You mentioned the police and DA thinking it may have been valid at the time. I'm in a completely different sector but I sometimes have to evaluate equipment and software that is supposed to prevent medical errors. I can say that in my industry the amount of BS that is slung to potential buyers by sales representatives is rampant, and oftentimes the product is complete garbage. I can only imagine the people selling whatever it was back when this was considered to be a valid investigative tool probably had the same kind of BS sales tactics and tried to fool them into believing it just so they could make a profit.

Yet another drawback of unregulated capitalism in a sector where there needs to be a lot of scientific oversight and thorough validation due to the chances of inflicting such great harm on a human being whether that's some sort of life altering injury or taking away someone's life by putting them in jail.

And I'll just qualify that by saying this in no way excuses them, but it just kind of struck a chord based on the experiences I've had in a different sector.