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Evidence at the crime scene
Crime scene evidence analysis report finial paper
An Introduction to Forensic Science
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CBS’s CSI: Crime Scene Investigation exploded into popularity when it aired in 2000, opening doors for the creation of other similar criminal investigative television shows involving forensic evidence such as Cold Case, Criminal Minds, and Bones. Many of these CSI-type shows present a murder or crime solved within an hour-long episode using forensic evidence conceived by glamorized CSI personnel and sometimes fabricated methodologies and technologies that only exist on television. Despite just being shows, one wonders whether these popular shows have skewered public perceptions about forensic evidence in real court cases and have impacted the outcome of court verdicts. The CSI Effect, explained by Kim, et all, was named after the television show …show more content…
in Houck). Jurors who are influenced by the CSI Effect tend to have biased opinions because CSI shows are the basis for their knowledge. Rather than simply acknowledging courtroom expectations by deliberating based on only the facts presented in the courtroom, jurors are asking for more evidence than that is provided or necessary because jurors are comparing forensic evidence used to convict on television to real life cases. Thus, jurors are not impartial to the case because they have a prenotion of what information they require to convict, such as fingerprints in burglaries and blood analysis in murder cases. Smith et all reports that viewers of CSI-type shows and other similar shows have “inflated perceptions of accuracy, reliability, and usefulness of forensic evidence (but not ‘nonscientific’ evidence)” (qtd. in Stinson et all). As CSI-type shows emphasize the collection, analysis, and presentation of forensic evidence during court proceedings more so than other types of
Since the airing of the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and the other televised series that followed have led jurors to compare fiction with reality. The shows have changed the view on the real world of forensic science as the series have a world of forensic science of their own. For this paper the televised series titled Bones by forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs will be used as an example for comparison. In the series Bones Dr. Temperance Brenan arrives at the scene of the crime to examine the skeletal remains found in the scene of the crime equipped with one or more forensic kits. Upon momentarily examining the skeletal remains Dr. Brenan is able to determine the gender, ethnicity, and age. When this type of scenario is compared to nonfictional
Other evidence located within the grave consisted of a generic watch, two cigarette butts, a button, a washer and a shell casing. All of these could be analysed for finger prints and DNA. The cigarette butts would also show a serial number indicating the brand (shown in Figure 3), which can be useful if it is found a victim or offender smokes a particular type of cigarette.
In order to incriminate Danial Williams, Joseph Dick, Eric Wilson, and Derek Tice with the rape and murder of Michelle Moore-Bosko, Detectives Maureen Evans and Robert Ford conducted long, grueling interrogation sessions using many provocative and manipulative tactics. Throughout this process, Ford and Evans coerced the suspects into renegotiating their perception of the crime until an entirely new reality was created. This new reality evolved as the police elicited additional confessionary evidence to account for each new piece of physical evidence from the crime scene. Eventually, in an iterative process that had police editing their theories of the crime and then forcing the suspects to claim this new reality as their own, the reconciled reality of the crime became one that was consistent with both the criminal evidence and the suspects’ new perception. An analysis of empirical m...
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation was introduced to viewers in October 2000. Since that time, the franchise has added two versions in major metropolitan areas, now addressing crime scenarios in Las Vegas, Miami and New York City. Based on the most recent Nielsen ratings for primetime television shows, the CSI franchise claimed approximately 35 million viewers during the 2010 – 2011 viewing season. The popularity of forensic science drama on television has led officers of the court to voice opinions that there is a “CSI effect” which alters the juror pools and outcomes of criminal trial proceedings. The differences between made for television fiction and actual crime solving are many and when jurors consider themselves pseudo-experts those lines may get blurred in the courtroom.
Crime is a common public issue for people living in the inner city, but is not limited to only urban or highly populated cities as it can undoubtedly happen in small community and rural areas as well. In The Real CSI, the documentary exemplified many way in which experts used forensic science as evidence in trial cases to argue and to prove whether a person is innocent or guilty. In this paper, I explained the difference in fingerprinting technology depicted between television shows and in reality, how DNA technology change the way forensics evidence is used in the court proceedings, and how forensic evidence can be misused in the United States adversarial legal system.
The crime scene was then examined and a list of possible pieces of evidence were recorded down. Including a sketch of the crime scene, Anna Garcia’s house, with the locations of all of the pieces of evidence. All of these items listed help develop a theory about Anna’s death. This theory then helped establish a list of possible suspects. The person of interest list included a number of four individuals and each one had a relation with Anna. The list included (1) Alex Garcia- Anna’s ex-husband. They had an unpleasant divorce the year before and in a result Alex quickly remarried a much younger woman, while Anna remained single. Alex and his newlywed wife are expecting to have a baby soon. Although, Alex may be suffering from a few financial
Have you ever noticed the newly advanced ways evidence is being presented in courtrooms today? Well, in the article “Trial Lawyers Cater to Jurors’ Demands for Visual Evidence” by Sylvia Hsieh, she discusses why jurors are insisting for visual evidence, how visual evidence can be used in almost all cases, and the challenges that come along with using visual evidence. In fact, jurors are demanding for this type of evidence to get a better understanding of what happened during a crime scene and sometimes vehicle accidents. Lawyers are more comfortable using paper, words, and arguments to bring evidence but jurors feel that visual evidence will bring entertainment into the courtroom. Lawyers are actually hiring visual artist, graphic designers,
In Richards Willing’s “CSI effect” the author tells the reader how, as a result of crime scene shows’ popularity, the misconceptions they create, and the combining of real life events with TV fantasy, crime scene shows have affected jurors and the oucomes of court cases. The shows’ popularity has increased peoples’ interest in forensic science and has caused workers and students to transfer into the field. The second effect crime scenes created is the misconception concerning when to use forensic tests, as well as misconceptions about the speed and accuracy of forensic workers and machines in tracking and identifying the culprit. Willing tells of a murder trial in Arizona in which the defendant’s bloody coat was listed as evidence, but was not tested. Although the defendant had already told investigators that he was at the scene of the crime, with the jacket, jurors asked for forensic DNA evidence linking the defendant to the bloody coat and to the crime scene. The juror’s exposure to crime scene shows had given them knowledge of forensic tests, but not knowledge of the proper use of the tests. Crime scene shows mix real life with TV fantasy. According to willing’s studies, highly attractive forensic workers and stunning suspects, along with very neat crime scenes on crime scene shows deemphasize the real life violence and brutality of crime. Similarly, tv reality shows have influenced people’s ideas about real life and real relationships through the effects of image, misleading information, and popularity.
The criminal justice system has changed a lot since the good old days of the Wild West when pretty much anything was legal. Criminals were dealt with in any fashion the law enforcement saw fit. The science of catching criminals has evolved since these days. We are better at catching criminals than ever and we owe this advancement to forensic science. The development of forensic science has given us the important techniques of fingerprinting and DNA analysis. We can use these techniques to catch criminals, prove people's innocence, and keep track of inmates after they have been paroled. There are many different ways of solving crimes using forensic evidence. One of these ways is using blood spatter analysis; this is where the distribution and pattern of bloodstains is studied to find the nature of the event that caused the blood spatter. Many things go into the determination of the cause including: the effects of various types of physical forces on blood, the interaction between blood and the surfaces on which it falls, the location of the person shedding the blood, the location and actions of the assailant, and the movement of them both during the incident. Another common type of forensic evidence is trace evidence. This is commonly recovered from any number of items at a crime scene. These items can include carpet fibers, clothing fibers, or hair found in or around the crime scene. Hairs recovered from crime scenes can be used as an important source of DNA. Examination of material recovered from a victim's or suspect's clothing can allow association to be made between the victim and other people, places, or things involved in the investigation. DNA analysis is the most important part of forensic science. DNA evidence can come in many forms at the crime scene. Some of these forms include hair; bodily fluids recovered at the crime scene or on the victim's body, skin under the victim's fingernails, blood, and many others. This DNA can be the basis of someone's guilt or innocence; it has decided many cases in the twentieth century. As the times continue to change and the criminals get smarter we will always need to find new ways to catch them. Forensic science is the most advanced method yet, but is only the beginning. As the field of science grows so will the abilities of the
This same article examines the history of DNA evidence and acknowledges that when evidence was first introduced to the courts that the new type of identification was initially accepted without any challenges, however, critics quickly contended that DNA tests were problematic because of the reliability and the validity of probative value of the evidence. For example, DNA exoneration cases suggest that errors in forensic identification led to a high number of wrongful convictions and concerns that media coverage portrayals of forensic science evidence on popular television shows leads jurors to unfairly weigh DNA evidence while making their decision about the facts of a trial (Carrell, 2008). Moreover, in recent DNA exoneration cases the courts and jurors had difficulty analyzing the testimony of the experts on forensic identification evidence. According to the article, in 86 DNA exoneration cases, forensic science testing errors were the second leading cause of wrongful conviction, falling behind wrongful eyewitness misidentification (Carrell,
Forensic evidence can provide just outcomes in criminal matters. However, it is not yet an exact science as it can be flawed. It can be misrepresented through the reliability of the evidence, through nonstandard guidelines, and through public perception. Forensic science can be dangerously faulty without focus on the ‘science’ aspect. It can at times be just matching patterns based on an individual’s interpretations. This can lead to a miscarriage of justice and forever alter a person’s life due to a perceived “grey area” (Merritt C, 2010) resulting in a loss of confidence in the reliability of forensic evidence.
Forensic psychology is an area of psychology that has been rapidly gaining popularity in recent years. Entertainment media’s fascination with the intersection of crime and psychology has fueled the growing interest in the field. According to Jane Tyler Ward, PhD, forensic psychology can be defined as psychology that “emphasizes the application of research and experimentation in other areas of psychology to the legal arena.” Although forensic psychology is popular right now, it was not until 1962 that a court case set the precedent that properly trained psychologists could provide expert testimony (Page 20). Additionally, forensic psychology was not APA (American Psychological Association) certified until 2001 (Page 16). The field of forensic
In the following literature review, scholarly and peer-reviewed journals, articles from popular news media, and surveys have been synthesized to contribute to the conversation pertaining to forensics in pop culture in the courtroom and the overall criminal justice system. This conversation has become a growing topic of interest over just the past few years since these crime shows started appearing on the air. The rising popularity of this genre makes this research even more relevant to study to try to bring back justice in the courtroom.
In recent years, however, such programs as CSI that follows detectives at the Las Vegas Police Department Crime Scene Investigations Bureau as they solve puzzles and catch criminals. Perhaps one of the most well known shows with a forensic psychology theme, CSI has a large impact on viewers perceptions of forensic psychology. On one hand, the increased popularity of forensic psychology because of the show is good and more people are taking an interest in forensic psychology as a career. On the other hand, the forensic psychology that viewers see every week on television may not be exactly the same as forensic psychology in reality. Particularly programs such as CSI also overstate the ability of “hard” evidence (also known as forensic evidence), such as fingerprints and DNA, to provide evidence of definite innocence or guilt (Trask, 2007). They often disregard other components of the investigative process, such as police questioning, despite these being equally valid to establishing guilt (Nolan, 2006). This over-reliance on forensic evidence, due to the importance of forensic science being dramatized by television crime dramas, is also known as the CSI
Collecting evidence from a crime scene is a crucial aspect of solving crimes. Before evidence can be seized, there must first be a court order approving the search of the crime scene and the seizure of the evidence found at the scene. Standard protocol for officers is for them to always use latex gloves, avoid plastic bags, double wrap small objects, package each object separately, and to collect as much evidence as possible. It is better to have too much evidence than to not have enough. There are countless amounts of evidence that can be found at a crime scene.