CSI effect
a presumed phenomenon in which popular television crime shows are thought to raise jurors’ expectations about forensic science and influence their verdicts if the evidence they hear at trial does not meet those expectations. This effect, according to observations from attorneys, judges, and journalists, is manifested as jurors tending to believe they understand the manner in which investigators collect, analyze, and interpret crime scene evidence; to insist on large amounts of often highly technical evidence in determining defendant guilt; and to overvalue the conclusiveness of DNA testing—that is, to have forensic presumptions of the sort that are the stock and trade of popular crime dramas on television. Despite the amount of media attention devoted to the CSI effect, preliminary research on its existence has produced mixed results. [coined from CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, the name of a popular U.S. forensics-based television program that
began in 2000, as well as its spin-offs]