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In The News

2015-07-07 | Too Much Touch DNA Evidence Overwhelms a Texas County Crime Lab
Touch DNA testing has proven increasingly effective in solving and prosecuting crimes, from homicides to burglaries, where murderers and thieves leave skin cells on weapons, walls and tools. But it’s almost too much of a success in places like Harris County, Texas – where the total DNA testing caseload has nearly doubled in about five years. Now the county’s crime lab is suspending use of touch DNA samples when it comes to property crimes. The success has been striking. Some 800 “hits” have been reached through the property-crime samples since 2008, leading to many prosecutions, Kahn said. “The CODIS results are overwhelming,” he said.

2015-07-06 | Problems with using CDs/DVDs to store digital evidence
There are many evidence related and technical problems with using CDs/DVDs to store your digital evidence data, if you haven’t experienced any of these issues yet, consider yourself lucky. A few of these problems are:

2015-07-06 | New method could help estimate time of death for a ten-day-old corpse
Despite the value of this information, it is currently not possible to estimate time of death in a reliable way after about 36-72 hours. But now a new test for calculating the exact time of death after as many as ten days has been developed. However, the method, which works by tracking the degradation of protein in muscles, has only been tested in pigs so far.

2015-07-06 | Raw vs. TIFF for Digital Camera Capture
Someone from a major law enforcement agency recently asked me for my opinion regarding the best choice between capturing raw or TIFF files from a digital camera. His concern was that the raw workflow is slower, results in duplicate images (the raw original files and the working TIFF files), and that the raw files are proprietary, and therefore different for each camera brand. Please note that this is only about digital camera capture – not about captures from flatbed scanners.

2015-07-04 | Evaluation of the Forensic DNA Unit Efficiency Improvement Program
Several important contributions to the field have occurred through NIJ’s grant program. Some prominent examples from each of the sites include drawing attention to the need for more comprehensive and standardized laboratory information management system (LIMS) databases as San Francisco did, widening the eligibility for expert systems use as in Kansas City, University of North Texas Center for Human Identification’s creation of an expert system to decrease time spent on one of the most time-consuming steps of mitochondrial DNA analysis, instituting robotics that allows staff to spend time on other tasks such as at Allegheny County and the other sites, and demonstrating how organizational changes can have significant impacts on DNA processing like in Louisiana.

2015-07-04 | Crime-scene DNA errors spark complex legal questions
Recent admissions by the FBI involving data errors in calculating DNA probabilities are challenging the infallibility of DNA evidence, a science with a longstanding reputation of as the forensic gold standard. Prosecutors and bureau officials say the mistakes will have a minimal effect on criminal cases, but the real impact of the revelations in courtrooms across the country remains to be seen.

2015-07-03 | B.C. judge admonished for doing too much homework
“A judge may only rely upon the evidence presented at trial, except where judicial notice may be taken,” stated Justice Mary Saunders. “Judicial notice of course, is limited to facts that are notorious or generally beyond debate,” added Saunders, with justices Pamela Kirkpatrick and Daphne Smith concurring, in the ruling issued Jan. 23. Funt’s actions were “well intentioned” even if they were outside what he was permitted to do as a trial judge, says Jeffrey Ray, who represented Bornyk at the Court of Appeal.

2015-07-02 | Examining Ways to Reduce Error in Expert Forensic Testimony
Recent estimates indicate that as many as 15 of every 100 incarcerated offenders where DNA was an element in their trial may be wrongfully convicted because of misused DNA evidence matching techniques. One common reason for this error is scientifically invalid testimony on forensic evidence. A 2002 report by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) recommended developing methods for improving the validity of such testimony. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the ability of expert blinding and consensus feedback to improve the validity of expert testimony, specifically in the context of forensic science.

2015-07-02 | In the future, DNA could put a face to the crime
What if finding DNA was all the police needed to know what a suspect looked like? This could become reality. Irish geneticist Dr Susan Walsh has received more than €900,000 from the US Department of Justice to develop tests to get a picture of physical appearance from DNA.

2015-07-02 | Police: Woman’s fitness watch disproved rape report
Jeannine M. Risley, 43, of Saint Petersburg, Florida, was in Lancaster for her work and was staying in the guest portion of her boss’s home in East Lampeter Township on the night of March 10. She told authorities an unknown man pulled her out of bed, attacked her in a bathroom, and raped her at knifepoint, according to charging documents filed by township police.