In case you missed, it, a federal judge this week issued summary judgment against Dr. Henry Lee, finding that he provided false testimony in a 30+ year old Connecticut murder case, which led to the wrongful conviction and decades long imprisonment of two young men. Summary judgment means a jury will not be asked to decide whether Dr. Lee lied; they will be told that he did and asked to put a dollar value on the damage his lie caused. In the world of true crime, this is an astonishing development.

There’s no denying that modern forensic science, particularly DNA testing, has been somewhat of a miracle in crime solving, in cold cases and new. It’s supremely satisfying to see the perpetrators of horrific murders finally held to account for their wickedness and the destruction they caused. The Golden State Killer is perhaps the most famous of these in recent years, and the identification just last week of the Long Island Serial Killer, or LISK, put an end to yet another reign of terror. But a tool as powerful and persuasive as evidence like DNA also has the potential to be quite problematic.

Any lawyer who practices criminal law can attest to the so-called “CSI Effect.” This refers to the tendency of a jury to place all of their faith in forensic evidence such as DNA, with their expectations set from years of watching murders neatly solved by lab geeks on TV crime shows. When a real-life prosecutor fails to present fingerprints or DNA, some juries hesitate to convict; conversely, the presence of such evidence, no matter what other explanations may exist for its presence. can also sway a jury to a potentially undue guilty verdict. It has become the end-all, be-all of modern criminal justice; after all, DNA doesn’t lie.