Conclusion and Epilogue

Summary

The stature of the medicolegal expert grew in France over the course of the late eighteenth and nineteenth century. Although the trajectories of medicolegal experts in France and in the American adversarial system diverged, both American and French citizens today have relatively high levels of confidence in forensic expertise. This conclusion and epilogue explores the legacy of the rise of forensic medicine in nineteenth-century France, the enduring public interest in forensics, the dangers of the TV-induced “CSI effect,” and changing attitudes towards expertise in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.