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Forensic science has come to be assigned an important role in contemporary crime fiction. In this article, I analyze the cultural repertoire of forensic science conveyed by the popular television show Crime Scene Investigation (CSI). I argue that CSI science, in delivering an absolute “truth” about how and by whom crimes have been committed, is equated with justice, effectively superseding nonfictional forensic science as well as nonfictional judicature as a whole. Thus, CSI as a cultural performance adds to the mediascape a repertoire of wishful‐thinking science with which to think about perceptions of and desires for crime and justice in nonfictional society. This repertoire seems to be considered relevant enough to nonfictional society to cause concern about the judicial system, as expressed in discussions of the so‐called “CSI effect.”

Forensic evidence, and most prominently DNA evidence, is often understood as particularly reliable and "objective." However, just as other evidence, forensic evidence must be interpreted and thus made meaningful in order to "say" something about a defendant's culpability. This paper discusses how meaning is created from and around forensic evidence: in criminal trials, evidence is placed in legally meaningful narratives that draw upon well-known cultural scripts and categories and that associate (or disassociate) a defendant with legal categories and consequences. The paper will demonstrate that these stories are not only told in court as a means of arguing a case, but are also continuously told and re-shaped during pre-trial investigations, as evidence in a case is assembled and assessed. Consequently, I argue that, in order to understand forensic evidence, it is just as important to pay attention to pretrial investigations as it is to study forensic laboratories and courtroom interactions.