science."

Mr. Fisher is scheduled to speak about his book at 8 p.m. tomorrow as a participant in the New Wilmington Community Days lecture series at Shenango on the Green.

In his book, the longtime critic of the criminal justice system documents common investigative and courtroom tactics that undermine administration of American criminal law. Detailing the history of evidentiary science, Mr. Fisher describes ongoing problems with fingerprint, bite mark and footprint identification; DNA testing; lead analysis of bullets; and even fiber and hair analysis, among other issues.

Methods often depicted as hard science often fall short of that ideal in actual cases and raise the specter of innocent people being jailed and the guilty walking free.

"The CSI effect has also caused jurors to expect crime-lab results far beyond the capacity of forensic science," Mr. Fisher writes in his introduction, noting that problems in forensic fields "have kept scientific crime detection from living up to its full potential."

Mr. Fisher points to a serious shortage of qualified personnel in DNA testing labs and says fingerprint indentification experts often lack proper scientific credentials. That field also lacks standards for what constitutes a match and what level of training and experience qualifies one as an expert.

So-called fingerprint experts often testify that a match has occurred based on too few points of comparison, while overlooking dissimilarities that should rule out a match, he said.

Other cases rely too heavily on fiber and hair analysis, footprints and other areas of forensic pathology that can rarely, if ever, be a precise form of identification. Such methods, he said, should be used only to corroborate other incriminating evidence.

Although changing long-standing practices of law enforcement and criminal courts represents a formidable challenge, the nation could make some costly and difficult but feasible solutions.

Mr. Fisher said the DNA testing backlog as long as two years could be trimmed or eliminated, while errors could be reduced, with more labs and trained technicians.

The nation needs to triple its current number of forensic pathologists, he said. For now, only a handful of doctors go into forensic medicine each year. All but three counties in Pennsylvania, for example, use coroners, who are not required to be physicians, rather than medical examiners.

Crime labs, currently operated by the FBI and police agencies, should be independent of law enforcement so evidence is analyzed objectively, he said. As it stands, labs tend to favor police at the expense of the defendant. "The less the forensic scientist knows about the crime, the better," Mr. Fisher said. "Science is blind to justice."

Daniel Bloser, state police director of the Scientific Services Division, said he had no comment on Mr. Fisher's analysis.

Former Allegheny County Coroner Cyril Wecht said he's thrilled to learn about Mr. Fisher's book and agreed that more pathologists, labs and resources are needed to upgrade the system. "Make the civil and criminal justice systems more scientific and more objective to make them more just," he said. "We should be ashamed of ourselves for not doing this."

Mr. Fisher, whose Web site is www.jimfisher.edinboro.edu, said improvements are necessary before the current state of forensic science can reach the standard of television portrayals.

"My belief based on my research is that forensic science has failed to live up to the promise," he said. "It's not even close."