Essay Forensic Science: From the Crime Scene to the Crime Lab

You are on a team of crime scene investigators. Your team was instructed to collect the physical evidence at a crime scene. Arriving at the crime scene your team observes the following:

Shell casings
Three sets of footprints (two muddy sets and one bloody set) throughout the house
Bloody fingerprints
Tire tracks by the side entrance of the house
Write a 1,050- to 2,100-word paper in Microsoft Word format that includes the following:

Identify the various types of physical evidence encountered at the crime scene.
Describe the preservation and collection of the firearms evidence.
Describe the legal issues regarding physical evidence encountered at the crime scene.
Identify the significance of physical evidence.
Format your paper consistent with APA guidelines with two authoritative references. All paraphrased and quoted material must be referenced.

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1 Introduction

Joe Burbank/MCT/Newscom

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After studying this chapter, you should be able to:

• Define forensic science and list the major disciplines forensic science encompasses.

• Recognize the major contributors to the development of forensic science.

• Account for the rapid growth of forensic laboratories in the past forty years.

• Describe the services of a typical comprehensive crime laboratory in the criminal

justice system.

• Compare and contrast the Frye and Daubert decisions relating to the admissibility of

scientific evidence in the courtroom.

• Explain the role and responsibilities of the expert witness.

• List the specialized forensic services, aside from the crime laboratory, that are

generally available to law enforcement personnel.

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CASEY ANTHONY: THE CSI EFFECT?

Few criminal proceedings have captured the attention of the American public or have

invoked stronger emotions than the Casey Anthony murder trial. How could a defendant

who failed to report her two-year-old child missing for 31 days walk away scot-free from a

murder conviction? This case had all the makings of a strong circumstantial case for the

state.

The state’s theory was that Casey used chloroform to render her daughter unconscious,

placed duct tape over Caylee’s mouth and nose, and kept the body in the trunk for several

days before disposing of it. Caylee’s decomposed remains were discovered more than five

months after she was reported missing.

Have TV forensic dramas created an environment in the courtroom that necessitates the

existence of physical evidence to directly link a defendant to a crime scene? The closest the

state came to a direct link was a hair found in the trunk of Casey’s car. However, the DNA

test on the hair could only link the hair to Caylee’s maternal relatives: Casey, Casey’s mother

(Caylee’s maternal grandmother), and Casey’s brother (Caylee’s uncle). And Caylee herself.

No unique characteristics were found to link the duct tape on the body with that found in

the Anthony home.

No DNA, no fingerprints, no conviction.

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Definition and Scope of Forensic Science

Forensic science, in its broadest definition, is the application of science to law. As our society

has grown more complex, it has become more dependent on rules of law to regulate the

activities of its members. Forensic science applies the knowledge and technology of science

to the definition and enforcement of such laws.

Each year, as government finds it increasingly necessary to regulate the activities that most

intimately influence our daily lives, science merges more closely with civil and criminal

law. Consider, for example, the laws and agencies that regulate the quality of our food, the

nature and potency of drugs, the extent of automobile emissions, the kind of fuel oil we

burn, the purity of our drinking water, and the pesticides we use on our crops and plants. It

would be difficult to conceive of a food or drug regulation or environmental protection act

that could be effectively monitored and enforced without the assistance of scientific

technology and the skill of the scientific community.

Laws are continually being broadened and revised to counter the alarming increase in

crime rates. In response to public concern, law enforcement agencies have expanded their

patrol and investigative functions, hoping to stem the rising tide of crime. At the same time,

they are looking more to the scientific community for advice and technical support for their

efforts. Can the technology that put astronauts on the moon, split the atom, and eradicated

most dreaded diseases be enlisted in this critical battle?

Unfortunately, science cannot offer final and authoritative solutions to problems that stem

from a maze of social and psychological factors. However, as the content of this book attests,

science occupies an important and unique role in the criminal justice system—a role that

relates to the scientist’s ability to supply accurate and objective information about the

events that have occurred at a crime scene. A good deal of work remains to be done if the

full potential of science as applied to criminal investigations is to be realized.

Because of the vast array of civil and criminal laws that regulate society, forensic science, in

its broadest sense, has become so comprehensive a subject that a meaningful introductory

textbook treating its role and techniques would difficult to create and probably

overwhelming to read. For this reason, we have narrowed the scope of the subject

according to the most common definition: Forensic science is the application of science to

the criminal and civil laws that are enforced by police agencies in a criminal justice system.

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Forensic science is an umbrella term encompassing a myriad of professions that use their

skills to aid law enforcement officials in conducting their investigations.

The diversity of professions practicing forensic science is illustrated by the eleven sections

of the American Academy of Forensic Science, the largest forensic science organization in

the world:

1. Criminalistics

2. Digital and Multimedia Sciences

3. Engineering Science

4. General

5. Jurisprudence

6. Odontology

7. Pathology/Biology

8. Physical Anthropology

9. Psychiatry/Behavioral Science

10. Questioned Documents

11. Toxicology

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Even this list of professions is not exclusive. It does not encompass skills such as fingerprint

examination, firearm and tool mark examination, computer and digital data analysis, and

photography.

Obviously, to author a book covering all of the major activities of forensic science as they

apply to the enforcement of criminal and civil laws by police agencies would be a major

undertaking. Thus, this book will further restrict itself to discussions of the subjects of

chemistry, biology, physics, geology, and computer technology, which are useful for

determining the evidential value of crime-scene and related evidence. Forensic pathology,

psychology, anthropology, and odontology also encompass important and relevant areas of

knowledge and practice in law enforcement, each being an integral part of the total forensic

science service that is provided to any up-to-date criminal justice system. However, these

subjects go beyond the intended scope of this book, and except for brief discussions, along

with pointing the reader to relevent websites, the reader is referred elsewhere for

discussions of their applications and techniques. Instead, this book focuses on the services

of what has popularly become known as the crime laboratory, where the principles and

techniques of the physical and natural sciences are practiced and applied to the analysis of

crime-scene evidence.

For many, the term criminalistics seems more descriptive than forensic science for

describing the services of a crime laboratory. Regardless of his or her title—criminalist or

forensic scientist—the trend of events has made the scientist in the crime laboratory an

active participant in the criminal justice system.

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FIGURE 1-1 A scene from CSI, a forensic science television show.

SUN/Newscom

Prime-time television shows like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation have greatly increased the

public’s awareness of the use of science in criminal and civil investigations (see Figure 1-1).

However, by simplifying scientific procedures to fit the allotted airtime, these shows have

created within both the public and the legal community unrealistic expectations of forensic

science. In these shows, members of the CSI team collect evidence at the crime scene,

process all evidence, question witnesses, interrogate suspects, carry out search warrants,

and testify in court. In the real world, these tasks are almost always

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delegated to different people in different parts of the criminal justice system. Procedures

that in reality could take days, weeks, months, or years appear on these shows to take mere

minutes. This false image is significantly responsible for the public’s high interest in and

expectations for DNA evidence.

The dramatization of forensic science on television has led the public to believe that every

crime scene will yield forensic evidence, and it produces unrealistic expectations that a

prosecutor’s case should always be bolstered and supported by forensic evidence. This

phenomenon is known as the “CSI effect.” Some jurists have come to believe that this

phenomenon ultimately detracts from the search for truth and justice in the courtroom.

History and Development of Forensic Science

Forensic science owes its origins, first, to the individuals who developed the principles and

techniques needed to identify or compare physical evidence and, second, to those who

recognized the need to merge these principles into a coherent discipline that could be

practically applied to a criminal justice system.

The roots of forensic science reach back many centuries, and history records a number of

instances in which individuals closely observed evidence and applied basic scientific

principles to solve crimes. Not until relatively recently, however, did forensic science take

on the more careful and systematic approach that characterizes the modern discipline.

EARLY DEVELOPMENTS

One of the earliest records of applying forensics to solve criminal cases comes from third-

century China. A manuscript titled Yi Yu Ji (“A Collection of Criminal Cases”) reports how a

coroner solved a case in which a woman was suspected of murdering her husband and

burning the body, claiming that he died in an accidental fire. Noticing that the husband’s

corpse had no ashes in its mouth, the coroner performed an experiment to test the woman’s

story. He burned two pigs—one alive and one dead—and then checked for ashes inside the

mouth of each. He found ashes in the mouth of the pig that was alive before it was burned,

but none in the mouth of the pig that was dead beforehand. The coroner thus concluded

that the husband, too, was dead before his body was burned. Confronted with this evidence,

the woman admitted her guilt. The Chinese were also among the first to recognize the

potential of fingerprints as a means of identification.

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Although cases such as that of the Chinese coroner are noteworthy, this kind of scientific

approach to criminal investigation was for many years the exception rather than the rule.

Limited knowledge of anatomy and pathology hampered the development of forensic

science until the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. For example, the first

recorded notes about fingerprint characteristics were prepared in 1686 by Marcello

Malpighi, a professor of anatomy at the University of Bologna in Italy. Malpighi, however,

did not acknowledge the value of fingerprints as a method of identification. The first

scientific paper about the nature of fingerprints did not appear until more than a century

later, but it also did not recognize their potential as a form of identification.

INITIAL SCIENTIFIC ADVANCES

As physicians gained a greater understanding of the workings of the body, the first scientific

treatises on forensic science began to appear, such as the 1798 work “A Treatise on Forensic

Medicine and Public Health” by the French physician

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François-Emanuel Fodéré. Breakthroughs in chemistry at this time also helped forensic

science take significant strides forward. In 1775, the Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele

devised the first successful test for detecting the poison arsenic in corpses. By 1806, the

German chemist Valentin Ross had discovered a more precise method for detecting small

amounts of arsenic in the walls of a victim’s stomach. The most significant early figure in

this area was Mathieu Orfila, a Spaniard who is considered the father of forensic toxicology.

In 1814, Orfila published the first scientific treatise on the detection of poisons and their

effects on animals. This treatise established forensic toxicology as a legitimate scientific

endeavor (see Figure 1-2).

The mid-1800s saw a spate of advances in several scientific disciplines that furthered the

field of forensic science. In 1828, William Nichol invented the polarizing microscope. Eleven

years later, Henri-Louis Bayard formulated the first procedures for microscopic detection of

sperm. Other developments during this time included the first microcrystalline test for

hemoglobin (1853) and the first presumptive test for blood (1863). Such tests soon found

practical applications in criminal trials. Toxicological evidence at trial was first used in

1839, when a Scottish chemist named James Marsh testified that he had detected arsenic in

a victim’s body. During the 1850s and 1860s, the new science of photography was also used

in forensics to record images of prisoners and crime scenes.

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FIGURE 1-2 Mathieu Orfila.

The Granga Collection, New York

LATE-NINETEENTH-CENTURY PROGRESS

By the late nineteenth century, public officials were beginning to apply knowledge from

virtually all scientific disciplines to the study of crime. Anthropology and morphology (the

study of the structure of living organisms) were applied to the first system of personal

identification, devised by the French scientist Alphonse Bertillon in 1879. Bertillon’s system,

which he dubbed anthropometry, was a procedure that involved taking a series of bodily

measurements as a means of distinguishing one individual from another. For nearly two

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decades, this system was considered the most accurate method of personal identification.

Bertillon’s early efforts earned him the distinction of being known as the father of criminal

identification (see Figure 1-3).

Bertillon’s anthropometry, however, would soon be supplanted by a more reliable method

of identification: fingerprinting. Two years before the publication of Bertillon’s system, the

US microscopist Thomas Taylor had suggested that fingerprints could be used as a means of

identification, but his ideas were not immediately followed up. Three years later, the

Scottish physician Henry Faulds made a similar assertion in a paper published in the

journal Nature. However, it was the Englishman Francis Henry Galton who undertook the

first definitive study of fingerprints and developed a methodology of classifying them for

filing. In 1892, Galton published a book titled Finger Prints, which contained the first

statistical proof supporting the uniqueness of fingerprints and the effectiveness of his

method. His book went on to describe the basic principles that would form our present

system of identification by fingerprints.

The first treatise describing the application of scientific disciplines to the field of criminal

investigation was written by Hans Gross in 1893. Gross, a public prosecutor and judge in

Graz, Austria, spent many years studying and developing principles of criminal

investigation. In his classic book Handbuch für Untersuchungsrichter als System der

Kriminalistik (later published in English under the title Criminal Investigation), he detailed

the assistance that investigators could expect from the fields of microscopy, chemistry,

physics, mineralogy, zoology, botany, anthropometry, and fingerprinting. He later

introduced the forensic journal Archiv für Kriminal Anthropologie und Kriminalistik, which

still reports improved methods of scientific crime detection.

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FIGURE 1-3 Bertillon’s system of bodily measurements used for the identification of an individual.

Courtesy Sirchie Fingerprint Laboratories, Inc., Youngsville, NC, www.sirchie.com

http://www.sirchie.com/

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Ironically, the best-known figure in nineteenth-century forensics is not a real person but a

fictional character: the legendary detective Sherlock Holmes (see Figure 1-4). Many people

today believe that Holmes’s creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, had a considerable influence

on popularizing scientific crime-detection methods. In adventures with his partner and

biographer, Dr. John Watson, Holmes was the first to apply the newly developing principles

of serology (the study of blood and bodily fluids), fingerprinting, firearms identification, and

questioned-document examination long before their value was recognized and accepted by

real-life criminal investigators. Holmes’s feats excited the imagination of an emerging

generation of forensic scientists and criminal investigators. Even in the first Sherlock

Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, published in 1887, we find examples of Doyle’s uncanny

ability to describe scientific methods of detection years before they were actually

discovered and implemented. For instance, here Holmes explains the potential usefulness of

forensic serology to criminal investigation:

“I’ve found it. I’ve found it,” he shouted to my companion, running toward us with a test

tube in his hand. “I have found a reagent which is precipitated by hemoglobin and by

nothing else …. Why, man, it is the most practical medico-legal discovery for years.

Don’t you see that it gives us an infallible test for blood stains? … The old guaiacum test

was very clumsy and uncertain. So is the microscopic examination for blood corpuscles.

The latter is valueless if the stains are a few hours old. Now, this appears to act as well

whether the blood is old or new. Had this test been invented, there are hundreds of men

now walking the earth who would long ago have paid the penalty of their crimes ….

Criminal cases are continually hinging upon that one point. A man is suspected of a

crime months perhaps after it has been committed. His linen or clothes are examined

and brownish stains discovered upon them. Are they blood stains, or rust stains, or fruit

stains, or what are they? That is a question which has puzzled many an expert, and

why? Because there was no reliable test. Now we have the Sherlock Holmes test, and

there will no longer be any difficulty.”

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FIGURE 1-4 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary detective Sherlock Holmes applied many of the principles of modern forensic science long before they

were adopted widely by real-life police.

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TWENTIETH-CENTURY BREAKTHROUGHS

The pace of technological change quickened considerably in the twentieth century, and with

it the rate of advancements in forensic science. In 1901, Dr. Karl Landsteiner discovered

that blood can be grouped into different categories, now recognized as the blood types A, B,

AB, and O. The possibility that blood grouping could be useful in identifying an individual

intrigued Dr. Leone Lattes,

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a professor at the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the University of Turin in Italy. In 1915,

Lattes devised a relatively simple procedure for determining the blood group of the dried

blood in a bloodstain, a technique that he immediately applied to criminal investigations.

At around the same time, Albert S. Osborn was conducting pioneering work in document

examination. In 1910, Osborn wrote the first significant text in this field, Questioned

Documents. This book is still a primary reference for document examiners. Osborn’s

development of fundamental principles of document examination was responsible for the

acceptance of documents as scientific evidence by the courts.

One of the most important contributors to the field in the early twentieth century was the

Frenchman Edmond Locard. Although Hans Gross was a pioneering advocate for the use of

the scientific method in criminal investigations, Locard first demonstrated how the

principles enunciated by Gross could be incorporated within a workable crime laboratory.

Locard’s formal education was in both medicine and law. In 1910, he persuaded the Lyons

police department to give him two attic rooms and two assistants to start a police

laboratory. During Locard’s first years of work, the instruments available to him were a

microscope and a rudimentary spectrometer. However, his enthusiasm quickly overcame

the technical and budgetary deficiencies he encountered, and from these modest

beginnings, Locard conducted research and made discoveries that became known

throughout the world by forensic scientists and criminal investigators. Eventually he

became the founder and director of the Institute of Criminalistics at the University of Lyons,

which quickly developed into a leading international center for study and research in

forensic science (see Figure 1-5).

Locard asserted that when two objects come into contact with each other a cross-transfer of

materials occurs (Locard’s exchange principle). He strongly believed that every criminal can

be connected to a crime by dust particles carried from the crime scene. This concept was

reinforced by a series of successful and well-publicized investigations. In one case,

presented with counterfeit coins and the names of three suspects, Locard urged the police to

bring the suspects’ clothing to his laboratory. On careful examination, he located small

metallic particles in all the garments. Chemical analysis revealed that the particles and

coins were composed of exactly the same metallic elements. Confronted with this evidence,

the suspects were arrested and soon confessed to the crime. After World War I, Locard’s

successes inspired the formation of police laboratories in Vienna, Berlin, Sweden, Finland,

and Holland.

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Locard’s exchange principle

Whenever two objects come into contact with one another, materials are exchanged

between them.

The microscope came into widespread use in forensic science during the twentieth century,

and its applications grew dramatically. Perhaps the leading figure in the field of microscopy

was Dr. Walter C. McCrone. During his lifetime, McCrone became the world’s preeminent

microscopist. Through his books, journal publications, and research institute, he was a

tireless advocate for applying microscopy to analytical problems, particularly forensic

science cases. McCrone’s exceptional communication skills made him a much-sought-after

instructor, and he educated thousands of forensic scientists throughout the world in the

application of microscopic techniques. Dr. McCrone used microscopy, often in conjunction

with other analytical methodologies, to examine evidence in thousands of criminal and civil

cases throughout his long and illustrious career.

Another trailblazer in forensic applications of microscopy was U.S. Army Colonel Calvin

Goddard, who refined the techniques of firearms examination by using the comparison

microscope. Goddard’s work allows investigators to determine whether a particular gun has

fired a bullet by comparing the bullet with another that is test-fired from the suspect’s

weapon. His expertise established the comparison microscope as the indispensable tool of

the modern firearms examiner.

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FIGURE 1-5 Edmond Locard.

Collection of Roger-Viollet, The Image Works

MODERN SCIENTIFIC ADVANCES

Since the mid-twentieth century, a revolution in computer technology has made possible a

quantum leap forward in human knowledge. The resulting explosion of scientific advances

has had a dramatic impact on the field of forensic science by introducing a wide array of

sophisticated techniques for analyzing evidence related to a crime. Procedures such as

chromatography, spectrophotometry, and electrophoresis (all discussed in later chapters)

allow the modern forensic scientist to determine with astounding accuracy the identity of a

substance and to connect even tiny fragments of evidence to a particular person and place.

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Undoubtedly the most significant modern advance in forensic science has been the

discovery and refinement of DNA typing in the late twentieth and early twenty-first

centuries. Sir Alec Jeffreys developed the first DNA profiling test in 1984, and two years later

he applied it for the first time to solve a crime, identifying Colin Pitchfork as the murderer

of two young English girls. The same case also marked the first time DNA profiling

established the innocence of a criminal suspect. Made possible by scientific breakthroughs

in the 1950s and 1960s, DNA typing offers law enforcement officials a powerful tool for

establishing the precise identity of a suspect, even when only a small amount of physical

evidence is available. Combined with the modern analytical tools mentioned earlier, DNA

typing has revolutionized the practice of forensic science (see Figure 1-6).

Another significant recent development in forensics is the establishment of computerized

databases to store information on physical evidence such as

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fingerprints, markings on bullets and shell casings, and DNA. These databases have proved

to be invaluable, enabling law enforcement officials to compare evidence found at crime

scenes to thousands of pieces of similar information. This has significantly reduced the time

required to analyze evidence and increased the accuracy of the work done by police and

forensic investigators.

FIGURE 1-6 Sir Alec Jeffreys.

Homer Sykes/Alamy Images Royalty Free

Although this brief narrative is by no means a complete summary of historical advances in

forensics, it provides an idea of the progress that has been made in the field by dedicated

scientists and law enforcement personnel. Even Sherlock Holmes probably couldn’t have

imagined the extent to which science is applied in the service of criminal investigation

today.

Quick Review

• Forensic science is the application of science to criminal and civil laws that are

enforced by police agencies in a criminal justice system.

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• The first system of personal identification was called anthropometry. It distinguished

one individual from another based on a series of bodily measurements.

• Forensic science owes its origins to individuals such as Bertillon, Galton, Lattes,

Goddard, Osborn, and Locard, who developed the principles and techniques needed to

identify and compare physical evidence.

• Locard’s exchange principle states that, when two objects come into contact with each

other, a cross-transfer of materials occurs that can connect a criminal suspect to his or

her victim.

Crime Laboratories

The steady advance of forensic science technologies during the twentieth century led to the

establishment of the first facilities specifically dedicated to forensic analysis of criminal

evidence. These crime laboratories are now the centers for both forensic investigation of

ongoing criminal cases and research into new techniques and procedures to aid

investigators in the future.

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HISTORY OF CRIME LABS IN THE UNITED STATES

The oldest forensic laboratory in the United States is that of the Los Angeles Police

Department, created in 1923 by August Vollmer, a police chief from Berkeley, California. In

the 1930s, Vollmer headed the first U.S. university institute for criminology and

criminalistics at the University of California at Berkeley. However, this institute lacked any

official status in the university until 1948, when a school of criminology was formed. The

famous criminalist Paul Kirk was selected to head the school’s criminalistics department.

Many graduates of this school have gone on to develop forensic laboratories in other parts

of the state and country.

In 1932, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), under the directorship of J. Edgar Hoover,

organized a national laboratory that offered forensic services to all law enforcement

agencies in the country. During its formative stages, Hoover consulted extensively with

business executives, manufacturers, and scientists, whose knowledge and experience

guided the new facility through its infancy. The FBI Laboratory is now the world’s largest

forensic laboratory, performing more than one million examinations every year (see Figure

1-7). Its accomplishments have earned it worldwide recognition, and its structure and

organization have served as a model for forensic laboratories formed at the state and local

levels in the United States as well as in other countries. Furthermore, the opening of the

FBI’s Forensic Science Research and Training Center in 1981 gave the United States, for the

first time, a facility dedicated to conducting research toward new and reliable scientific

methods that can be applied to forensic science. This facility is also used to train crime

laboratory personnel in the latest forensic science techniques and methods.

Despite the existence of the FBI Laboratory, the United States has no national system of

forensic laboratories. Instead, many local law enforcement jurisdictions—city, county, and

state—each operate their own independent crime labs. California, for example, has

numerous federal, state, county, and city crime laboratories, many of which operate

independently. However, in 1972 the California Department of Justice created a network of

integrated state-operated crime laboratories consisting of regional and satellite facilities. An

informal exchange of information and expertise occurs within California’s criminalist

community through a regional professional society, the California Association of

Criminalists. This organization is the forerunner of a number of regional organizations that

have developed throughout the United States to foster cooperation among the nation’s

growing community of criminalists.

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FIGURE 1-7 (a) Exterior and (b) interior views of the FBI crime laboratory in Quantico, Virginia.

Charles Dharapak/AP Wide World Photos

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ORGANIZATION OF A CRIME LABORATORY

The development of crime laboratories in the United States has been characterized by rapid

growth accompanied by an unfortunate lack of national and regional planning and

coordination. Approximately four hundred public crime laboratories operate at various

levels of government—federal, state, county, and municipal. The size and diversity of crime

laboratories make it impossible to select any one model that best describes a typical crime

laboratory. Although most of these facilities function as part of a police department, others

operate under the direction of the prosecutor’s or district attorney’s office, and some work

with the laboratories of the medical examiner or coroner. Far fewer are affiliated with

universities or exist as independent agencies in government. Laboratory staff sizes range

from one person to more than one hundred, and services offered may be quite diverse or

very specialized, depending on the responsibilities of the agency that houses the laboratory.

THE GROWTH OF CRIME LABORATORIES

Most existing crime laboratories have been organized by agencies that either foresaw their

potential application to criminal investigations or were pressed by the increasing demands

of casework. Several reasons explain the unparalleled growth of crime laboratories during

the past forty years: Supreme Court decisions in the 1960s compelled police to place greater

emphasis on securing scientifically evaluated evidence. The requirement to advise criminal

suspects of their constitutional rights and their right of immediate access to counsel has all

but eliminated confessions as a routine investigative tool; successful prosecution of criminal

cases requires a thorough and professional police investigation, frequently incorporating

the skills of forensic science experts. Modern technology has provided forensic scientists

with many new skills and techniques to meet the challenges accompanying their increased

participation in the criminal justice system.

Coinciding with changing judicial requirements has been the staggering increase in crime

rates in the United States over the past forty years. Although it seems that this factor alone

could account for the increased use of crime laboratory services by police agencies, only a

small percentage of police investigations generate evidence requiring scientific

examination. There is one important exception, however: drug-related arrests. All illicit-

drug seizures must be sent to a forensic laboratory for confirmatory chemical analysis

before the case can be adjudicated. Since the mid-1960s, drug abuse has accelerated to

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nearly uncontrollable levels and has resulted in crime laboratories being inundated with

drug specimens.

A more recent contributor to the growth and maturation of crime laboratories has been the

advent of DNA profiling. Since the early 1990s, this technology has progressed to the point

of individualization or near-individualization of biological evidence. That is, traces of blood,

semen stains, hair, and saliva residues left behind on stamps, cups, bite marks, and so on,

can be positively linked to a criminal. To meet the demands of DNA technology, crime labs

have expanded staff and in many cases modernized their physical plants. The labor-

intensive demands and sophisticated requirements of DNA technology have affected the

structure of the forensic laboratory as has no other technology in the past fifty years.

Likewise, DNA profiling has become the dominant factor in the general public’s perception

of the workings and capabilities of the modern crime laboratory.

In coming years thousands of forensic scientists will be added to the rolls of both public and

private forensic laboratories to process crime-scene evidence for DNA and to acquire DNA

profiles, as mandated by state laws, from

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the hundreds of thousands of individuals convicted of crimes. This endeavor has already

added many new scientists to the field and will eventually more than double the number of

scientists employed by forensic laboratories in the United States. A major problem facing

the forensic DNA community is the substantial backlog of unanalyzed DNA samples from

crime scenes. The number of unanalyzed casework DNA samples reported by state and

national agencies varies from month to month but is estimated at around 100,000. In an

attempt to eliminate the backlog of convicted offender or arrestee samples to be analyzed

and entered into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), the federal government has

initiated funding for in-house analysis of samples at the crime laboratory and outsourcing

samples to private laboratories for analysis.

Beginning in 2008, California began collecting DNA samples from all people arrested on

suspicion of a felony, not just the eventual convict. The state’s database, with approximately

one million DNA profiles, is already the third largest in the world, behind those maintained

by the United Kingdom and the FBI. The federal government plans to begin following

California’s policy.

CRIME LABORATORIES IN THE UNITED STATES

Historically, our federal system of government, combined with a desire to retain local

control, has produced a variety of independent laboratories in the United States, precluding

the creation of a national system. Crime laboratories to a large extent mirror the

fragmented law enforcement structure that exists on the national, state, and local levels.

The federal government has no single law enforcement or investigative agency with

unlimited jurisdiction.

Four major federal crime laboratories have been created to help investigate and enforce

criminal laws that extend beyond the jurisdictional boundaries of state and local forces. The

FBI (Department of Justice) maintains the largest crime laboratory in the world. An

ultramodern facility housing the FBI’s forensic science services is located in Quantico,

Virginia. Its expertise and technology support its broad investigative powers. The Drug

Enforcement Administration laboratories (Department of Justice) analyze drugs seized in

violation of federal laws regulating the production, sale, and transportation of drugs. The

laboratories of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (Department of

Justice) analyze alcoholic beverages and documents relating to alcohol and firearm excise-

tax enforcement and examine weapons, explosive devices, and related evidence to enforce

the Gun Control Act of 1968 and the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970. The U.S. Postal

Inspection Service maintains laboratories concerned with criminal investigations relating to

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the postal service. Each of these federal facilities offers its expertise to any local agency that

requests assistance in relevant investigative matters.

Most state governments maintain a crime laboratory to service state and local law

enforcement agencies that do not have ready access to a laboratory. Some states, such as

Alabama, California, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, Texas, Washington, Oregon, Virginia,

and Florida, have developed a comprehensive statewide system of regional or satellite

laboratories. These operate under the direction of a central facility and provide forensic

services to most areas of the state. Having a regional laboratory that operates as part of a

statewide system has increased the accessibility of many local law enforcement agencies to

a crime laboratory, while minimizing duplication of services and ensuring maximum

interlaboratory cooperation through the sharing of expertise and equipment.

Local laboratories provide services to county and municipal agencies. Generally, these

facilities operate independent of the state crime laboratory and are financed directly by

local government. However, as costs have risen, some counties have combined resources

and created multicounty laboratories to service their jurisdictions. Many of the larger cities

in the United States

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maintain their own crime laboratories, usually under the direction of the local police

department. Frequently, a large population and high crime rates combine to make a

municipal facility, such as that of New York City, the largest crime laboratory in the state.

CRIME LABORATORIES ABROAD

Like the United States, most countries in the world have created and now maintain forensic

facilities. In contrast to the U.S. system of independent local laboratories, Great Britain has

developed a national system of regional laboratories under the direction of the

government’s Home Office. England and Wales are serviced by regional laboratories,

including the Metropolitan Police Laboratory (established in 1935), which services London.

Recently, the British government announced plans to either privatize or sell off its

government-operated forensic laboratories. In the early 1990s, the British Home Office

reorganized the country’s forensic laboratories into the Forensic Science Service and

instituted a system in which police agencies are charged a fee for services rendered by the

laboratory. The fees are based on “products,” or a set of examinations that are designed to

be suitable for particular types of physical evidence and are packaged together. The fee-for-

service concept has encouraged the creation of a number of private laboratories that

provide services to both police and criminal defense attorneys. LGC is the largest privately

owned provider of forensic science services in the UK. With a staff of over 500, LGC delivers

forensic services at eight laboratories in the UK. It is expected that under the planned

government reorganization of state forensic laboratories, the bulk of forensic services in

England and Wales will be carried out by private laboratories such as LGC.

In Canada, forensic services are provided by three government-funded institutes: (1) Royal

Canadian Mounted Police regional laboratories, (2) the Centre of Forensic Sciences in

Toronto, and (3) the Institute of Legal Medicine and Police Science in Montreal. Altogether,

more than one hundred countries throughout the world have at least one laboratory facility

offering forensic science services.

SERVICES OF THE CRIME LABORATORY

Bearing in mind the independent development of crime laboratories in the United States,

the wide variation in the services offered to different communities is not surprising. There

are many reasons for this, including (1) variations in local laws, (2) the different capabilities

and functions of the organization to which a laboratory is attached, and (3) budgetary and

staffing limitations.

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In recent years, many local crime laboratories have been created solely to process drug

specimens. Often these facilities were staffed with few personnel and operated under

limited budgets. Although many have expanded their forensic services, some still primarily

perform drug analyses. Among crime laboratories providing services beyond drug

identification, the diversity and quality of services rendered varies significantly. The

following forensic science units might be found in a “full-service” crime laboratory.

BASIC SERVICES PROVIDED BY FULL-SERVICE CRIME LABORATORIES

PHYSICAL SCIENCE UNIT

The physical science unit applies principles and techniques of chemistry, physics, and

geology to the identification and comparison of crime-scene evidence. It is staffed by

criminalists who have the expertise to use chemical tests and modern analytical

instrumentation to examine items as diverse as drugs, glass, paint, explosives, and soil. In a

laboratory that has a staff large enough to permit specialization, the responsibilities

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of this unit may be further subdivided into drug identification, soil and mineral analyses,

and examination of a variety of trace physical evidence.

BIOLOGY UNIT

The biology unit is staffed with biologists and biochemists who identify and perform DNA

profiling on bloodstains and other dried body fluids, compare hairs and fibers, and identify

and compare botanical materials such as wood and plants (see Figure 1-8).

FIREARMS UNIT

The firearms unit examines firearms, discharged bullets, cartridge cases, shotgun shells,

and ammunition of all types. Garments and other objects are also examined to detect

firearm discharge residues and to approximate how far from a target a weapon was fired.

The basic principles of firearms examination are also applied to comparing marks made by

tools (see Figure 1-9).

DOCUMENT EXAMINATION UNIT

The document examination unit studies the handwriting and typewriting on documents in

question to ascertain their authenticity and/or source. Related responsibilities include

analyzing paper and ink and examining indented writings (i.e., the partially visible

depressions that appear on the sheet of paper that was underneath the one that was written

on), obliterations, erasures, and burned or charred documents.

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FIGURE 1-8 A forensic scientist performing DNA analysis.

Mauro Fermariello/SPL/Photo Researchers, Inc.

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FIGURE 1-9 A forensic analyst examining a firearm.

mediacolors/Alamy Images

PHOTOGRAPHY UNIT

A complete photographic laboratory examines and records physical evidence. Its

procedures may require the use of highly specialized photographic techniques, such as

digital imaging and infrared, ultraviolet,

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and X-ray photography, to make invisible information visible to the naked eye. This unit also

prepares photographic exhibits for courtroom presentation.

OPTIONAL SERVICES PROVIDED BY FULL-SERVICE CRIME LABORATORIES

TOXICOLOGY UNIT

The toxicology group examines body fluids and organs to determine the presence or

absence of drugs and poisons. Frequently, such functions are shared with or may be the sole

responsibility of a separate laboratory facility placed under the direction of the medical

examiner’s or coroner’s office. In most jurisdictions, field instruments such as the

Intoxilyzer are used to determine how much alcohol an individual has consumed. Often the

toxicology unit also trains operators of these instruments and maintains and services them.

LATENT FINGERPRINT UNIT

The latent fingerprint unit processes and examines evidence for latent fingerprints when

they are submitted in conjunction with other laboratory examinations.

POLYGRAPH UNIT

The polygraph, or lie detector, has become an essential tool of the criminal investigator

rather than the forensic scientist. However, during the formative years of polygraph

technology, many police agencies incorporated this unit into the laboratory’s administrative

structure, where it sometimes remains today. In any case, its functions are handled by

people trained in the techniques of criminal investigation and interrogation (see Figure 1-

10).

VOICEPRINT ANALYSIS UNIT

In cases involving telephoned threats or tape-recorded messages, investigators may require

the skills of the voiceprint analysis unit to tie the voice to a particular suspect. To this end, a

good deal of casework has been performed with the sound spectrograph, an instrument that

transforms speech into a visual graphic display called a voiceprint. The validity of this

technique as a means of personal identification rests on the premise that the sound patterns

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produced in speech are unique to the individual and that the voiceprint displays this

uniqueness.

FIGURE 1-10 An individual undergoing a polygraph test.

Courtesy Woodfin Camp & Associates Sandy Schaeffer/Mai/Mai/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

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CRIME-SCENE INVESTIGATION UNIT

The concept of incorporating crime-scene evidence collection into the services forensic

laboratories offer is slowly gaining ground in the United States. This unit dispatches

specially trained personnel (civilian and/or police) to the crime scene to collect and preserve

physical evidence that will be processed at the crime laboratory.

Whatever the organizational structure of a forensic science laboratory may be,

specialization must not impede the overall coordination of services demanded by today’s

criminal investigator. Laboratory administrators need to keep open the lines of

communication between analysts (civilian and uniformed), crime-scene investigators, and

police personnel. Inevitably, forensic investigations require the skills of many individuals.

One notoriously high-profile investigation illustrates this process: the search for the source

of the anthrax letters mailed shortly after September 11, 2001. Figure 1-11 shows one of the

letters and illustrates the multitude of skills required in the investigation—skills possessed

by forensic chemists and biologists, fingerprint examiners, and forensic document

examiners.

MyCrimeKit WebExtra 1.1

Take a Virtual Tour of a Forensic Laboratory

www.mycrimekit.com

OTHER FORENSIC SCIENCE SERVICES

Even though this textbook is devoted to describing the services normally provided by a

crime laboratory, the field of forensic science is by no means limited to the areas covered in

this book. A number of specialized forensic science services outside the crime laboratory

are routinely available to law enforcement personnel. These services are important aids to a

criminal investigation and require the involvement of individuals who have highly

specialized skills.

Three specialized forensic services—forensic pathology, forensic anthropology, and forensic

entomology—are frequently employed at a murder scene and will be discussed at greater

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length when we examine crime-scene procedures in Chapter 6. Other services, such as those

discussed next, are used in a wide variety of criminal investigations.

FORENSIC PSYCHIATRY

Forensic psychiatry is a specialized area that examines the relationship between human

behavior and legal proceedings. Forensic psychiatrists are retained for both civil and

criminal litigations. In civil cases, they typically perform tasks such as determining whether

an individual is competent to make decisions about preparing a will, settling property, or

refusing medical treatment. In criminal cases, forensic psychologists evaluate behavioral

disorders and determine whether defendants are competent to stand trial. Forensic

psychiatrists also examine behavior patterns of criminals as an aid in developing a suspect’s

behavioral profile.

FORENSIC ODONTOLOGY

Practitioners of forensic odontology help identify victims based on dental evidence when

the body is in an unrecognizable state. Teeth are composed of enamel, the hardest

substance in the body. Because of enamel’s resilience, the teeth outlast tissues and organs

during decomposition. The characteristics of teeth, their alignment, and the overall

structure of the mouth provide individual evidence for identifying a specific person. Based

on dental records such as X-rays and dental casts, even a photograph of the person’s smile, a

set of dental remains can be matched to a suspected victim. Another application of forensic

odontology to criminal investigations is bite mark analysis. Bite marks are sometimes left

on a victim of assault. A forensic odontologist can compare the marks left on a victim to the

tooth structure of the suspect (see Figure 1-12).

FORENSIC ENGINEERING

Forensic engineers are concerned with failure analysis, accident reconstruction, and causes

and origins of fires and explosions. Forensic engineers answer questions such as these: How

did an accident or structural failure occur? Were the parties involved responsible? If so,

how were they responsible? Accident scenes are examined, photographs are reviewed, and

any mechanical objects involved are inspected.

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FIGURE 1-11 An envelope containing anthrax spores along with an anonymous letter was sent to the office of Senator Tom Daschle shortly after the terrorist

attacks of September 11, 2001. A variety of forensic skills were used to examine the envelope and letter. Also, bar codes placed on the front and back of the

envelope by mail-sorting machines contain address information and information about where the envelope was first processed.

Getty Images, Inc.—Getty News

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FIGURE 1-12 (a) A bite mark on a victim’s body. (b) Comparison to a suspect’s teeth.

David Sweet, DMD, PhD, DABFP, Director BOLD Forensic Laboratory, Vancouver, BC, Canada

FORENSIC COMPUTER AND DIGITAL ANALYSIS

Forensic computer science is a new and fast-growing field that involves identifying,

collecting, preserving, and examining information derived from computers and other

digital devices, such as cell phones. Law enforcement aspects of this work normally involve

recovering deleted or overwritten data from a computer’s hard drive and tracking hacking

activities within a compromised system. The field of forensic computer analysis will be

addressed in detail in Chapter 18.

Quick Review

• The development of crime laboratories in the United States has been characterized by

rapid growth accompanied by a lack of national and regional planning and

coordination.

• Four major reasons for the increase in the number of crime laboratories in the United

States since the 1960s are as follows: (1) The requirement to advise criminal suspects of

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their constitutional rights and their right of immediate access to counsel has all but

eliminated confessions as a routine investigative tool. (2) There has been a staggering

increase in crime rates in the United States. (3) All illicit-drug seizures must be sent to a

forensic laboratory for confirmatory chemical analysis before the case can be

adjudicated in court. (4) DNA profiling was developed and is now often required.

• The technical support provided by crime laboratories can be assigned to five basic

services: the physical science unit, the biology unit, the firearms unit, the document

examination unit, and the photography unit.

• Some crime laboratories offer optional services such as toxicology, fingerprint analysis,

polygraph administration, voiceprint analysis, and crime-scene investigation.

• Special forensic science services available to the law enforcement community include

forensic pathology, forensic anthropology, forensic entomology, forensic psychiatry,

forensic odontology, forensic engineering, and forensic computer and digital analysis.

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Functions of the Forensic Scientist

Although a forensic scientist relies primarily on scientific knowledge and skill, only half of

the job is performed in the laboratory. The other half takes place in the courtroom, where

the ultimate significance of the evidence is determined. The forensic scientist must not only

analyze physical evidence but also persuade a jury to accept the conclusions derived from

that analysis.

ANALYZING PHYSICAL EVIDENCE

First and foremost, the forensic scientist must be skilled in applying the principles and

techniques of the physical and natural sciences to analyze the many types of physical

evidence that may be recovered during a criminal investigation. Of the three major avenues

available to police investigators for assistance in solving a crime—confessions, eyewitness

accounts by victims or witnesses, and the evaluation of physical evidence retrieved from the

crime scene—only physical evidence is free of inherent error or bias.

Criminal cases are replete with examples of individuals who were incorrectly charged with

and convicted of committing a crime because of faulty memories or lapses in judgment. For

example, investigators may be led astray during their preliminary evaluation of the events

and circumstances surrounding the commission of a crime. These errors might be

compounded by misleading eyewitness statements and inappropriate confessions. These

same concerns don’t apply to physical evidence.

What about physical evidence allows investigators to sort out facts as they are and not as

they want them to be? The hallmark of physical evidence is that it must undergo scientific

inquiry. Science derives its integrity from adherence to strict guidelines that ensure the

careful and systematic collection, organization, and analysis of information—a process

known as the scientific method. The underlying principles of the scientific method provide a

safety net to ensure that the outcome of an investigation is not tainted by human emotion or

compromised by distorting, belittling, or ignoring contrary evidence.

scientific method

A process that uses strict guidelines to ensure careful and systematic collection,

organization, and analysis of information.

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The scientific method begins by formulating a question worthy of investigation, such as who

committed a particular crime. The investigator next formulates a hypothesis, a reasonable

explanation proposed to answer the question. What follows is the basic foundation of

scientific inquiry: the testing of the hypothesis through experimentation. The testing process

must be thorough and recognized by other scientists as valid. Scientists and investigators

must accept the experimental findings even when they wish they were different. Finally,

when the hypothesis is validated by experimentation, it becomes suitable as scientific

evidence, appropriate for use in a criminal investigation and, ultimately, available for

admission in a court of law.

DETERMINING ADMISSIBILITY OF EVIDENCE

In rejecting the scientific validity of the lie detector (polygraph), the District of Columbia

Circuit Court in 1923 set forth what has since become a standard guideline for determining

the judicial admissibility of scientific examinations. In Frye v. United States, the court ruled

that, in order to be admitted as evidence at trial, the questioned procedure, technique, or

principles must be “generally accepted” by a meaningful segment of the relevant scientific

community. In practice, this approach requires the proponent of a scientific test to present

to the court a collection of experts who can testify that the scientific issue before the court is

generally accepted by the relevant members of the scientific community. Furthermore, in

determining whether a novel technique meets criteria associated with “general acceptance,”

courts have frequently taken note of books and papers written on the subject, as well as

prior judicial decisions relating to the reliability and general acceptance of the technique. In

recent years many observers have questioned whether this

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approach is flexible enough to deal with new scientific issues that may not have gained

widespread support within the scientific community.

The Federal Rules of Evidence offer an alternative to the Frye standard, one that some

courts believe espouses a more flexible guideline for admitting scientific evidence. Part of

the Federal Rules of Evidence governs the admissibility of all evidence, including expert

testimony, in federal courts, and many states have adopted codes similar to those of the

Federal Rules. Specifically, Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence sets a different

standard from “general acceptance” for admissibility of expert testimony. Under this

standard, a witness “qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or

education” may offer expert testimony on a scientific or technical matter if “(1) the

testimony is based on sufficient facts or data, (2) the testimony is the product of reliable

principles and methods, and (3) the witness has applied the principles and methods reliably

to the facts of the case.”

In a landmark ruling in the 1993 case of Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the

U.S. Supreme Court (see Figure 1-13) asserted that “general acceptance,” or the Frye

standard, is not an absolute prerequisite to the admissibility of scientific evidence under the

Federal Rules of Evidence. According to the Court, the Rules of Evidence—especially Rule

702—assign to the trial judge the task of ensuring that an expert’s testimony rests on a

reliable foundation and is relevant to the case. Although this ruling applies only to federal

courts, many state courts are expected to use this decision as a guideline in setting

standards for the admissibility of scientific evidence.

JUDGING SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE

In Daubert, the Court advocates that trial judges assume the ultimate responsibility for

acting as a “gatekeeper” who determines the admissibility and reliability of scientific

evidence presented in their courts. The Court offered some guidelines as to how a judge can

gauge the veracity of scientific evidence, emphasizing that the inquiry should be flexible.

Suggested areas of inquiry include the following:

1. Whether the scientific technique or theory can be (and has been) tested

2. Whether the technique or theory has been subject to peer review and publication

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FIGURE 1-13 A sketch of a U.S. Supreme Court hearing.

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3. The technique’s potential rate of error

4. The existence and maintenance of standards controlling the technique’s operation

5. Whether the scientific theory or method has attracted widespread acceptance within a

relevant scientific community

Some legal experts have expressed concern that abandoning Frye’s general-acceptance test

will result in the introduction of absurd and irrational pseudoscientific claims in the

courtroom. The Supreme Court rejected these concerns, pointing out the inherent strengths

of the US judicial process in identifying unreliable evidence:

In this regard the respondent seems to us to be overly pessimistic about the capabilities

of the jury and of the adversary system generally. Vigorous cross-examination,

presentation of contrary evidence, and careful instruction on the burden of proof are

the traditional and appropriate means of attacking shaky but admissible evidence.

In a 1999 decision, Kumho Tire Co., Ltd. v. Carmichael, the Court unanimously ruled that

the “gatekeeping” role of the trial judge applied not only to scientific testimony but to all

expert testimony:

We conclude that Daubert’s general holding—setting forth the trial judge’s general

“gatekeeping” obligation—applies not only to testimony based on “scientific”

knowledge, but also to testimony based on “technical” and “other specialized”

knowledge …. We also conclude that a trial court may consider one or more of the more

specific factors that Daubert mentioned when doing so will help determine that

testimony’s reliability. But, as the Court stated in Daubert, the test of reliability is

“flexible,” and Daubert’s list of specific factors neither necessarily nor exclusively

applies to all experts in every case.

The case of Coppolino v. State (examined more closely in the Case Files feature on page 23)

exemplifies the flexibility and wide discretion that the Daubert ruling, twenty-five years

later, apparently gave to trial judges in matters of scientific inquiry. The issue in question

was whether the results of a new procedure that has not been widely accepted in the

scientific community are necessarily inadmissible as evidence. The court rejected this

argument, recognizing that researchers must devise new scientific tests to solve the special

problems that continually arise in the forensic laboratory.

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The Coppolino ruling acknowledged that even well-established scientific procedures were

once new and unproved and noted the court’s duty to protect the public when weighing the

admissibility of a new test. In the words of the concurring opinion, “Society need not

tolerate homicide until there develops a body of medical literature about some particular

lethal agent.” The court emphasized, however, that although these tests may be new and

unique, they are admissible only if they are based on scientifically valid principles and

techniques.

PROVIDING EXPERT TESTIMONY

Because the results of their work may be a factor in determining a person’s ultimate guilt or

innocence, forensic scientists may be required to testify about their methods and

conclusions at a trial or hearing.

Trial courts have broad discretion in accepting an individual as an expert witness on any

particular subject. Generally, if a witness can establish to the satisfaction of a trial judge that

he or she possesses a particular skill or has knowledge in a trade or profession that will aid

the court in determining the truth of the matter at issue, that individual will be accepted as

an expert witness. Depending on the subject area in question, the court will usually

consider knowledge acquired

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through experience, training, education, or a combination of these as sufficient grounds for

qualification as an expert witness.

expert witness

An individual whom the court determines to possess knowledge relevant to the trial that is

not expected of the average layperson.

CASE FILES DR. COPPOLINO’S DEADLY HOUSE CALLS

A frantic late-night telephone call brought a local physician to the Florida home of Drs. Carl

and Carmela Coppolino. The physician arrived to find Carmela beyond help. Carmela

Coppolino’s body, unexamined by anyone, was then buried in her family’s plot in her home

state of New Jersey.

A little more than a month later, Carl married a moneyed socialite, Mary Gibson. News of

Carl’s marriage infuriated Marjorie Farber, a former New Jersey neighbor of Dr. Coppolino

who had been a having an affair with the good doctor. Soon Marjorie had an interesting

story to recount to investigators: Her husband’s death two years before, although ruled to

be from natural causes, had actually been murder! Carl, an anesthesiologist, had given

Marjorie a syringe containing some medication and told her to inject her husband, William,

while he was sleeping. Ultimately, Marjorie claimed, she was unable to inject the full dose

and called Carl, who finished the job by suffocating William with a pillow.

Marjorie Farber’s astonishing story was supported in part by Carl’s having recently

increased his wife’s life insurance. Carmela’s $65,000 policy, along with his new wife’s

fortune, would keep Dr. Coppolino in high society for the rest of his life. Based on this

information, authorities in New Jersey and Florida obtained exhumation orders for both

William Farber and Carmela Coppolino. After both bodies were examined, Dr. Coppolino

was charged with the murders of William and Carmela.

Officials decided to try Dr. Coppolino first in New Jersey for the murder of William Farber.

The Farber autopsy did not reveal any evidence of poisoning but seemed to show strong

evidence of strangulation. The absence of toxicological findings left the jury to deliberate

the conflicting medical expert testimony versus the sensational story told by a scorned and

embittered woman. In the end, Dr. Coppolino was acquitted.

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The Florida trial presented another chance to bring Carl Coppolino to justice. Recalling Dr.

Coppolino’s career as an anesthesiologist, the prosecution theorized that to commit these

murders Coppolino had exploited his access to the many potent drugs used during surgery,

specifically an injectable paralytic agent called succinylcholine chloride.

Carmela’s body was exhumed, and it was found that Carmela had been injected in her left

buttock shortly before her death. Ultimately, a completely novel procedure for detecting

succinylcholine chloride was devised. With this procedure elevated levels of succinic acid

were found in Carmela’s brain, which proved that she had received a large dose of the

paralytic drug shortly before her death. This evidence, along with evidence of the same

drug residues in the injection site on her buttock, was presented in the Florida murder trial

of Carl Coppolino, who was convicted of second-degree murder.

In court, an expert witness may be asked questions intended to demonstrate his or her

ability and competence pertaining to the matter at hand. Competency may be established by

having the witness cite educational degrees, participation in special courses, membership in

professional societies, and any professional articles or books published. Also important is

the number of years of occupational experience the witness has had in areas related to the

matter before the court.

Unfortunately, few schools confer degrees in forensic science. Most chemists, biologists,

geologists, and physicists prepare themselves for careers in forensic science by combining

training under an experienced examiner with independent study. Of course, formal

education in the physical sciences provides a firm foundation for learning and

understanding the principles and techniques of forensic science. Nevertheless, for the most

part, courts must rely on training and years of experience as a measurement of the

knowledge and ability of the expert.

Before the judge rules on the witness’s qualifications, the opposing attorney may cross-

examine the witness and point out weaknesses in training and knowledge. Most courts are

reluctant to disqualify an individual as an expert even when presented with someone

whose background is only remotely associated with the issue at hand. The question of what

credentials are suitable for qualification as an expert is ambiguous and highly subjective

and one that the courts wisely try to avoid.

The weight that a judge or jury assigns to “expert” testimony in subsequent deliberations is,

however, quite another matter. Undoubtedly, education and

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experience have considerable bearing on what value should be assigned to the expert’s

opinions. Just as important may be his or her demeanor and ability to explain scientific data

and conclusions clearly, concisely, and logically to a judge and jury composed of

nonscientists. The problem of sorting out the strengths and weaknesses of expert testimony

falls to prosecution and defense counsel.

The ordinary or lay witness must testify on events or observations that arise from personal

knowledge. This testimony must be factual and, with few exceptions, cannot contain the

personal opinions of the witness. On the other hand, the expert witness is called on to

evaluate evidence when the court lacks the expertise to do so. This expert then expresses an

opinion as to the significance of the findings. The views expressed are accepted only as

representing the expert’s opinion and may later be accepted or ignored in jury deliberations

(see Figure 1-14).

The expert cannot render any view with absolute certainty. At best, he or she may only be

able to offer an opinion based on a reasonable scientific certainty derived from training and

experience. Obviously, the expert is expected to defend vigorously the techniques and

conclusions of the analysis, but at the same time he or she must not be reluctant to discuss

impartially any findings that could minimize the significance of the analysis. The forensic

scientist should not be an advocate of one party’s cause but an advocate of truth only. An

adversary system of justice must give the prosecutor and defense ample opportunity to

offer expert opinions and to argue the merits of such testimony. Ultimately, the duty of the

judge or jury is to weigh the pros and cons of all the information presented when deciding

guilt or innocence.

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FIGURE 1-14 An expert witness testifying in court.

Taylor Jones/ZUMA Press/Newscom

The necessity for the forensic scientist to appear in court has been imposed on the criminal

justice system by a 2009 U.S. Supreme Court case, Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts. The

Melendez-Diaz decision addressed the practice of using evidence affidavits or laboratory

certificates in lieu of in-person testimony by forensic analysts. In its reasoning, the Court

relied on a previous ruling, Crawford v. Washington where it explored the meaning of the

Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. In the Crawford case, a recorded statement

by a spouse was used against her husband in his prosecution. Crawford argued that this was

a violation of his right to confront witnesses against him under the Sixth Amendment, and

the Court agreed. Using

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the same logic in Melendez-Diaz, the Court reasoned that introducing forensic science

evidence via an affidavit or a certificate denied a defendant the opportunity to cross-

examine the analyst. In 2011, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the Melendez-Diaz decision in

the case of Bullcoming v. New Mexico by rejecting a substitute expert witness in lieu of the

original analyst:

The question presented is whether the Confrontation Clause permits the prosecution to

introduce a forensic laboratory report containing a testimonial certification—made for

the purpose of proving a particular fact—through the in-court testimony of a scientist

who did not sign the certification or perform or observe the test reported in the

certification. We hold that surrogate testimony of that order does not meet the

constitutional requirement. The accused’s right is to be confronted with the analyst who

made the certification, unless that analyst is unavailable at trial, and the accused had an

opportunity, pretrial, to cross-examine that particular scientist.

MyCrimeKit WebExtra 1.2

Watch a Forensic Expert Witness Testify—I

www.mycrimekit.com

MyCrimeKit WebExtra 1.3

Watch a Forensic Expert Witness Testify—II

www.mycrimekit.com

FURNISHING TRAINING IN THE PROPER RECOGNITION, COLLECTION, AND PRESERVATION OF PHYSICAL EVIDENCE

The competence of a laboratory staff and the sophistication of its analytical equipment have

little or no value if relevant evidence cannot be properly recognized, collected, and

preserved at the site of a crime. For this reason, the forensic staff must have responsibilities

that will influence the conduct of the crime-scene investigation.

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The most direct and effective response to this problem has been to dispatch specially

trained evidence-collection technicians to the crime scene. A growing number of crime

laboratories and the police agencies they service keep trained “evidence technicians” on 24-

hour call to help criminal investigators retrieve evidence. These technicians are trained by

the laboratory staff to recognize and gather pertinent physical evidence at the crime scene.

They are assigned to the laboratory full-time for continued exposure to forensic techniques

and procedures. They have at their disposal all the proper tools and supplies for proper

collection and packaging of evidence for future scientific examination.

Unfortunately, many police forces still have not adopted this approach. Often a patrol

officer or detective collects the evidence. The individual’s effectiveness in this role depends

on the extent of his or her training and working relationship with the laboratory. For

maximum use of the skills of the crime laboratory, training of the crime-scene investigator

must go beyond superficial classroom lectures to involve extensive personal contact with

the forensic scientist. Each must become aware of the other’s problems, techniques, and

limitations.

The training of police officers in evidence collection and their familiarization with the

capabilities of a crime laboratory should not be restricted to a select group of personnel on

the force. Every officer engaged in fieldwork, whether it be traffic, patrol, investigation, or

juvenile control, often must process evidence for laboratory examination. Obviously, it

would be difficult and time consuming to give everyone the in-depth training and attention

that a qualified criminal investigator requires. However, familiarity with crime laboratory

services and capabilities can be gained through periodic lectures, laboratory tours, and

dissemination of manuals prepared by the laboratory staff that outline the proper methods

for collecting and submitting physical evidence to the laboratory (see Figure 1-15).

A brief outline describing the proper collection and packaging of common types of physical

evidence is found in Appendix I. The procedures and information summarized in this

appendix are discussed in greater detail in forthcoming chapters.

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FIGURE 1-15 Representative evidence-collection guides prepared by various governmental agencies.

Quick Review

• A forensic scientist must be skilled in applying the principles and techniques of the

physical and natural sciences to analyzing evidence that may be recovered during a

criminal investigation.

• The cases Frye v. United States and Daubert! v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. set

guidelines for determining the admissibility of scientific evidence into the courtroom.

• An expert witness evaluates evidence based on specialized training and experience.

• Forensic scientists participate in training law enforcement personnel in the proper

recognition, collection, and preservation of physical evidence.

EXPLORING FORENSIC SCIENCE ON THE INTERNET

There are no limits to the amount or type of information that can be found on the Internet.

The fields of law enforcement and forensic science have not been left behind by advancing

computer technology. Extensive information about forensic science is available on the

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Internet. The types of information available on websites range from simple explanations of

the various fields of forensics to intricate details of crime-scene reconstruction. People can

also find information on which colleges offer degree programs in forensics and webpages

posted by law enforcement agencies that detail their activities as well as employment

opportunities.

GENERAL FORENSICS SITES

Reddy’s Forensic Home Page (www.forensicpage.com) is a valuable starting point. This site

is a collection of forensic webpages in categories such as new links in forensics; general

forensic information sources; associations, colleges,

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and societies; literature and journals; forensic laboratories; general webpages; forensic-

related mailing lists and newsgroups; universities; conferences; and various forensic fields

of expertise.

Another website offering a multitude of information related to forensic science is Zeno’s

Forensic Site (www.forensic.to/forensic.html). Here users can find links related to forensic

education and expert consultation, as well as a wealth of information concerning specific

fields of forensic science.

A comprehensive and useful website for those interested in law enforcement is Officer.com

(www.officer.com). This comprehensive collection of criminal justice resources is organized

into easy-to-read subdirectories that relate to topics such as law enforcement agencies,

police association and organization sites, criminal justice organizations, law research pages,

and police mailing-list directories.

WEBSITES ON SPECIFIC TOPICS

AN INTRODUCTION TO FORENSIC FIREARM IDENTIFICATION

This website contains an extensive collection of information relating to the identification of

firearms. An individual can explore in detail how to examine bullets, cartridge cases, and

clothing for gunshot residues and suspect shooters’ hands for primer residues. Information

on the latest technology involving the automated firearms search system IBIS can also be

found on this site.

MyCrimeKit WebExtra 1.4

An Introduction to Forensic Firearm Identification

www.mycrimekit.com

CARPENTER’S FORENSIC SCIENCE RESOURCES

This site provides a bibliography involving forensic evidence. For example, the user can find

references about DNA, fingerprints, hairs, fibers, and questioned documents as they relate

to crime scenes and assist investigations. This website is an excellent place to start a

research project in forensic science.

http://www.forensic.to/forensic.html

http://officer.com/

http://www.officer.com/

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MyCrimeKit WebExtra 1.5

Carpenter’s Forensic Science Resources

www.mycrimekit.com

CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATOR NETWORK

For those who are interested in learning the process of crime-scene investigation, this site

provides detailed guidelines and information regarding crime-scene response and the

collection and preservation of evidence. For example, information concerning the

packaging and analysis of bloodstains, seminal fluids, hairs, fibers, paint, glass, firearms,

documents, and fingerprints can be found through this website. It explains the importance

of inspecting the crime scene and the impact forensic evidence has on the investigation.

MyCrimeKit WebExtra 1.6

Crime Scene Investigator Network

www.mycrimekit.com

CRIMES AND CLUES

Users interested in learning about the forensic aspects of fingerprinting will find this to be a

useful and informative website. The site covers the history of fingerprints, as well as

subjects pertaining to the development of latent fingerprints. The user will also find links to

other websites covering a variety of subjects pertaining to crime-scene investigation,

documentation of the crime scene, and expert testimony.

MyCrimeKit WebExtra 1.7

Crimes and Clues

www.mycrimekit.com

INTERACTIVE INVESTIGATOR—DÉTECTIVE INTERACTIF

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At this outstanding site, visitors can obtain general information and an introduction to the

main aspects of forensic science from a database on the subject. They can also explore

actual evidence gathered from notorious crime scenes. Users will be able to employ

deductive skills and forensic knowledge while playing an interactive game in which they

must help Detective Wilson and Detective Marlow solve a gruesome murder.

MyCrimeKit WebExtra 1.8

Interactive Investigator

www.mycrimekit.com

MyCrimeKit WebExtra 1.9

The Chemical Detective

www.mycrimekit.com

THE CHEMICAL DETECTIVE

This site offers descriptions of relevant forensic science disciplines. Topics such as

fingerprints, fire and arson, and DNA analysis are described in informative layperson’s

terms. Case histories describe the application of forensic evidence to criminal

investigations. Emphasis is placed

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on securing and documenting the crime scene. The site directs the reader to other

important forensic links.

MyCrimeKit WebExtra 1.10

Questioned-Document Examination

www.mycrimekit.com

QUESTIONED-DOCUMENT EXAMINATION

This basic, informative webpage answers frequently asked questions concerning document

examination, explains the application of typical document examinations, and details the

basic facts and theory of handwriting and signatures. There are also links to noted

document examination cases that present the user with real-life applications of forensic

document examination.

CHAPTER REVIEW

• Forensic science is the application of science to criminal and civil laws that are enforced

by police agencies in a criminal justice system.

• The first system of personal identification was called anthropometry. It distinguished

one individual from another based on a series of bodily measurements.

• Forensic science owes its origins to individuals such as Bertillon, Galton, Lattes,

Goddard, Osborn, and Locard, who developed the principles and techniques needed to

identify and compare physical evidence.

• Locard’s exchange principle states that, when two objects come into contact with each

other, a cross-transfer of materials occurs that can connect a criminal suspect to his or

her victim.

• The development of crime laboratories in the United States has been characterized by

rapid growth accompanied by a lack of national and regional planning and

coordination.

• Four major reasons for the increase in the number of crime laboratories in the United

States since the 1960s are as follows: (1) The requirement to advise criminal suspects of

their constitutional rights and their right of immediate access to counsel has all but

eliminated confessions as a routine investigative tool. (2) There has been a staggering

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increase in crime rates in the United States. (3) All illicit-drug seizures must be sent to a

forensic laboratory for confirmatory chemical analysis before the case can be

adjudicated in court. (4) DNA profiling was developed and is now often required.

• The technical support provided by crime laboratories can be assigned to five basic

services: the physical science unit, the biology unit, the firearms unit, the document

examination unit, and the photography unit.

• Some crime laboratories offer optional services such as toxicology, fingerprint analysis,

polygraph administration, voice-print analysis, and crime-scene investigation.

• Special forensic science services available to the law enforcement community include

forensic pathology, forensic anthropology, forensic entomology, forensic psychiatry,

forensic odontology, forensic engineering, and forensic computer and digital analysis.

• A forensic scientist must be skilled in applying the principles and techniques of the

physical and natural sciences to analyzing evidence that may be recovered during a

criminal investigation.

• The cases Frye v. United States and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. set

guidelines for determining the admissibility of scientific evidence into the courtroom.

• An expert witness evaluates evidence based on specialized training and experience.

• Forensic scientists participate in training law enforcement personnel in the proper

recognition, collection, and preservation of physical evidence.

KEY TERMS

expert witness 22

Locard’s exchange principle 8

scientific method 20

REVIEW QUESTIONS

The application of science to law describes ______________.

The Spaniard ______________ published the first writings about the detection of poisons

and the effects of poisons on animals, and he is considered the father of forensic

toxicology.

A system of personal identification using a series of bodily measurements was first

devised by ______________, and he called it ______________.

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10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

The fictional exploits of ______________ excited the imagination of an emerging

generation of forensic scientists and criminal investigators.

One of the first functional crime laboratories was formed in Lyons, France, in 1910

under the direction of ____________, who developed ____________, a theory stating that

there is mutual transfer of material when two objects make contact with each other.

The application of science to criminal investigation was advocated by the Austrian

magistrate ______________.

True or False: The important advancement in the fields of blood typing and document

examination were made in the early part of the twentieth century. ______________

The Italian scientist ______________ devised the first workable procedure for typing dried

bloodstains.

Early efforts at applying scientific principles to document examination are associated

with ______________.

The first DNA profiling test was developed by ______________ in 1984, and it was first

used in 1986 to identify the murderer of two young English girls.

True or False: Computerized databases exist for fingerprints, bullets, cartridge cases,

and DNA. ______________

The first forensic laboratory in the United States was created in 1923 by the

______________ Police Department.

Although no national system of forensic laboratories exists in the United States, the

state of ______________ is an excellent example of a geographical area in the United States

that has created a system of integrated regional and satellite laboratories.

A decentralized system of crime laboratories currently exists in the United States under

the auspices of various governmental agencies at the ______________,

______________,______________, and ______________ levels of government.

In contrast to the United States, Britain has a crime laboratory system characterized by

a national system of ______________ laboratories.

Four important federal agencies offering forensic services are ______________,

______________, ______________, and ______________.

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17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

The application of chemistry, physics, and geology to the identification and comparison

of crime-scene evidence is the function of the ______________ unit of a crime laboratory.

The examination of blood, hairs, fibers, and botanical materials is conducted in the

______________ unit of a crime laboratory.

The examination of bullets, cartridge cases, shotgun shells, and ammunition of all types

is the responsibility of the ______________ unit.

The study of handwriting and typewriting on questioned documents is carried out by

the ______________ unit to ascertain authenticity and/or source.

The examination of body fluids and organs for drugs and poisons is a function of the

______________ unit.

The ______________ unit dispatches trained personnel to the scene of a crime to retrieve

evidence for laboratory examination.

True or False: Special forensic science services available to the law enforcement

community include forensic pathology, forensic anthropology, and forensic astronomy.

______________

The “general acceptance” principle, which serves as a criterion for the judicial

admissibility of scientific evidence, was set forth in the case of ______________.

In the case of ______________, the Supreme Court ruled that, in assessing the admissibility

of new and unique scientific tests, the trial judge did not have to rely solely on the

concept of “general acceptance.”

True or False: The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Kumho Tire Co., Ltd. v. Carmichael

restricted the “gatekeeping” role of a trial judge to scientific testimony only.

______________

A Florida case that exemplifies the flexibility and wide discretion that the trial judge has

in matters of scientific inquiry is ______________.

A(n) ______________ is a person who can demonstrate a particular skill or has knowledge

in a trade or profession that will help the court determine the truth of the matter at

issue.

True or False: The expert witness’s courtroom demeanor may play an important role in

deciding what weight the court will assign to his or her testimony. ______________

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30.

31.

32.

33.

True or False: The testimony of an expert witness incorporates his or her personal

opinion relating to a matter he or she has either studied or examined. ______________

True or False: In 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court addressed issues relating to the

Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment in the case of Crawford v. Washington.

______________

The 2009 U.S. Supreme Court decision ______________ addressed the practice of using

affidavits in lieu of in-person testimony by forensic examiners.

The ability of the investigator to recognize and collect crime-scene evidence properly

depends on the amount of ______________ received from the crime laboratory.

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APPLICATION AND CRITICAL THINKING

Most crime labs in the United States are funded and operated by the government and

provide services free to police and prosecutors. Great Britain, however, relies on

private laboratories that charge fees for their services and keep any profits they make.

Suggest potential strengths and weaknesses of each system.

Police investigating an apparent suicide collect the following items at the scene: a note

purportedly written by the victim, a revolver bearing very faint fingerprints, and traces

of skin and blood under the victim’s fingernails. What units of the crime laboratory will

examine each piece of evidence?

List at least three advantages of having an evidence-collection unit process a crime

scene instead of a patrol officer or detective.

What legal issue was raised on appeal by the defense in Carl Coppolino’s Florida

murder trial? What court ruling is most relevant to the decision to reject the appeal?

Explain your answer.

A Timeline of Forensic Science The following images depict different types of evidence

or techniques for analyzing evidence. Place the images in order pertaining to the time

in history (least recent to most recent) at which each type of evidence or technique was

first introduced. Do this using the letters assigned to the images.

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(A), (B) Dorling Kindersley Media Library; (D) Photolibrary.com; (E) Phototake NYC; (F) Getty Images, Inc. – Hulton Archive Photos; (G) Getty Images Inc. – PhotoDisc

http://photolibrary.com/

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Evidence Processing at the Crime Laboratory You are the evidence technician at the

front desk of the state crime lab. You receive the following items of evidence to check in

on a very busy day. You must indicate which unit each piece of evidence must be sent to

for analysis. Your crime lab has a criminalistics (physical science) unit, a drug unit, a

biology unit, a firearms unit, a document examination unit, a toxicology unit, a latent

fingerprinting unit, an anthropology unit, and a forensic computer and digital analysis

unit.

A. ______________________________________________________________________

B. ______________________________________________________________________

C. ______________________________________________________________________

D. ______________________________________________________________________

E. ______________________________________________________________________

F. ______________________________________________________________________

G. ______________________________________________________________________

H. ______________________________________________________________________

I. ______________________________________________________________________

J. ______________________________________________________________________

K. ______________________________________________________________________

L. ______________________________________________________________________

M. ______________________________________________________________________

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(A) and (E) Getty Images Inc. – Stone Allstock; (B) Michael P. Gadomski/Photo Researchers Inc.; (C) Mikael Karlsson/Arresting Images; (D) German Meneses Photography; (F) Getty Images Inc. – Photodisc/Royalty Free; (G) CORBIS – NY; (H), (J), (L), (M) Dorling Kindersley Media Library; (I) Alamy Images; (K) Corbis RF

ENDNOTES

1. Two excellent references are André A. Moenssens, Carol E. Henderson, and Sharon Gross Portwood, Scientific Evidence in Civil and Criminal Cases, 5th ed. (New York: Foundation Press, 2007); and Werner U. Spitz, ed., Medicolegal Investigation of Death, 4th ed. (Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas, 2006).

2. 293 Fed. 1013 (D.C. Cir. 1923).

3. 509 U.S. 579 (1993).

4. 526 U.S. 137 (1999).

5. 223 So. 2d 68 (Fla. App. 1968), app. dismissed, 234 So. 2d (Fla. 1969), cert. denied, 399 U.S. 927 (1970).

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6. 129 S. Ct. 2527 U.S. Mass., (2009).

7. 541 U.S. 36, 124 S. Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed. 2d 177 (2004).

8. 564 U.S. 131 S. Ct. 2705, 180 L.Ed. 2d 610 (2011).

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