Forensic frenzy

February 5, 2003

BY MIKE DANAHEY RED STREAK

With Bill Petersen and his crack crew of crime-solving scientists in Las Vegas and brooding David Caruso catching crooks in Miami, TV crime scene investigators are among the medium's most watched drama show heroes.

From what Skip Palenik has seen of the lot, though, "they would have flunked my microchemical course."

As examples, he noted a recent "CSI: Miami" episode in which an investigator put his gloved hands to his lips and another in which writing chalk was identified as calcium sulfate, when that actually is the material found in wallboard.

Paying attention to the details, after all, is at the foundation of science. Palenik is a master microscopist who has been called on to apply his craft in dozens of high-profile cases. Those include ruling out a second gunman in the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination; the conviction of Wayne Williams in the Atlanta child murders; and helping identify a tunic thought to belong to Hitler as a fake.

He once worked for Walter McCrone, founder of Chicago's McCrone Institute, who deduced the image on the Shroud of Turin was paint, not the sweat of Jesus.

While TV CSIs toil in glamorous places, Palenik runs his own company, Microtrace, out of a brown brick office building across the street from a Jewel-Osco in northwest suburban Elgin. Though it is sterile like the TV versions, "There's no romantic blue lighting. That would make it hard to see samples," says Palenik's assistant, Sarah Walbridge, 27, who has a master's degree in forensics from Michigan State.

Like her boss, Walbridge finds plenty to scoff at in the "CSI" shows. In fact, she says, there is a humorous "Top 10 Things That are Wrong With 'CSI' " list circulating among those in the profession on an Internet listserv. Among those: No one drives a Hummer to a crime scene; there are no former strippers working in crime labs; and you don't get DNA test results back in a half-hour.

Walbridge is amused by the fact the investigators are using equipment most departments, including big city ones, probably can't afford -- especially in light of tight state budgets and resources now stretched to fight terrorism. While the CSI teams on TV are jacks of all trades, Walbridge shows her lab holds a plethora of microscopes, including a room set up so someone can play a sort of scientific version of the playground basketball game "around the world," easily moving from scope to scope.

What the equipment is used for flows from the basic principal of forensic microscopy: Whenever two objects come into contact there is always a transfer of material. As Palenik wrote, the scientist's job is to locate, isolate and identify these traces to "compare them with suspected potential sources and interpret the findings in the light of the details of the case under investigation."

That doesn't include serving as detectives, getting personally involved with questioning suspects and coming up with motives.

"That's not the role of the forensic scientist. Our role is just as circumscribed as everyone else's," Palenik says.

The job, as such, is not solving crimes but answering specific questions.

"Rarely does evidence alone solve crimes," he says.

To that end, he wonders whether such shows might have an averse affect on a viewing public -- members of which might one day be called on to serve as jurors -- giving them a false impression of how science and the justice system work.

There is something ironic about the appeal of the "CSI" shows, says Michael Kackman, assistant professor of media studies at DePaul University. In the real world, Illinois' look at its use of the death penalty has shown deep flaws in the system. At the same time, these programs assure us science can answer our questions.

Of course, the scientist and detective genre has been around at least as long as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes mysteries, written in the 1800s. And though their emphasis on high-tech wizardry might seem new, the shows are variants on several TV staples.

Steve Jajkowski, archivist for Chicago's Museum of Broadcast Communications, says "Dragnet" in the 1960s and "Adam 12" in the early 1970s popularized cop dramas that focused almost exclusively on procedure. "Perry Mason," brought the courtroom drama from radio to TV. From 1976-83 Jack Klugman portrayed "Quincy," the crime-solving coroner. Today, we have "Crossing Jordan," a better-looking Quincy.

The "CSI" shows also can be compared with the successful "Law and Order." With their strict formula and focus on methodology, some have likened that triumvirate to the equally rigid Japanese Kabuki theater. What Kackman does enjoy about the TV show formula is the reconstructions it supposes as the scientific sleuths dig into the cases. Those "make you feel you're part of the the investigations," he says.

"People enjoy seeing how solving crime is done. They want to see each step as it unfolds and enjoy watching the process," says Walter Podrazik, author, with Harry Castleman, of the upcoming Watching TV: Six Decades of American Television and contributor to public radio's "848." In that respect, these shows are like home improvement programs such as "This Old House," or "Trading Spaces." Podrazik notes the fascination with using science and technology in crime-solving was a theme of "MacGyver" in the 1980s and even the 1960-70s spy show "Mission: Impossible."

The "CSI" shows also take cases "ripped from today's headlines" and use them in their fictions. And they share similar plot points: For example, "CSI" investigators recently solved a case in which an air-conditioner was turned up high to disguise a victim's true time of death. Likewise, on "Law and Order," detectives Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Green (Jesse L. Martin) mused the real-time of death for a male victim would be compromised since his windows had been left open, significantly reducing the temperature of the apartment and the body.

Kackman and Podrazik agree another appeal of "CSI" (and "Law and Order") is the episodes are self-contained. With plot driving the action, you don't have to watch them every week to pick up on character nuances and understand the goings-on. It's all quite retro, Kackman says.

There's also fantasy elements to the two "CSIs," Podrazik says. Both are set in exotic locales, known for their vice. Yet, though the crimes sometimes have a sexual element, the shows themselves are pretty sexless.

Kackman says part of the fantasy also is the "absolutist faith in science" and the offering of simple answers to complex problems. With anxiety about the ambiguities of justice in the real world, the programs "encourage us to dismiss social concerns," he says.