Character mistake: Seven minutes into the show, Sarah Sidle is about to do an internal sexual assault exam/kit on an unconscious victim in the hospital, Sarah picks up a metal speculum and says aloud to the victim (in a presumed moment of empathy), that she "never really liked this part of my yearly exam. These things are always freezing" referring to the speculum in her hands. She then brings a speculum to her mouth and begins to blow open-mouthed on it two times, forcing her hot breath on it to warm it. She then begins to insert it into the victim as the scene cuts away. This is pure stupidity, as no trained CSI would ever contaminate the tool like this. Sarah just added her own DNA to the speculum via her breath so any saliva or body fluids are now on the speculum what she is about to use on this patient, who is now also exposed to any STDs from Sarah.
Cool Change - S1-E2
Revealing mistake: The male corpse's eye is fluttering as his arm is examined. (00:10:30)
Revealing mistake: The mom on Doc's table quite breathes, and her bottom lip moves slightly during the autopsy.
Continuity mistake: The dead news lady anchor's expression changes between shots from decedent to total shock while Sarah and Russell discuss the case.
Blood Drops - S1-E7
Visible crew/equipment: Near the start there is a visible mic boom just above Grissom's head to the left for a second. (00:03:23)
Other mistake: When Brass is asking if a witness or someone they are speaking with knows the victim, you can see the victim's name on the bottom of the crime scene photo before brass is supposed to know the identity of the victim.
Other mistake: When the kid Billy is recounting the murder scene, he states the killer grabbed a cookie from within the cow cookie jar. When Katherine lifts the lid afterwards, we see bloody fingerprints up inside the top, instead of on the lid. Indicating the killer had to have carelessly reached inside the cookie jar with his fingertips, which would have been impossible.
You Kill Me - S8-E8
Character mistake: While looking at the evidence that was knocked onto the floor, Greg picks up a woman's shoe in his bare hand causing his finger prints to get on it. When investigating a crime, even one in a "whodunit" game, he should have been wearing gloves.
Other mistake: Despite the city-wide outage from the storm, there's quite a visible glow around the house as Sarah and Nick investigate the grounds, that isn't moonlight.
Suggested correction: A personal generator? Or (more likely) a generator from the CSI gear?
Factual error: The CSI doesn't prioritize cases by importance, and have samples from big cases go first like they do on the show. They don't have the lab in house like on the show. It's too expensive. They have to send samples from even the most important cases, to labs where it takes weeks to months to test DNA to keep down costs. They also have to do this to make sure DNA testing is done correctly. DNA has to be tested multiple times because mistakes can be made.
Suggested correction: This entry is half correct and half incorrect. It is true that DNA is not as accurate as the show depicts and no lab would run it one time. However, some CSIs do have a lab "in house" as in some units that's their "office" so to speak. Not true of all of them, but is for some. While law enforcement won't openly admit this; they do put a rush sometimes on high profile cases as they have a reputation to maintain and it won't look good to the public if results aren't coming back quick enough.
Character mistake: Brass tells Dream (pleasure services girl) that whacking 'Happy Morales' with a tire iron - which contributed to his death - is open grounds for assault and murder-1 on her. When it was purely a self-defense act, that any of the girls would have taken against a psychotic, oversexualized maniac, in such sexual assault. Whether it be a tire iron, or other heavy-duty object to dispel a perp.
A Bullet Runs Through It (Part 2) - S6-E8
Revealing mistake: When the dead Cirque de Soleil investor guy (the one that bled out in Super Dave's body bags) is on the exam table, you can see him breathe twice, despite that his stomach and ribs are cut way open for Doc Robbins autopsy.
Cool Change - S1-E2
Deliberate mistake: Willows collects fingernail scrapings from Holly's left hand in the morgue for DNA matching to Holly's shooter. In the flashback, Holly uses her right hand to scratch her assailant while her left-hand remains gloved. (00:32:47 - 00:36:22)
Other mistake: When the CSIs arrive to take in the accident scene from the Pharoah's Fury rollercoaster, the victims are covered in associated wounds and blood, from such a derailing accident. Yet no brain matter seen anywhere. When in a prior take, two of the rail cars had crashed face down into parked cars and pavement. While two other victims were thrown from railcars while in midair.
Revealing mistake: You can see naked fitness guy breathe while he's lying on the morgue table.
Revealing mistake: The dead kids head on the blanket in Death Valley keeps changing position between shots.
Revealing mistake: When Grissom and the Coroner are discussing the short cadaver's injuries you can see the little guy breathe between takes.
Other mistake: The agent uses her remote to unlock her car in the parking garage. But during the closeup manually inserts the key in the lock.
Cool Change - S1-E2
Revealing mistake: Dead Hotel guy's torso moves slightly up and down during his autopsy.
Cool Change - S1-E2
Visible crew/equipment: When Nicky is dragging her ex-boyfriend across the hotel room floor you can see green screens outside of the balcony doors and windows. (00:39:45)
