In forensic science, there are multiple things that can point someone as a criminal. In the case of Wayne Williams and the Atlanta Child Murders, hair and fibers were used to convict Wayne Williams. A single hair can contain multiple things that can point a individual to a crime. Hair has certain characteristics that can pinpoint to whom the hair belongs to. Hair of a human will be much thinner compared to animal hair.…
The key facts and critical issues of JonBenet Ramsey's death, in my opinion, on December 26, 1996, a little girl by the name of JonBenet Ramsey was mysteriously murdered in her parent’s home located in Boulder, Colorado. JonBenet Ramsey was a beauty pageant queen born to John and Patsy Ramsey in Atlanta, Georgia on August 6, 1990. JonBenet was six at the time of her murder. (Safestein, 2015) She was hit in the head with a blunt object and strangled to her death.…
DNA Overturned Douglas Prade shot death of ex-wife in 1997. The evidence found on the defendant vehicle was blood on his lab coat; after 3 years examine the bite-mark by Margo Prade’s lab. Both side always have agreed there was struggle inside a Dr. Prade minivan and that the killer bit her, leaving an impression the upper –left arm through her lab coat and blouse. That was crucial crime scene evidence on the morning of slaying (Mayer,2015). The defendant was sentenced to live in the prison.…
INTRODUCTION Criminal evidence can be understood as any testimony or exhibit presented in context to a crime. There are different forms in which criminal evidence is presented as it is shows as prove to a crime. It is essential that facts should be accurate and legal and it can come from main parties like suspect, victim and also the parties those are related to the particular crime such as experts. In this regard, the government of UK developed the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 which combat crime in England and Wales and provides codes of practices to exercise the power of police1. The act was formulated to build the balance between rights and freedom of the public and the powers of the police in England and Wales.…
Forensic Science: fact or pseudo? Three articles, “Forensic Science Controversies” by Rachel Kaufman published in CQ Press, “Forensic Science” from an FBI handbook on Opposing Viewpoints, and “But it Works on TV” by Sharon Begley from Opposing Viewpoints, discussed in this essay have comparing and contrasting rhetorical elements. Those rhetorical elements are the use of factual data from crime scenes (logos and pathos), contrasting writer credibility (ethos), and different appeals to certain audiences through formality of the articles. To begin, the first rhetorical element that all three articles use is factual data from crime scenes and actual information from case files, appealing to the audiences’ logos. By including these facts in the…
Two of the most important standards regarding expert witnesses are the Frye and Daubert standards. Those will be discussed in detail along with the M’Naghten and Durham rules. Following the explanation of the two standards and the two rules, an article by Jennifer McDougal and Ray Bull will be analyzed and related to the discussion of the validity of the forensic interview. The Frye standard originated in during the 1923 appellate court case Frye v. United States.…
Based largely on this compelling statistic, drawn from the testimony of an analyst with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mr. Tribble, 17 at the time, was convicted of the crime and sentenced to 20 years to life. Mr. Tribble’s case, along with the exoneration of two other men who served decades in prison based on faulty hair-sample analysis, spurred the F.B.I. to conduct a sweeping post-conviction review of 2,500 cases in which its hair-sample lab reported a match. The preliminary results of that review, which Spencer Hsu of The Washington Post reported last week, are breathtaking: out of 268 criminal cases nationwide between 1985 and 1999, the bureaus elite forensic hair-sample analysts testified wrongly in favor of the prosecution, in…
In my opinion the validity of scientific techniques and the underlying reason behind an expert’s testimony, should be applied to facts of the case. Although the rules of evidence that involves the Daubert standard, could be a challenge to prove for forensic experts, the admissibility of evidence will actually be valid upon scientific techniques that have been experimented and tested with publications and peer reviews to back it up. The problem with Frye is that with the advances in technology and methodology in forensic applications the reliability of such evidence could be based off the mistrial and false rulings of many cases instead of techniques that were tested, peer reviewed, have known potential error rates, etc. Therefore emphasizes is being put on the importance of determining to reliability of scientific evidence by the origin of its scientific method. The scientific evidence will less likely be misused or falsified to sway one side or the other.…
This suggests that the forensics used were perhaps inaccurate, this may have been due to the fact that Spilsbury was so highly respected that many people refrained from further testing. Another flaw was the fact that this science was used to convict Crippen but not to catch him - it illustrates how policing still required small…
Evidence Interpretation Over the years, there have been several cases that have been resolved with a false guilty plea or cases where a guilty party was not convicted of a crime. There are various elements that play a role in solving cases; evidence is a one of these key elements. Many factors can determine if the evidence submitted before a court of law is accurate such as how the evidence is collected, if proper protocell was followed before the laboratory’s handling of the evidence, and if the evidences was accurately processed by the crime scene laboratory by various forensic scientists. Furthermore, with the advances in technology in today’s society, various pieces of evidence such a DNA analysis have been considered a crucial element…
The use of forensic evidence is one of the major components in assessing criminal court cases in Australia and this type of evidence has existed for many years in the Australian judicial system. However due to the recent advancements and developments of forensic techniques and technology, problems with the reliability and validity of forensic evidence have begun to emerge. This is especially true when the conviction of guilt and innocence of individuals are heavily reliant on the use of forensic evidence such as fingerprints, blood stains and DNA analysis. Therefore the purpose of this essay is to analyze whether or not the role of forensic science in the judicial system is in a crisis or not. Thus by drawing upon criminal cases such as Mallard…
I have always had a natural curiosity for the sciences and combining it with my other interest in crime has led to my dramatic interest in forensic science. The science behind collecting, identifying, and analyzing evidence is always changing as we learn more about the natural world. To believe that the tiniest strand of hair can tell a story and possibly bring justice to families captures my complete attention. Therefore, when deciding on who to interview, I chose someone who was involved in the forensic field and had years of experience. My interviewee was Joel Smith, a former crime scene investigator and now manager of his own forensic unit for the Port St. Lucie Police Department.…
As of now Timothy Bridges based on an Erroneous Microscopic Hair Evidence has been exonerated after wrongly serving 25 years in prison. Showing that errors have been made more than just a few times. With hair and fibers you can help to identify a suspects, identify crime victims, Tell what crime that has been committed, you can also pinpoint the victim or a suspect location. Forensic Hair analysis has become more prevalent and widespread due to its usefulness in criminal court cases because it is more resistant to decay meaning hair can remain intact far longer than any other evidence and one of the most frequently found pieces of evidence at the scene of a violent crime. Through hair analysis a variety of things can be determined If the hair is human or animal, Where the hair came from exactly such as the head hair, eyebrow and eyelash hair, beard and moustache hair, body hair, pubic hair and axillary hair.…
There are multiple stages of the criminal court process that create a burden of proof that contribute to criminal justice investigations. Every court process begins with a crime allegedly committed to determining its legal status. Law enforcement and detectives determine if the crime was illegal or legal due to the investigations. They investigate a crime by interviewing victims, witnesses, and suspects. They also gather physical evidence by taking pictures, fingerprint, and DNA samples.…
In the course of recent years, the forensic sciences have made sensational scientific leaps forward (DNA writing, physical confirmation databanks as well as new scientific instrumentation) yet researches are expected to survey the commitment of such headways on the part and effect of scientific proof in criminal case preparing. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the use of measurement instrumentation in a murder case. It emphasises the instruments that were used in the murder. For this reason a murder case has been evaluated. 1.1.…