Course Description

Forensic science is a broad term that encompasses any scientific inquiry that is applied to the legal system. This course is designed to familiarize the student with the most common forensic disciplines including, but not limited to, criminalists, forensic biology, forensic chemistry, and death investigation. Students will learn about the types of evidence each discipline is responsible for as well as common methods of evidence analysis and interpretation. This course will also discuss current research in forensic science as well as the challenges that modern forensic investigators face in the crime scene, laboratory, and courtroom settings.

Course Textbook

This textbook provides you with an overview of the entire forensic science discipline. The text explores forensic evidence collection at the crime scene, analysis in the laboratory, and admission into the courtroom We will jump right into this textbook starting week one, so make sure you purchase your copy early!

Bell, S. (2019). Forensic Science: An Introduction to Scientific and Investigative Techniques (5th ed.). Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.

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Helpful Resources

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

I always love John Oliver’s take on criminal justice related topics. In this video, he talks about the problems with forensic evidence and the inaccurate perceptions about forensic evidence infallibility.

Questions-for-Daubert-Expert-Witness

Once evidence has been collected at a crime scene and analyzed at a crime laboratory, it must be admitted into a courtroom as part of a criminal or civil case. Here are resources relating to a Daubert admissibility hearing, including sample questions that are asked to establish each of the five Daubert criteria as well as a video summarizing the Daubert v Merrell Dow Pharmaceutical case.

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In this course, you learn about the lack of death investigation standardization across the United States. Below are two investigations detailed concerns within our present system. Another interesting source is the CDC’s map on death investigation. This map shows you the legal requirements for coroners and/or medical examiners for every state.

NPR’s Death Investigation in America

Frontline Investigations: Post Mortem

Forensic Entomology

Entomology, or the study of insects, is an important component of death investigation. Insects can tell investigators when someone died, what they died from, and if there were drugs or toxins involved in the death.

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Wrongful Convictions

Nothing is more disturbing than the unjust conviction and incarceration of innocence people. Unfortunately, forensic science evidence has played a role in some wrongful convictions. Luckily, forensic biology – particularly DNA analysis – has played a valuable role in identifying those cases and helping overturn wrongful convictions. In 2016, the National Institute of Justice published the article: Wrongful Convictions and DNA Exonerations: Understanding the Role of Forensic Science. This article is free to download and print, and I encourage you to read through it. Below is a link to a listening session featuring victims and wrongfully convicted persons that accompanied the NIJ article, as well as a YouTube video describing their stories.

NIJ-Listening-Session-Transcript-for-Wrongful-Convictions

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The resources provided below will help you understand latent fingerprint comparison process terminology, evaluation strategies, and analysis limitations. These documents were published by the Scientific Working Group on Friction Ridge Analysis, Study and Technology (SWGFAST), which was established to identify best practices in fingerprint analysis.

Fingerprint Examination Standards

SWGFAST-Examination-Standards

Fingerprint Examiner Qualification and Training Standards

SWGFAST-Examiner-Qualifications-and-Training-Standards

Standard Terminology for Fingerprint Examination

SWGFAST-Standard-Terminology-Guide

ACE-V Process

The book excerpt provided here is provided by the National Criminal Justice Reference Service. This chapter explains the ACE-V examination method used for fingerprint analysis and summarizes the Quality/Quality debate in fingerprint identification.

Chapter-9-_-Examination-Process

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An important case relating to fingerprint evidence is the Madrid Bombing Case. This case, which highlighted the problem of implicit bias in fingerprint comparison, shows why blind verification is key to the fingerprint comparison process.

Forensic Science Organizations

There are numerous professional organizations devoted to the various career paths in Forensic Science. Below are two lists of forensic science orgaanizations. The first list contains multidisciplinary organizations, meaning that they comprise of forensic scientists across multiple fields and areas of study. The second list is discipline-specific organizations that cater to a single profession.

I encourage you to review these lists and consider ways to get involved. Many of the organizations offer student memberships at reduced prices and potentially scholarships or paper competitions that can help you as you continue forward with your studies. The networking and presentation opportunities from these agencies are also significant, as they can be key to helping you locate employment opportunities within your chosen career path.

MultiDisciplinary Organizations

Discipline-Specific Organizations