Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Exhibit A’ On Netflix, A Docuseries On How Forensic Evidence Can Be Misinterpreted And Manipulated

When you watch a procedural show —like one of the many CSIs that were on the air, or one of the numerous NCISs on now— forensic evidence is more often than not taken as gospel. Video evidence is enhanced, blood splatter patterns are the key to how and where the perpetrator was, and DNA is foolproof. But, in the real world, a lot of forensic evidence can be misinterpreted, manipulated or both. Exhibit A is a new docuseries that examines how this can happen.

EXHIBIT A: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A forensic investigator walks through an overgrown side yard of a house with his assistant. The two men are going to take a scan of the property in order to help establish the distances covered in a crime scene. We hear the man in voice over talk about how “There is a universal truth. The problem is that we’re all humans and getting to that universal truth isn’t something we’re inherently capable of.”

The Gist: Exhibit A is a docuseries by Kelly Loudenberg, who also created and directed The Confession Tapes; both series examine how commonly-accepted ways of acquiring evidence in criminal cases can be both manipulated and misinterpreted, depending on who’s doing the evidence-gathering. In Confession Tapes, she examined the different psychological methods law enforcement uses to squeeze confessions out of suspects. Exhibit A takes a look at how various forms of forensic evidence can be manipulated to tell the story whoever is examining it wants it to tell.

The first episode is about video evidence via the CCTV cameras that are all over our cities and towns. Interviews with various experts explains why such evidence isn’t always reliable: Video is a series of still pictures strung together. You may miss vital information if it happened between frames, and perspectives can be skewed, depending on the camera’s vantage point.

Each episode shows the flaws in this evidence-gathering method via one particular case. In the video episode, it’s the case of George Powell III, a Killeen, TX hip-hop artist who got sent to prison ten years ago for one of a series of convenience store robberies he was accused of perpetrating. He thinks the cops in Killeen, whose corruption he rapped about in his music, were after him. And, despite video evidence and eyewitness reports that the perpetrator was 5’6″-5’8″, the state was able to get the video forensic scientist we saw in the first scene, Michael Knox, to use software to manipulate the footage enough to put the 6’3″ Powell at the scene. However, we find out that Knox’s methods had no basis in science, leading the state’s forensic science commission to take a closer look.

Our Take: The structure Loudenberg uses in each episode of Exhibit A is similar: An intro about how physical evidence gathering has changed due to new technology and how it can be manipulated gives way to a story where that evidence was used to convict someone who is possibly innocent of committing a particular crime.

It’s a format that’s built to illustrate how evidence is manipulated in a real-world case. But what happens is that the fascinating aspect of the series, where forensic scientists talk about how this type of evidence (blood spatter, cadaver dogs and touch DNA are examined in the other three episodes Netflix sent for preview) isn’t as rock-solid as the public makes it seem, is replaced by a standard-grade true-crime show. Yes, the manipulation of the evidence is introduced back into the story, but Loudenberg often spends too much time setting up the backstory of the person accused of the crime, either to gather sympathy for that person or just to make it more dramatic and less dry.

But in this case, we wanted less drama, more science. It was intriguing that the experts we hear from at the beginning of the episodes, the ones that sound so authoritative, are the ones who are doubted by the end of the episode. But it just takes too long to get there. Luckily, most of the episodes are less than 30 minutes (the video episode is 41 minutes), so the obsession with story doesn’t drag things down too far.

Parting Shot: George Powell raps about how, when he gets out, he’s going to take the thousands of pages of lyrics he’s written in prison about the police and the justice system, record them, and “put it out on the streets.”

Sleeper Star: It’s a tie between Tamara, the prison pen-pal who fell in love with George and brought the holes in Knox’s video forensic evidence to the state, and Elise, the kooky hotel manager that turned George in.

Most Pilot-y Line: That being said, Loudenberg gave a lot of time to Elise, who had an emotional speech about how hard life is in Killeen, and how you’re not always the captain of your own ship. Also, a heavily-tattooed friend of Powell’s is interviewed, providing nothing. All of this could have been easily cut to get to the part where the forensics were called into question.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Exhibit A could have been more about the forensics and less about the story of the cases it examines. But it’s still a fine way to educate yourself on why forensic evidence isn’t always foolproof.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Stream Exhibit A on Netflix