GPS Standards: SFS1. Students will recognize and Science. a. Compare and contrast the history oclassify various types of evidence in relation to the definition and scope of Forensic f techniques used in collecting and submitting evidence for admissibility in court. scientific forensic

EQ:  How has the history of Forensic investigation shaped our current understanding and practice of Forensic Science?

What is Forensic Science?  The application of science to criminal & civil laws that are enforced by police in a criminal justice system. ◦ We will focus on the crime lab portions of Forensics only.

 Early criminal cases usually did not involved science.  Often, once a person was accused, they were convicted.  Hearsay, guesses and opinions ruled the day.  Gradually, however, science began to be used.

 In third century China, a book entitled “A Collection of Criminal Cases” told how a coroner solved a case.  “Used medical examination of corpse”.  A woman was accused of killing her husband and burning the body.  She stated he died in an accidental fire.  The local coroner noticed the man’s body had no ashes in its mouth.  He burned two pigs, one dead, one alive.  Afterwards, he examined them. Only the pig that was already dead had no ashes in its mouth.  Confronted with this evidence, the woman confessed.

 In 1879, the French scientist Alphonse Bertillion devised a system of measuring different parts of a person’s body called this ANTHROPOMETRY.  The series of measurements was highly individual and remained the best method for indentifying a person’s identity until it was replaced by fingerprinting.

 In 1686, an Italian professor of anatomy named Marcello Malpighi made the 1st recorded notes about the characteristics of fingerprints.  It wasn’t until 1892 that an Englishman named Francis Henry Galton came up with the 1st definitive study of fingerprints and developed a method for classifying them. He went on to describe the basic principles that form the system we still use today.  In the same year in Argentina, Juan Vucetich came up with his own system, which is still used in Latin America.

 In 1775, the Swedish chemist Carl Scheele devised the first successful test for detecting arsenic in corpses.  the German chemist Valentin Ross devised a more precise way to detect small amounts in the stomach.  1814 – the Spaniard Mathieu Orfila published the first scientific paper on the detection of poisons and their effects on animals. He is known as the Father of Forensic Toxicology.  1839 – Scottish chemist James Marsh presents the first toxicology evidence on the detection of arsenic in a victim during a trial.

 1887, Arthur Conan Doyle publishes the first Sherlock Holmes book.  This fictional character used many of the principles of forensic science to solve crimes in London long before the actual police did.  He is credited with exciting the imaginations of scientists and encouraging the development of scientific standards to identify and classify evidence.

 1839 Henri-Louis Bayard formulated the first procedure for microscopic detection of sperm.  1974 The detection of gunshot residue (GSR) using scanning electron microscopy technology was developed by J. E. Wessel, P. F. Jones, Q. Y. Kwan, R. S. Nesbitt and E. J. Rattin

 1863 The German scientist Schönbein first discovered the ability of hemoglobin to make hydrogen peroxide foam. This resulted in first presumptive test for blood.  1901 Dr. Landsteiner discovered ABO blood groups.  1915 Italian professor Leone Lattes develops a method for determining the blood type of a blood stain.

 1910 Frenchman Edmond Locard persuades the Lyons police department to give him two attic rooms and two assistants to start a police laboratory.  1918 he first suggested 12 matching points as a positive fingerprint identification.  Locard eventually becomes the founder and director of the Institute of Criminalistics.  He developed the idea that when two objects come into contact with each other, a cross- transfer of material occurs.

 A case involved counterfeit coins and three suspects.  Locard examined their clothing and located small metallic particles in all of their garments.  Chemical analysis showed the particles and coins were composed of exactly the same elements.  The suspects were arrested and convicted.

 1889 Alexandre Lacassagne, professor of forensic medicine at the University of Lyons, France, was the first to try to individualize bullets to a gun barrel.  1898 Paul Jesrich, a forensic chemist working in Berlin, Germany, took photomicrographs of two bullets to compare the details.  1920s Calvin Goddard perfected the comparison microscope for use in bullet comparison.

 1984 (Sir) Alec Jeffreys developed the first DNA profiling test.  1986 In the first use of DNA to solve a crime, Jeffreys used DNA profiling to identify Colin Pitchfork as the murderer of two young girls in the English Midlands. Significantly, in the course of the investigation, DNA was first used to exonerate an innocent suspect.