Dr Rhodes has co-authored two chapters in the newly-released Routledge Handbook of Ethics in Forensic Linguistics – 1st Edition with Dr Tina Cambier-Langeveld, from the Netherlands Forensic Institute & Dutch Immigration & Naturalisation Service.

The first chapter is titled ‘The Expert’s Role in the Justice System is to Provide Impartial and Transparent Evidence, Not to Perform Social Advocacy’. We were invited to explore whether forensic experts can act as social advocates in forensic linguistic/phonetic casework – the short answer is ‘no, this isn’t right or transparent, and would jeopardise the independence of the evidence’. We highlight the relevant principles and guidelines which support this position. Here is an extract from the introduction:

Producing expert forensic evidence that is targeted toward helping what the expert perceives to be the “right side” is highly likely to be unethical. The expert must perform their role in the context of the justice system as a whole. To think otherwise is to lose perspective on how social—and certainly legal or criminal—justice works. A fair and functioning justice system is the mechanism by which most societies achieve justice; the expert’s role within that system is to provide objective evidence in a transparent manner. Typically, this objective expertise will be available to all parties in a case. If the expert strays from that role in order to achieve what they perceive to be a “just” outcome, they risk that very purpose.

Following on from this, we explore several more complex ethical issues in forensic linguistics/phonetics casework, using hypothetical case examples based on our experiences in casework. We phrase the following types of questions and discuss potential appropriate responses and casework strategies:

1. To what extent might forensic conclusions be influenced by the a priori expectation that the suspect is indeed the offender? Can high-profile cases lead to the implicit desire to help the prosecution with this case? How do experts protect themselves against being influenced by outside information, the desire to ‘help the system’, or prior or structuralised expectations?
2. How do experts manage the requirement to be balanced with the practical needs of the criminal justice system? How far should experts go in commenting on other forensic analyses?
3. Where do the limits of your expertise begin and end? When should experts recognise the limits of their role? When should the expert highlight relevant observations which fall outside of their remit?
4. How do experts carry out their work in a way which is shielded from external influences? Can this shielding be maintain if the instructions given are partisan? What information should be taken on face value?

An extract from the conclusion:

The case examples discussed in this chapter illustrate how the context in which the forensic expert works has the potential to influence the expert’s approach. Various countermeasures against cognitive bias have been proposed in forensic literature. These are mainly practical and methodological in nature and generally involve forms of context information management aimed at shielding the expert from biasing information (e.g., Dror et al. 2015; Mattijssen et al. 2016). However, where speech evidence is involved, case information cannot always be withheld from the expert, since it is often in the speech signal itself.

Consequently, within forensic speech sciences, the development of additional methodological measures against bias is essential (see Rhodes, Earnshaw, and Nuttall, 2024). At the same time, there is an overarching need for a more open discussion about how to strike a balance between being a socially engaged human being by nature, presumably with a passion for one’s profession, and maintaining a professional and neutral (dispassionate) attitude in the interest of forensic science.

This discussion is critical because general guidance (in the form of a manual or a code of practice) does not always provide the best course of action in a specific situation. The case examples presented in this chapter show a narrow glimpse of the wide variety of ethical issues that forensic linguists may encounter in real life.

To learn more about The Routledge Handbook of Ethics in Forensic Linguistics, visit https://bit.ly/4rdy37C.