In 1956 Dr. Alan Moritz wrote a timeless manuscript entitled “classical mistakes in forensic pathology”. This treatise on the common personal and systemic failings within death investigation is considered by many to be a seminal work within the field, and all medical examiners would benefit by reviewing it annually. This brief manuscript reviews case examples where pathologists fail by substituting intuition for scientifically defensible fact, or by jumping to conclusions based on a limited data set. Without a doubt, forensic pathologists err, but it is when those pathologists refuse to accept or learn from their mistakes that they become a danger to the cause of justice.
