Forensic Science Quotes

rain slowly slides down the glass as if the night is crying.

Dr. Irving Stone of the Institute for Forensic Sciences in Dallas. He’s the guy who analyzed the clothing worn by President Kennedy and Governor Connally for the congressional committee that reexamined the Kennedy assassination.

Mine is a gruesome job, but for a scientist with a love for the mechanics of the human body, a great one.

NOT EVERYBODY KNOWS this – or cares probably – but the first law of forensic science is Locard’s Exchange Principle, and it says ‘Every contact between a perpetrator and a crime scene leaves a trace.

We can all see, but can you observe?

All objects in the universe are unique. No two things that happen by chance ever happen in exactly the same way. No two things are ever constructed or manufactured in exactly the same way. No two things wear in exactly the same way. No two things ever break in exactly the same way.

He (Bugliosi) took bits and pieces out of context and presented my views and opinions in a much distorted and unrecognizable fashion.” -- Dr. Cyril Wecht, forensic pathologist and former president of both the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and the American College of Legal Medicine

Societies get the criminals they deserve-Dr. Alexandre Lacassagne

Science gave us forensics. Law gave us crime.

Without science, there would be no you; without you, the future would offer a much narrower prospect.

Context is everything.

Sometimes, a bone is just a coconut

One of the first examples of forensic science solving a murder appears in a book called The Washing Away of Wrongs, published in 1247 by Song Ci, a Chinese coroner and detective.

By now it was nearly noon and I was hungry, so we made a quick run to Mr. Burger, a tiny carryout place a mile down the road, and wolfed down lunch standing outside the cemetery shop. We positioned ourselves upwind from the coffin, but occasionally the wind would shift and the aroma of burgers would mingle with the aroma of the Bopper.

Yet Malone, remarkably, was a model of restraint compared with others, such as John Payne Collier, who was also a scholar of great gifts, but grew so frustrated at the difficulty of finding physical evidence concerning Shakespeare’s life that he began to create his own, forging documents to bolster his arguments if not, ultimately, his reputation. He was eventually exposed when the keeper of mineralogy at the British Museum proved with a series of ingenious chemical tests that several of Collier’s “discoveries” had been written in pencil and then traced over and that the ink in the forged passages was demonstrably not ancient. It was essentially the birth of forensic science. This was in 1859.

He uses our modern science—our modern forensics—against us, but his real weapon is our refusal to believe. We're trained to follow the facts, and sometimes we scent him when the facts are conflicting, but we refuse to follow that scent. He knows it. He uses it.

As a courtesy I’m taking you out to the impound garage to get your vehicle. We’ve been over it with the best tools available to forensic science, and except for enough cannabis debris to keep an average family of four stoned for a year, you’re clean. No blood or impact evidence we can use. Congratulations.

Although many people greeted the new forensic sciences with reverence, attributing to them a godlike power, they were often susceptible to human error. In 1894, the French criminologist Bertillon had helped to wrongfully convict Alfred Dreyfus of treason, having presented a wildly incorrect handwriting analysis.

Fifty years before Sherlock Holmes first appeared, the Bow Street Runner had used the Sherlockian method of careful observation of trifles. The Randall matter was the first case of ballistic identification to be documented, and Henry Goddard remains forever inscribed in forensic history as the man who proved that the butler did it.

Some scientists thrive on the conceptual; their minds can envision particles that the most powerful microscopes can’t show us; processes that can’t be directly observed, but only inferred, guessed at, by interpreting a stew of complex biochemical by-products. I am not one of these scientists; I need bones and teeth, things I can see with my eyes and grasp with my hands. Jason Eshleman, on the other hand, can see with his mind’s eye, grasping the complex interactions of the most complex molecules in the body, DNA.

Context is everything. - Prof Nick Fennimore

They put me in a

Auroleus Phillipus Theostratus Bombastus von Hohenheim, better known as Paracelsus,

(There are two kinds of observers in science: splitters and lumpers. I’ve never been much of a splitter; in my heart of hearts, I’m a lumper.) In

It’s not entirely clear why we have sinuses, aside from their role in providing a huge revenue stream for pharmaceutical companies and over-the-counter drug makers.

Law gave us Crime Science gave us Forensics Research gave us Hope

…forensic science was facing a sudden reckoning. The advent of DNA analysis in the late 1980s had not only transformed the future of criminal investigations; it also illuminated the past, holding old convictions, and the forensic work that helped win them, up to scrutiny. Rather than affirming the soundness of forensic science, DNA testing exposed its weaknesses. Of the 250 DNA exonerations that occurred by 2010 throughout the United States, shoddy forensic work — which ranged from making basic lab errors to advancing claims unsupported by science — had contributed to half of them, according to a review by the Innocence Project. The sheer number of people who were imprisoned using faulty science called into question the premise of forensics itself.

Edmond Locard ordered all the local organ grinders and their simian employees brought to his laboratory. A number of the monkeys, perhaps concerned about an infringement of their civil rights, resisted fingerprinting and had to be restrained. The organ grinders were more cooperative. When the burglarizing beast had been identified, his companion’s rooms were searched and there the missing items were found.

As recently as 1950, the Scottish pathologist John Glaister included in his text the tale of a man "who was apprehended after having been seen to have unnatural intercourse with a duck," leaving us to wonder precisely what natural intercourse with a duck would involve.

surprisingly dramatic glow some minerals gave off when illuminated with ultraviolet light, or “black light.” In daylight, for instance, the mineral fluorite is a drab, chalky color; in a dark room under UV light, though, fluorite glows a brilliant blue; the mineral calcite shines bright red; and aragonite gives off a neon green. If you’ve ever stepped into a teenager’s cavelike room decorated with black-light posters (less common now than they were in the 1970s, when my three sons were growing up), you’ve seen another version of UV fluorescence in action.

During World War II, a secret apartment in London was maintained by the office of the Special Operations Executive. Within it, operatives created false documents and designed elaborate disguises for use by British undercover agents. The apartment was located at number 64 Baker Street.

He decided to cut it up (using his butcher skills) and deposit the parts all over Brooklyn, apparently thinking police wouldn’t figure out that they belonged to the same person. Which poses the question: exactly how many people’s body parts did he think they would suppose were lying around the city?

A number of ethical, aesthetic, psychiatric or forensic classfications that are produced by the "institutional sciences",not to mention those produced and inculcated by the educational system, are similarly subordinated to social functions, although they derive their specific efficacy from their apparent neutrality. They are produced in accordance with the specific logic, and in the specific language, of relatively autonomous fields, and they combine a real dependence on the classificatory schemes of the dominant habitus (and ultimately on the social structures of which these are the product) with an apparent independence.

AT THE VOIR dire the judge asks all the potential jurors to swear that even if they regularly watch CSI, Law & Order, Cold Case Files, or any other television show featuring forensic science and criminal justice, that they have a firm grasp on the difference between television—even reality television—and reality itself, in which we are presumably now mired. One potential juror with several small children says that won’t be a problem for her, because she mostly watches the Cartoon Network; the judge quips that an afternoon spent with the Cartoon Network provides as much or more information about the criminal justice system as a full season of Law & Order.

Passionately encouraged by her aunt, Marie married Charles and traveled with him to his home. She was shocked to discover that [the magnificent château] Le Glandier was actually a festering pile of crumbling stone - cold, gray, grim and forbidding. Worse, it was inhabited by Charles's mother, who was also cold, gray, grim, and forbidding.

Handwriting and document analysis were emerging tools in the field of criminal investigation. Although many people greeted the new forensic sciences with reverence, attributing to them a godlike power, they were often susceptible to human error. In 1894, the French criminologist Bertillon had helped to wrongfully convict Alfred Dreyfus of treason, having presented a wildly incorrect handwriting analysis. But when applied carefully and discreetly, document and handwriting analysis could be helpful. In the infamous Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb murder case, in 1924, investigators had correctly detected similarities between Leopold’s typed school notes and the typed ransom note.

Even more remarkable—and a key reason Bob invited me to Hasanlu—was the object cradled in the arms of the front runner. The object was a bowl (or a vase, or a beaker): a metal vessel measuring about eight inches high, seven inches across the top, and six inches across the base. The falling walls had flattened the bowl, of course, along with the guy carrying it.

defense lawyers challenged the credibility of these experts, but were rarely successful. Judges were often overwhelmed by the science and had little or no time to educate themselves. If a proffered witness had some training and seemed to know what he was talking about, he was allowed to testify. Over time, judges adopted the rationale that since a witness had been qualified as an expert in other trials in other states, then certainly he must be a genuine authority. Appellate courts got into the act by affirming convictions without seriously questioning the science behind the forensics, and thus bolstering the reputations of the experts. As résumés grew thicker, the opinions grew to encompass even more theories of guilt.

One of the first examples of forensic science solving a murder appears in a book called The Washing Away of Wrongs, published in 1247 by Song Ci, a Chinese coroner and detective. The author relates a story about a peasant found brutally hacked to death with a hand sickle. The local magistrate, unable to make headway in the investigation, calls for all the village men to assemble outside with their sickles; they’re instructed to place their sickles on the ground and then take a few steps back. The hot sun beats down. A buzz is heard. Metallic green flies descend in a chaotic swarm and then, as if collectively alerted, land on one sickle, crawling all over it as the other sickles lie undisturbed. The magistrate knew traces of blood and human tissue attract blowflies. The owner of the fly-covered sickle hung his head in shame. The case was solved.

Religion is the most powerful entity on earth. A phenomenon that has conscripted millions to give or sacrifice their lives without so much as a minuscule query about their chosen beliefs or particular ideology. And today thousands of years on despite the huge advent, discovery and the advance of science forensic or otherwise, millions are still prepared and equipped to fall or kill in the name of their God, their Holy Scriptures, their messengers, their prophets and their faith’.

Most fans of forensic books and television shows are aware that the biochemical building blocks of DNA can be assembled in many billions of different ways, ensuring that no two people—except for identical twins—will possess the same genetic “fingerprint.” Not many of those same people realize that there are likewise billions of possible combinations of tooth shapes, sizes, orientations, and anomalies, including cavities, fillings, chips, and distinctively shaped roots. Although identical twins can’t be distinguished from one another by their DNA, they can be told apart by their teeth.

For almost twenty years, one of the Brocks’ two new bacteria, Thermophilus aquaticus, remained a laboratory curiosity until a scientist in California named Kary B. Mullis realized that heat-resistant enzymes within it could be used to create a bit of chemical wizardry known as a polymerase chain reaction, which allows scientists to generate lots of DNA from very small amounts—as little as a single molecule in ideal conditions. It’s a kind of genetic photocopying, and it became the basis for all subsequent genetic science, from academic studies to police forensic work. It won Mullis the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1993.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, written by Christie in 1926, is perhaps the most quintessential golden-age murder mystery ever written in absolutely every way—except one. But it is this one spectacular difference that sets it apart from other books of the era and that catapulted Agatha Christie into the upper echelons of the genre. In fact, as the ending was so unorthodox and apparently broke the rules of the Detection Club’s oath—tongue-in-cheek though they were—there was a movement to expel Christie from the club entirely! Only a vote by fellow female crime writer Dorothy L. Sayers saved her. If this doesn’t make you intrigued to read the book, you don’t need to just take my word for it—in 2013, nearly ninety years after its publication, the British Crime Writers’ Association voted it the best crime novel ever, calling it “the finest example of the genre ever penned.” It features typical golden-era elements within the text, like a floor plan of all the rooms of the house and heavily buried clues, and I’m of the opinion that the only way to do this particular book justice is to read it. Don’t watch an adaptation, don’t listen to an audiobook, and don’t use an e-reading device and deny yourself the pleasure of the rustling pages peppered with nuance. Buy a copy of the book and read it. It’s the only way you can read between the lines of this clever tale.

property at about a four-meter perimeter. Lien-hua must have seen me staring at the location of the yellow tape, because she said, “Aina told me her criminalists already processed the scene, everything inside the tape. Didn’t find anything.” Most law enforcement agencies use the terms “crime scene investigative unit,” or “forensic science technician,” but some places, and especially overseas, the term “criminalist” is more common. Either way, I’m usually amazed not by how much evidence the teams notice but by how much they miss. “Did they check outside the tape?” I asked. “Outside it?” I pointed at the yellow police tape. “Don’t you find it a little too convenient that the crime scene just happens to be exactly the same size as the area encompassed by these telephone poles?” “They were handy.” “Yes, they were. But a crime scene is defined by the evidentiary nature of the crime and the physical characteristics

year, is veteran true crime superstar author and forensic psychologist Katherine Ramsland, who has written 47 books and over 1,000 articles on serial killers, CSI, vampires, forensic science, mass murder, sex offenders and ghosts. Joining us also is this year’s winner of

According to Harris, Dawkins and other prominent neoatheists (Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett round out the self-styled “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”), science education is a natural antidote to sacred terror. But independent studies by Oxford sociologist Diego Gambetta, forensic psychiatrist Marc Sageman, and journalist and political scientist Peter Bergen indicate that a majority of al-Qaeda members and associates went to college, that the college education was mostly science oriented, and that engineer and medical doctor are the professions most represented in al-Qaeda. Much the same has been true for Hamas.

Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else. Margaret Mead, anthropologist (1901–78) F

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roughly translated 2 from the Hmong language of the Laotian mountain people, which observes: “If I know it then I can hunt it; if I do not know it then it can hunt me.

Lacassagne personified the bourgeois qualities of order, education, and dignity; he was regular in his habits, a voluminous reader, dedicated to service, restrained, and self-deferential.

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the first law of forensic science is called Locard’s Exchange Principle and it says “every contact between a perpetrator and a crime scene leaves a trace.

Forensic DNA Expert Anil Gupta offer a variety of DNA forensic testing systems including STR, Y-STR, and mitochondrial DNA. The DNA Sample in Forensic Analysis can be collected from blood, saliva, perspiration, hair, teeth, mucus, finger nails, semon and these can be found almost anywhere at crime scence. Anil Gupta is here to help make sense of this complex scientific issue and to testify before the court on these issues when necessary. Initial Consultation is FREE – If you send us the report we will lend you our expertise to help you understand your situation. Written Reports and Affidavits Discovery Documents – free by request, all you need to obtain the entire laboratory case file Mike is a leading forensic DNA expert with considerable experience in forensic biology. He is a clear and balanced expert opinion highly qualified provider to help lawyers, attorneys and lawyers support their clients and the criminal justice system. He is a very experienced scientist, whose career has focused on developing the ability to DNA analysis, defining standards, interpreting results, explaining evidence and providing advice to help both the defense and Processing equipment. Mike has a great depth of technical knowledge. As the chief DNA scientist (head of discipline) with the former Forensic Science Service (FSS), he established technical standards for DNA analytical processes, staff competencies and training. He was head of the Specialist Unit at FSS DNA and led the creation of the first dedicated facility of ultra-clean low template DNA. He has led the validation and implementation of several important new DNA processes. Through audit and process review, it can provide an effective and risk-based quality assurance, as it has for many years to the FSS, to the National DNA Database and to the courts.

The arguments given against the possibility of miracles are circular; they beg the question by assuming (what is to be proven) that all events have natural causes. This is not only false but is also contrary to science, which has always allowed for intelligent causes (in archeology, forensic science, cryptology, the SETI program, and information theory). And

Validity of MRM Aggregate ScoresRogers

...There are not enough students to justify a Classics Department. I saw it coming, of course. They closed the Physics Department last year to enlarge Forensic Science and now the Classics Department is to close and Theology will become Comparative Religion. When that’s judged to be too difficult – and with our intake it undoubtedly will be – then no doubt Comparative Religion will become Religion and Media Studies. Or Religion and Forensic Sciences. The government, which proclaims a target of fifty per cent of young people going to university, and at the same time ensures that forty per cent are uneducated when they leave secondary school, lives in a fantasy world...

He presided over murder trials, studied forensics and knew more about the science than the experts, and, most importantly, he knew how much evidence was needed to convict. A helluva lot! Beyond a reasonable doubt. Far more than any low-paid cop had been able to find along his graveyard trail.

What I started to learn in dog surgery—and have had to relearn many times since—is the crucial balance between becoming hardened enough to remain objective with the science while retaining enough emotion to feel outrage on the victims' behalf. Cold, clear objectivity enables me to analyze the evidence, and that's a crucial part of my job, one that offers closure to loved ones and sometimes helps bring a murderer to justice. But compassion for the victim spurs me on to uncover new evidence, keeping me up late to work on a forensic sculpture or sending me on another trip into the Kentucky woods.

Genomics has transformed the biological sciences. From epidemiology and medicine to evolution and forensics, the ability to determine an organism’s complete genetic makeup has changed the way science is done and the questions that can be asked of it. Far and away the most celebrated achievement of genomics is the Human Genome Project, a technologically challenging endeavour that took thousands of scientists around the world thirteen years and ~US$3 billion to complete. In 2000, American President William Clinton referred to the resulting genome sequence as ‘the most important, most wondrous map ever produced by humankind.’ Important though it was, this ‘map’ was a low-resolution first pass—a beginning not an endpoint. As of this writing, thousands of human genomes have been sequenced, the primary goals being to better understand our biology in health and disease, and to ‘personalize’ medicine. Sequencing a human genome now takes only a few days and costs as little as US$1,000. The genomes of simple bacteria and viruses can be sequenced in a matter of hours on a device that fits in the palm of your hand. The information is being used in ways unimaginable only a few years ago.

That was a subtle transition.” “I don’t have much time for subtlety. Like you said: I’ve got a lot of ground to cover.” He looked down at the folder again. “Dr. Nicholas Polchak, PhD in entomology from Penn State University.” “Go Nittany Lions.” “Currently professor of entomology at North Carolina State University. Distinguished Member, American Academy of Forensic Sciences; Diplomate, American Board of Forensic Entomology; Member of Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team since 1995.” “Please. I’m blushing.

I’m not a conspiracy theory kind of guy, but when city officials close down on you, when Princeton University won’t provide any answers, and when the media says what you’ve got is all a hoax, then where am I? So here is the true story of the Peter Armstrong Papers. You think you know all about them. Such eminent publications as The New York Times and The New Yorker have already said they were a forgery. (The New Yorker went so far as to say that I created a hoax to scare an already virus-nervous public.) Experts I hired examined the papers and verified that they are authentic documents from the period, and that some elements of the stories were undeniably true. Newsweek examined the documents with an open mind and a battery of forensic experts and historians of the era, but would not go as far to say that they described actual events. The women on The View had a rare moment of agreement when they said I was “a menace.” Rolling Stone, ever classy, said I was “full of shit.

Moral relativism has undoubtedly fragmented society, making it much easier for people with extreme views to secure an audience.

It’s a heavy cross to bear.

The Star-Spangled Banner” was not an easy song to sing.

Reiner was an actor and a comedian.

About thirty years ago, the Gray Lords, the powerful mages who rule the fae, began to be concerned about advances in science—particularly forensic science.

Scientifically illiterate case law like this obviates the need for rigorous research in forensics. Few traditional forensic techniques have useful applications outside of the justice system and, as a result, once courts allow a technique to be used, there is no real incentive to conduct research—or even test the abilities of putative experts. Why conduct research on a technique that has already been accepted in court, the only place it matters?

Forensic boards, like most guilds, are extremely hierarchical and largely dominated by older white men. Aspiring experts are dependent on the mentorship the guilds offer for credentials and professional development. Second-generation practitioners seek to make their contributions to the field by building on their mentors’ work—not by questioning it. The cultural norms create powerful disincentives to challenging orthodoxy or asking the guild masters tough questions.

Maigret worked like any other policeman. Like everyone else, he used the amazing tools that men like Bertillon, Reiss and Locard have given the police – anthropometry, the principle of the trace, and so forth – and that have turned detection into forensic science. But what he sought, what he waited and watched out for, was the crack in the wall. In other words, the instant when the human being comes out from behind the opponent.

The focus of the work was on bite mark analysis, but it just as easily could have been shaken baby syndrome, arson investigation, hair microscopy, bullet lead analysis, polygraphs, voice spectrometry, handwriting, bloodstain pattern analysis—the list of discredited forensic techniques is considerable. The question becomes, Why? Why has junk science been accepted by courts, unanimously, for the past fifty years? How does a dentist like Levine become a world-renowned forensic scientist in a field with no basis in science? How many more Keith Harwards are there?

People v. Marx, 54 Cal. App. 3d 101 (1975), became one of the most consequential opinions in forensic science, not just forensic odontology. It began with a remarkable concession: there was “no established science of identifying persons from bite marks.” The technique had not been subjected to even the most rudimentary tenets of the scientific method. No hypotheses were tested. No laboratory experiments were conducted. No clinical research. The dentists never demonstrated their claimed ability to match teeth to bite marks. It was just an opinion.

Essentially, the Marx opinion created an “eyeball test” for in-court evaluation of forensic evidence, shifting the responsibility of exposing flawed expert testimony to defense attorneys—through the “crucible” of cross-examination—and relying on lay jurors to separate science from nonsense.

One of the most important long-term changes that arose as a result of this case was the creation of the “murder bag” for use by police. Spilsbury had been shocked to see police officers having to remove rotting flesh and body parts from the scene of the crime using their bare hands. To address this problem, a series of meetings were held between Scotland Yard and Spilsbury, which led to the development of the murder bag, which contained rubber gloves, tweezers, evidence bags, a magnifying glass, compass, ruler, and swabs. Such a bag is now an essential part of any major inquiry and may contain various items, depending on the specific department. Common modern additions include a fiberglass brush, lifting tape, powder, utility knife, scissors, a blood test, a semen test, swabs, alcohol hand spray, scalpels, and goggles

Leopold told his attorney:   The killing was an experiment. It is just as easy to justify such a death as it is to justify an entomologist killing a beetle on a pin.

most people don’t just want to kill anybody; they want to kill a specific person; somebody they know, like their wife, their mistress, their best friend, their boss or someone who’s really pissed them off. What you have to remember here is that the closer you are to the victim then then greater scrutiny you will be put under.

can a criminal, using the knowledge of forensic science to his own advantage, reduce his percentage of detection in order to commit the perfect murder?   If a criminal knew exactly what investigators were looking for at a crime scene, could they use that to avoid detection?

Human life must be cheap to the one who can place the dollar above it" -John Ruston

I certainly didn't set out to create something famous there. I just set out to find some answers to questions that were nagging me. As in life, so in science: One thing leads to another, and before you know it, you find yourself someplace you never imagined going.

Please note that there are not two separate editions of this book with different covers. The blue cover was the one actually used, and the other a pre-publication working cover. It's all the same book!

The Prohibition era had been a great source of material for building an excellent science of alcohol intoxication

D. H. Trujillo is a fiction author born in Colorado of Pueblo and Mexican descent. The desert is her happy place and serves as inspiration for many of her works. She holds a bachelor of anthropology from the University of Hawai‘i and a master of forensic behavioral science from Alliant International University. She currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland, with her husband, two spooky black cats, an elder chihuahua named after jeans, and the plethora of ghosts inhabiting her 1949 home. Her debut romance novel, Lizards Hold the Sun, was released under the name Dani Trujillo