Forensic Pathology
Course code: MLTFP-1404
By: Fiza Saleem
Lecturer
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
History and Development of Forensic Science
Deductive Reasoning
Organization of a Crime Laboratory
Services of the Crime Laboratory
Functions of the Forensic Scientist
Other Forensic Science Services
Questioned Documents
Questioned document examination is a complicated and broad
area of study; a trainee may study with an experienced
examiner for several years before being qualified.
This field has many facets including the comparison of
handwritten or typewritten documents to determine their source
or authenticity.
In addition, questioned document examiners may be called
upon to detect erasures or other obliterations, forgeries, altered
documents, charred documents, and counterfeit currencies.
Questioned document examiners analyze papers and inks to
determine their source and age.
Other Specialties
Many kinds of scientists may be called upon to play a role in a
forensic investigation.
This does not mean, however, that this is their full-time job:
Their area of expertise may need to be called upon only rarely
or only in particular cases.
Artists, biologists, chemists, and other specialists may be
needed to answer questions in investigations as diverse as mass
disasters, airplane crashes, missing persons, and art forgeries.
A Bit of Forensic Science History
Some forms of what we would now call forensic medicine were
practiced as far back as the 5th century.
During the next thousand years there were many advances in
science, but only forensic medicine was practiced to any great
extent.
The science of toxicology was one of the first “new” forensic
sciences to emerge.
In an early case, a Mr. Lefarge died under mysterious
circumstances and his wife fell under suspicion.
The French scientist Mathieu Orfilia, in 1840,examined
Lafarge’s remains and determined that he had ingested arsenic.
He further showed that the source of the arsenic could only
have been poisoning, and his wife was subsequently convicted
of the crime
The 18th and 19th centuries saw considerable advances in the
science of personal identification.
As police photography had not been developed and fingerprints
weren’t being used, there needed to be methods of reliably
tracking a person either through the police process or during
incarceration.
Enter Alphonse Bertillon, a French criminologist, who
developed a method of recording physical features of a person
in such a way that the record would be unique to that person,
referred to as anthropometry or Bertillonage, after its creator.
He developed a set of precise measuring instruments to be used
with his method.
The Bertillonage system became very popular throughout
Europe and the United States.
It became widely used in U.S. prisons, which needed a way to
track the prisoners.
The Bertillon system was plagued by problems of
reproducibility and was finally discredited in the United States
Penitentiary (USP) Leavenworth in Kansas.
In 1903 William West was admitted to the prison to serve a
sentence.
When he was measured using the Bertillon system, it was found
that a man with the name William West with virtually the same
set of measurements was already at the prison!
This sounded the death knell for Bertillonage and opened the
door for the study of fingerprints.
Bertillon used fingerprints in his system but didn’t have a good
way to organize them for mass searches (Wilson and Wilson,
2003).
Dr. Juan Vucetich, a Croatian who lived in Argentina and
worked for the La Plata police force, conceived of a method of
fingerprint classification in 1894 that provided for 1,048,576
primary classifications of fingerprints.
As history and culture would have it, his work was largely
unheard of in Europe until much later.
Sir William Herschel, a British officer in India, and Henry
Faulds, a Scottish medical doctor, both studied fingerprints as a
scientific endeavor to see whether they could be used reliably
for identification.
In 1901, Sir Edward Henry devised a fingerprint classification
system still used today to categorize sets of fingerprints and
store them for easy retrieval (Thorwald, 1964).
Modern blood and body fluid typing got its start around 1900
when Karl Landsteiner showed that human blood came in
different types, and his work led to the ABO blood typing
system.
This work, in turn, led to the discovery of other blood antigen
systems such as Rh, MnSs, and the Lewis systems.
White blood cell antigen systems were also discovered.
From these discoveries came the forensic typing of blood to
help distinguish one individual from another (Nuland, 1988).
After Watson and Crick discovered the structure and functions
of DNA in the early 1950s, it wasn’t until Sir Alec Jeffries
developed the first forensic DNA typing method, which he
coined, regrettably, “DNA fingerprinting,” in 1984 that forensic
DNA technology was born.
The work of Kary Mullis in the 1980s led to the discovery of
the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), the way our bodies
reproduce DNA.
This discovery led to Mullis’s being awarded the 1993 Nobel
Prize in Chemistry
In the early part of the 20th century, Goddard popularized the
comparison microscope, which is two standard microscopes
joined by an optical bridge.
This revolutionized the comparison of bullets, cartridges,
toolmarks, hairs, and fibers.
Microscopy is the mainstay of forensic science laboratories and
includes newer methods, such as the scanning electron
microscope.
Forensic Science Laboratory Organization
and Services
Although it may seem contradictory, there is no single structure
for the organization of a forensic science laboratory.
Their organization varies by jurisdiction, agency, and history.
The variation becomes more pronounced when laboratories in
the United States are compared with those in other countries.
The examinations and services that a forensic science
laboratory offers will also vary, depending on budget,
personnel, equipment, and crime statistics.
Forensic Science Laboratory Administration
The vast majority of forensic science laboratories in the United
States are public; that is, they are financed and operated by a
federal, state, or local unit of government.
These number something over 470 today. There are also an
undetermined number of private forensic science laboratories,
and some estimates put this number at 50 to 100.
Private Forensic Science Laboratories
Most private laboratories serve a niche by performing only one
or two examinations, such as drugs, toxicology, or questioned
documents.
Many are “one-person” operations, often a retired forensic
scientist providing services in the specialties practiced when
employed in a public laboratory.
Today a significant number of the private laboratories are
devoted to DNA analysis in either criminal cases or in the civil
area, chiefly in paternity testing.
Private laboratories serve a necessary function in our criminal
justice system in that they are able to provide forensic science
services directly to persons accused of crimes.
Most public laboratories can provide forensic science services
only to police or other law enforcement departments and will
not analyze evidence requested by an accused person except
under a court order.
Public Forensic Science Laboratories
Public forensic science laboratories are administered and financed
by a unit of government which varies with the jurisdiction.
Different states have different models, and the federal government
has its own collection of laboratories.
Laboratories administered by the federal government, typical state
systems, and local laboratories will be discussed separately.
Forensic Science Laboratory Services
Forensic science laboratories offer different levels of service.
In a statewide system, for example, at least one laboratory will
offer a full range of forensic science services (typically at the
headquarters laboratory) while the regional laboratories may
offer only limited services (say, fingerprints and drugs) and
then send the other evidence to the headquarters laboratory.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
Forensic science and disciplines within the forensic sciences.
Two kinds of forensic science laboratories and their difference?
The chain of custody.
REFERENCES
Houck, M.M. and Siegel, J.A., 2009. Fundamentals of forensic
science. Academic Press.
Fisher, BAJ (2004) Techniques of Crime Scene Investigation, 7th
ed., CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.
THANK YOU!
