The effect of following best practice reporting recommendations on legal and community evaluations of forensic examiners reports

Commentators have recommended that forensic scientists' reports contain various disclosures to facilitate comprehension. However, little research has explored whether following best practice recommendations for disclosure impacts on receivers' impressions of the evidence. We examined whether forensic science reports that are more compliant with these best practice recommendations reduced overvaluing of the evidence and sensitized legal and community decision-makers to evidence quality. Across three experiments, 240 legal practitioners/trainees and 566 community decision-makers were presented with a fingerprint or footwear report that was either compliant or non-compliant with best practice recommendations. Participants were then asked to make evaluations and decisions based on the report. We found mixed effects of report compliance. Report compliance affected community participant's evaluations of the persuasiveness of the evidence but had limited impact on the judgments of legal practitioners/trainees. When presented with compliant reports, we found that community participants regarded unknown reliability evidence as less reliable and less persuasive than high reliability evidence, suggesting disclosures helped reduce overvaluing of the evidence and create sensitivity to differences in evidence quality. These results suggest compliance with reporting recommendations does affect community impressions, while only minimally influencing legal impressions of forensic science evidence. The costs and/or benefits of this outcome require further examination.

Forensic evidence in atrocity trials: A risky sampling strategy?

In the light of the recent judgments issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), including two acquittals and one very recent condemnation of the accused on all charges, analysing and assessing evidentiary practice before the Court is all the more pressing. This article focuses on one particular type of evidence used by the Prosecution, namely, forensic evidence, to critically review how it has been used so far at the ICC and consider whether the prosecutorial strategy of focusing on a certain sample of crimes is finally paying off.

Constituents of "teabacco": A forensic analysis of cigarettes made from diverted nicotine replacement therapy lozenges in smoke-free prisons

Following the implementation of prison smoke-free policies, there have been reports of prisoners creating substitute cigarettes made from nicotine replacement therapy patches or lozenges infused with tea leaves ("teabacco"). No studies have analyzed the chemical constituents of teabacco made from nicotine lozenges, so as to document any potential related health hazards. Teabacco samples were made by a participant who reported creating teabacco while incarcerated in a smoke-free prison in Queensland, Australia, and the process was video-recorded for replication in a laboratory. A simple linear smoking system captured the teabacco smoke for analysis. Inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) was used to analyze elemental composition and gas chromatography coupled with a mass spectrometer (GC-MS) analyzed the captured smoke using the National Institute of Standards and Technology mass spectral library. Analyses determined that quantities of copper, aluminum, and lead concentrations, and levels of inhaled total particulate matter, were above recommended guidelines for safe ingestion. Analysis of teabacco smoke using GC-MS identified potentially toxic compounds catechol and nicotine. However, our findings show that smoking this form of teabacco is less harmful than smoking teabacco made from nicotine patches, or smoking traditional tobacco cigarettes. Considering the limited potential health harm of smoking teabacco made from lozenges, and that nicotine lozenges represent the only form of smoking cessation support for individuals entering smoke-free prisons, we caution against the removal of nicotine lozenges from Queensland's prisons, at least until further research directly establishes health harms associated with this form of teabacco.

The National Problem of Untested Sexual Assault Kits (SAKs): Scope, Causes, and Future Directions for Research, Policy, and Practice

Victims of sexual assault are often advised to have a medical forensic exam and sexual assault kit (SAK; also termed a "rape kit") to preserve physical evidence (e.g., semen, blood, and/or saliva samples) to aid in the investigation and prosecution of the crime. Law enforcement are tasked with submitting the rape kit to a forensic laboratory for DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) analysis, which can be instrumental in identifying offenders in previously unsolved crimes, confirming identify in known-offender assaults, discovering serial rapists, and exonerating individuals wrongly accused. However, a growing number of media stories, investigative advocacy projects, and social science studies indicate that police are not routinely submitting SAKs for forensic testing, and instead rape kits are placed in evidence storage, sometimes for decades. This review article examines the growing national problem of untested rape kits by summarizing current research on the number of untested SAKs in the United States and exploring the underlying reasons why police do not submit this evidence for DNA testing. Recommendations for future research that can guide policy and practice are discussed.

Forensic Evaluation of Deaf Individuals: Challenges and Strategies

Forensic evaluation of deaf individuals presents unique challenges due to many examinees' fund of information deficits, potential for language deprivation, and examiners' frequent lack of creativity regarding communication methods. This article describes challenges most frequently encountered in competency to stand trial and criminal responsibility evaluations and offers strategies for overcoming them. The value of employing multiple communication methods, especially the use of illustrations, is emphasized. Suggestions also are offered regarding preparing evaluation reports and effectively communicating "key deaf fundamentals" to legal personnel. Encouragement is offered for qualified, sign-fluent professionals to engage in forensic work.

Peer review in forensic science

Peer review features prominently in the forensic sciences. Drawing on recent research and studies, this article examines different types of peer review, specifically: editorial peer review; peer review by the scientific community; technical and administrative review; and verification (and replication). The article reviews the different meanings of these quite disparate activities and their utility in relation to enhancing performance and reducing error. It explains how forensic practitioners should approach and use peer review, as well as how it should be described in expert reports and oral testimony. While peer review has considerable potential, and is a key component of modern quality management systems, its actual value in most forensic science settings has yet to be determined. In consequence, forensic practitioners should reflect on why they use specific review procedures and endeavour to make their actual practices and their potential value transparent to consumers; whether investigators, lawyers, jurors or judges. Claims that review increases the validity of a scientific technique or accuracy of opinions within a particular case should be avoided until empirical evidence is available to support such assertions.

Examination of the "CSI Effect" on Perceptions of Scientific and Testimonial Evidence in a Hong Kong Chinese Sample

Television is a powerful medium through which to convey information and messages to the public. The recent proliferation of forensic science and criminal justice information throughout all forms of media, coupled with raised expectations toward forensic evidence, has led some to suspect that a "CSI effect" ( Crime Scene Investigation effect) is taking place. The present study contributes to the literature addressing the CSI effect in two ways. First, it examines whether the CSI effect exists in the Chinese population of Hong Kong. Second, using a mock-jury paradigm, it empirically examines a more integrative perspective of the CSI effect. It was found that, although the amount of media coverage involving forensic evidence does influence participants' perception of legal evidence to some degree, such a perception does not affect participants' legal decision making. Viewers of forensic dramas were not more likely to convict the defendant when forensic evidence was presented and not less likely to convict when only testimonial evidence was presented. The only significant predictor of the defendant's culpability when scientific evidence was presented was participants' ratings of the reliability of scientific evidence. Results from the present study lend no support to the existence of the CSI effect in Hong Kong.

Facial Comparison from CCTV footage: The competence and confidence of the jury

CCTV footage is commonly used in the court room to help visualise the crime in question and to help identify the offender. Unfortunately the majority of surveillance cameras produce such poor quality images that the task of identifying individuals can be extremely difficult. This study aimed at determining whether the task of identifying the offender in CCTV footage was one which a jury should be competent to do, or whether expert evidence would be beneficial in such cases. The ability of potential jury members, the general public, was tested by asking participants to play the role of a jury member by means of an online survey. Potential jury members viewed CCTV in which a simulated offence took place, and were subsequently asked to compare still images of a defendant to the offender to try to determine if they were competent and confident about making a judgement as to whether the defendant committed the crime. Factors such as age, gender and profession of the potential jury members were considered, as well as the type of crime committed, in order to establish if these play any role in the decision made by potential jury members. These factors did not appear to play a significant role; however confidence was also investigated and it became very evident that this was a factor that must be taken into consideration when determining the requirement for expert contribution in facial comparisons. Jury members may well be willing and competent to a basic level in carrying out a facial comparison but if they lack a certain level of confidence in their ability and decision making then this task is more suitable for an expert with experience and skills in this field.

Lay understanding of forensic statistics: Evaluation of random match probabilities, likelihood ratios, and verbal equivalents

Forensic scientists have come under increasing pressure to quantify the strength of their evidence, but it is not clear which of several possible formats for presenting quantitative conclusions will be easiest for lay people, such as jurors, to understand. This experiment examined the way that people recruited from Amazon's Mechanical Turk (n = 541) responded to 2 types of forensic evidence--a DNA comparison and a shoeprint comparison--when an expert explained the strength of this evidence 3 different ways: using random match probabilities (RMPs), likelihood ratios (LRs), or verbal equivalents of likelihood ratios (VEs). We found that verdicts were sensitive to the strength of DNA evidence regardless of how the expert explained it, but verdicts were sensitive to the strength of shoeprint evidence only when the expert used RMPs. The weight given to DNA evidence was consistent with the predictions of a Bayesian network model that incorporated the perceived risk of a false match from 3 causes (coincidence, a laboratory error, and a frame-up), but shoeprint evidence was undervalued relative to the same Bayesian model. Fallacious interpretations of the expert's testimony (consistent with the source probability error and the defense attorney's fallacy) were common and were associated with the weight given to the evidence and verdicts. The findings indicate that perceptions of forensic science evidence are shaped by prior beliefs and expectations as well as expert testimony and consequently that the best way to characterize and explain forensic evidence may vary across forensic disciplines.

The privilege against self-incrimination in coroners' inquests

The privilege against self-incrimination has a venerable history in the conduct of coroners' inquests. However, recent statutory reforms to the privilege in coroners' courts, which have had disuniform outcomes throughout Australia, have complicated the circumstances in which the privilege is extended to those claiming its protection. This editorial reviews the evolving law on the privilege generally and rulings that have been made in high-profile coronial inquests, as well as the modest volume of appellate litigation on this important issue. It identifies that the emerging law on the area prioritises amongst relevant factors for the coroner's discretion to exercise coercive powers over witnesses' objections to give evidence the fact that they are charged with serious criminal offences, and that the need for and utility of the evidence are also functioning as important considerations.

From paranoia querulans to vexatious litigants: a short study on madness between psychiatry and the law. Part 2

The second part of this paper examines the history of querulous paranoia and vexatious litigation in the English-speaking countries from the nineteenth century to today. This study suggests that the lack of thorough research on querulous paranoia in these countries is due to a broad cultural, legal and medical context which has caused unreasonable complainants to be considered a purely legal, rather than a medical issue. To support this hypothesis, I analyse how legal steps have been taken throughout the English-speaking world since 1896 to keep the unreasonable complainants at bay, and I present reasons why medical measures have scarcely been adopted. However, I also submit evidence that this division of responsibilities between the judges and the psychiatrists has taken a new turn since the dawn of the twenty-first century.

The expression and interpretation of uncertain forensic science evidence: verbal equivalence, evidence strength, and the weak evidence effect

Standards published by the Association of Forensic Science Providers (2009, Standards for the formulation of evaluative forensic science expert opinion, Science & Justice, Vol. 49, pp. 161-164) encourage forensic scientists to express their conclusions in the form of a likelihood ratio (LR), in which the value of the evidence is conveyed verbally or numerically. In this article, we report two experiments (using undergraduates and Mechanical Turk recruits) designed to investigate how much decision makers change their beliefs when presented with evidence in the form of verbal or numeric LRs. In Experiment 1 (N = 494), participants read a summary of a larceny trial containing inculpatory expert testimony in which evidence strength (low, moderate, high) and presentation method (verbal, numerical) varied. In Experiment 2 (N = 411), participants read the same larceny trial, this time including either exculpatory or inculpatory expert evidence that varied in strength (low, high) and presentation method (verbal, numerical). Both studies found a reasonable degree of correspondence in observed belief change resulting from verbal and numeric formats. However, belief change was considerably smaller than Bayesian calculations would predict. In addition, participants presented with evidence weakly supporting guilt tended to "invert" the evidence, thereby counterintuitively reducing their belief in the guilt of the accused. This "weak evidence effect" was most apparent in the verbal presentation conditions of both experiments, but only when the evidence was inculpatory. These findings raise questions about the interpretability of LRs by jurors and appear to support an expectancy-based account of the weak evidence effect.

Labs and slabs: television crime drama and the quest for forensic realism

This essay examines how crime dramas produced during, and since, the 1990s became marked by the quest for 'forensic realism'. In particular, the essay traces a landmark shift in the development of forensic realism in the form of the ground-breaking British police drama Prime Suspect in 1991. It is argued that this television series not only represents a turning point in television history, but that it also constitutes a key text in the broader cultural turn towards forensic fascination. Prime Suspect vividly revealed and displayed corpses, crime scenes and post-mortem photos in an unprecedented fashion for television. This essay shows how in the process it established new standards and expectations regarding the aesthetics and thematic content of the perceived 'realism' of the crime genre. Through an analysis of the reception and impact of Prime Suspect the essay also demonstrates how crime drama's increasing fascination with forensic realism has driven debate over just what kinds of stories and images constitute acceptable or appropriate subject matter for popular entertainment, and for the medium of television itself.

Forensic cultures in historical perspective: technologies of witness, testimony, judgment (and justice?)

This article explores the history of forensic science in terms of ideologies and institutions rather than developing technique. It presents an analytical framework for characterising forensic institutions and practices, past and present. That framework highlights the distinct issues of means of witness, accredited testimony, and the reaching of juridical decisions. The article applies the framework by comparing four forensic 'formations,' (or 'cultures') which have been prominent at various times and places in the western world from the early modern period onward: these are the central European heritage of the Caroline code, a eugenically-oriented forensic enterprise of late nineteenth-century America, the forensic perspective in nineteenth-century British India, and the representation of forensic certainty in contemporary American popular culture. The article concludes with a critique of what seems an increasingly common expectation: that forensic science evolves independently of legal institutions, and can ultimately displace them.

Making space for criminalistics: Hans Gross and fin-de-siècle CSI

This article explores the articulation of a novel forensic object-the 'crime scene'-and its corresponding expert-the investigating officer. Through a detailed engagement with the work of the late nineteenth-century Austrian jurist and criminalist Hans Gross, it analyses the dynamic and reflexive nature of this model of 'CSI', emphasising the material, physical, psychological and instrumental means through which the crime scene as a delineated space, and its investigator as a disciplined agent operating within it, jointly came into being. It has a further, historiographic, aim: to move away from the commonplace emphasis in histories of forensics on fin-de-siècle criminology and toward its comparatively under-explored contemporary, criminalistics. In so doing, it opens up new ways of thinking about the crime scene as a defining feature of our present-day forensic culture that recognise its historical contingency and the complex processes at work in its creation and development.

Renegotiating forensic cultures: between law, science and criminal justice

This article challenges stereotypical conceptions of Law and Science as cultural opposites, arguing that English criminal trial practice is fundamentally congruent with modern science's basic epistemological assumptions, values and methods of inquiry. Although practical tensions undeniably exist, they are explicable-and may be neutralised-by paying closer attention to criminal adjudication's normative ideals and their institutional expression in familiar aspects of common law trial procedure, including evidentiary rules of admissibility, trial by jury, adversarial fact-finding, cross-examination and the ethical duties of expert witnesses. Effective partnerships between lawyers and forensic scientists are indispensable for integrating scientific evidence into criminal proceedings, and must be renegotiated between individual practitioners on an on-going basis. Fruitful interdisciplinary collaboration between scholars with a shared interest in forensic science should dispense with reductive cultural stereotypes of Science and Law.

The rise and fall of forensic hypnosis

This paper examines the fortunes of the controversial use of hypnosis to 'enhance' autobiographical memories in postwar America. From the 1950s through the early 1980s, hypnosis became increasingly popular as a means to exhume information thought to be buried within the mind. This practice was encouraged by lay understandings of memory drawn from a material culture full of new recording devices (motion pictures, tape and then video recorders); and during the years when the practice was becoming most popular and accepted, academic psychologists developed a contrary, reconstructive, account of memory that was put to use in a series of battles meant to put an end to hypnotic recall. But popular commitment to the idea of permanent memory 'recordings' sustained the practice and the assumptions about memory and self that were associated with it, and in the face of a culture of academic psychology fully committed to the idea of 'reconstructive', malleable memory, a tidal wave of 'enhanced' memories swept America in the late 1980s and 1990s, in the so-called 'memory wars'. These, in turn, provoked academic psychologists to research the claims and counter claims central to the memory wars. The paper will also make an argument about the importance of lay knowledge in the psychological sciences explored in this paper: that popular psychological beliefs played a significant, even formative role in defining the nature of forensic psychological expertise, and also the framing of elite academic psychological research.

Performing the Union: the Prüm Decision and the European dream

In 2005, seven European countries signed the so-called Prüm Treaty to increase transnational collaboration in combating international crime, terrorism and illegal immigration. Three years later, the Treaty was adopted into EU law. EU member countries were now obliged to have systems in place to allow authorities of other member states access to nationally held data on DNA, fingerprints, and vehicles by August 2011. In this paper, we discuss the conditions of possibility for the Prüm network to emerge, and argue that rather than a linear ascent towards technological and political convergence and harmonisation, the (hi)story of Prüm is heterogeneous and halting. This is reflected also in the early stages of implementing the Prüm Decision which has proven to be more challenging than it was hoped by the drivers of the Prüm process. In this sense, the Prüm network sits uncomfortably with success stories of forensic science (many of which served the goal of justifying the expansion of technological and surveillance systems). Instead of telling a story of heroic science, the story of Prüm articulates the European dream: one in which goods, services, and people live and travel freely and securely.

Forensic fictions: science, television production, and modern storytelling

This essay uses interviews with television creators, writers, and producers to examine how media practitioners utilise, negotiate and transform forensic science in the production of televisual stories including the creation of unique visuals, character exploration, narrative progression, plot complication, thematic development, and adding a sense of authenticity. Television as a medium has its own structures and conventions, including adherence to a show's franchise, which put constraints on how stories are told. I demonstrate how television writers find forensic science to be an ideal tool in navigating television's narrative constraints by using forensics to create conflicts, new obstacles, potential solutions, and final solutions in their stories. I show how television writers utilise forensic science to provide the scientific certainty their characters require to catch the criminal, but also how uncertainty is introduced in a story through the interpretation of the forensics by the show's characters. I also argue that televisual storytellers maintain a flexible notion of scientific realism based on the notion of possibility that puts them at odds with scientists who take a more demanding conception of scientific accuracy based on the concept of probability.

Just truth? Carefully applying history, philosophy and sociology of science to the forensic use of CCTV images

Using as a case study the forensic comparison of images for purposes of identification, this essay considers how the history, philosophy and sociology of science might help courts to improve their responses to scientific and technical forms of expert opinion evidence in ways that are more consistent with legal system goals and values. It places an emphasis on the need for more sophisticated models of science and expertise that are capable of helping judges to identify sufficiently reliable types of expert evidence and to reflexively incorporate the weakness of trial safeguards and personnel into their admissibility decision making.

Science, truth, and forensic cultures: the exceptional legal status of DNA evidence

Many epistemological terms, such as investigation, inquiry, argument, evidence, and fact were established in law well before being associated with science. However, while legal proof remained qualified by standards of 'moral certainty', scientific proof attained a reputation for objectivity. Although most forms of legal evidence (including expert evidence) continue to be treated as fallible 'opinions' rather than objective 'facts', forensic DNA evidence increasingly is being granted an exceptional factual status. It did not always enjoy such status. Two decades ago, the scientific status of forensic DNA evidence was challenged in the scientific literature and in courts of law, but by the late 1990s it was being granted exceptional legal status. This paper reviews the ascendancy of DNA profiling, and argues that its widely-heralded objective status is bound up with systems of administrative accountability. The 'administrative objectivity' of DNA evidence rests upon observable and reportable bureaucratic rules, records, recording devices, protocols, and architectural arrangements. By highlighting administrative sources of objectivity, this paper suggests that DNA evidence remains bound within the context of ordinary organisational and practical routines, and is not a transcendent source of 'truth' in the criminal justice system.

Medical forensic examination of detained immigrants: is the Istanbul Protocol followed?

INTRODUCTION

Maltreatment and torture during custody is still an important problem in many countries. Both national and international regulations and the Istanbul Protocol are of great importance in terms of elimination of maltreatment and torture. In this study, we evaluated whether examinations for custody of immigrants were performed in accordance with the Istanbul Protocol.

METHOD

We retrospectively evaluated reports of forensic examinations for custody of 100 immigrants in Van-Çaldıran Government Hospital in 2009. Data about nationality, age, gender, examination date, referring department, examination findings and departments to which the reports were submitted were collected.

RESULTS

Fifty percent of the immigrants were Iranian and they were aged between 11 and 62 years. Ninety-nine immigrants were men and one was woman. Data about history of arrest were missing in forensic reports about all immigrants. Data about signs of trauma were present only for seven immigrants. Ninety-three immigrants were reported to have no signs of trauma. None of the immigrants underwent psychiatric examination. All forensic reports were found to be submitted to the police personally. Whether the immigrants were examined before or after the custody was not clear in the reports.

CONCLUSION

Evaluation of the data showed that none of the forensic examinations were performed in accordance with the Istanbul Protocol. It can be recommended that the protocol should be incorporated into the curricula for undergraduate, graduate and in-service training programmes in order to improve relevant forensic practices.

Believing doesn't make it so: forensic education and the search for truth

The American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (AAPL) was organized in 1969, in large part through the efforts of Dr. Jonas Rappeport. The founders of AAPL emphasized that an important purpose of the organization was to advance knowledge in the area of psychiatry and the law. The science of forensic psychiatry has since been vigorously debated. In 2005, Congress enacted a statute authorizing the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to conduct a study on the state of the forensic sciences in the United States. As a result of this legislation, a forensic science committee was formed, and the report, "Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward," was produced, emphasizing the need for research in the forensic disciplines, particularly those that rely on more subjective assessments. The committee also identified two important factors relevant to standards of evidence admissibility: the scientific methodology used and the impact of bias on the interpretation of data. In this article, I apply the NAS committee's findings to the field of forensic psychiatry, with specific recommendations to assist educators in achieving more objective assessment methodologies, critical in forensic education and the search for truth.

Forensic human identification in the United States and Canada: a review of the law, admissible techniques, and the legal implications of their application in forensic cases

Forensic human identification techniques are successful if they lead to positive personal identification. However, the strongest personal identification is of no use in the prosecution--or vindication--of an accused if the associated evidence and testimony is ruled inadmissible in a court of law. This review examines the U.S. and Canadian legal rulings regarding the admissibility of expert evidence and testimony, and subsequently explores four established methods of human identification (i.e., DNA profiling, forensic anthropology, forensic radiography, forensic odontology) and one complementary technique useful in determining identity, and the legal implications of their application in forensic cases.

Bodies of science and law: forensic DNA profiling, biological bodies, and biopower

How is jurisdiction transferred from an individual's biological body to agents of power such as the police, public prosecutors, and the judiciary, and what happens to these biological bodies when transformed from private into public objects? These questions are examined by analysing bodies situated at the intersection of science and law. More specifically, the transformation of ‘private bodies’ into ‘public bodies’ is analysed by going into the details of forensic DNA profiling in the Dutch jurisdiction. It will be argued that various ‘forensic genetic practices’ enact different forensic genetic bodies'. These enacted forensic genetic bodies are connected with various infringements of civil rights, which become articulated in exploring these forensic genetic bodies’‘normative registers’.

Expert evidence accountability: new developments and challenges

A series of developments in relation to the accountability of expert witnesses and the admissibility of their opinions is taking place. This extends to encroachments in the United Kingdom on expert witness immunity, the imposition of disciplinary liability for registered health practitioners in Australia and the United Kingdom, and recommendations from the United Kingdom Law Commission for a systematised procedure for reliability determination as a prerequisite for admissibility rulings. This combination of measures is indicative of international concern about the contemporary role of expert witnesses. It highlights the need for both empirical information about whether the anecdotal and experiential concerns about expert evidence are well-founded and for the provision of better and clearer guidance to experts and litigators alike about the underpinnings and methodologies that are permissible for admissible and probative expert opinions.

[Criminal court expert reports]

In relation with the structured pattern of crime today, and owing to the evolution observed among sciences and techniques, the legal system more and more frequently requires expert advice in numerous criminal cases with increasing technicality. The expert and the investigating officer appear to be of equal importance regarding the advices on which the judge bases both his evidence appreciation and his judgement when giving a ruling on a suspect's potential culpability.

Implementation of Istanbul Protocol for effective documentation of torture - review of Sri Lankan perspectives

Documentation of torture is a multidisciplinary, multistage scientific procedure evolved over the past decades through the experience of various strata in medical and related fields. It plays a key role in effective corroboration of facts, providing redress to victims and also has a long term regulatory impact on prevention of torture in a society. The UN endorsed Istanbul protocol serves as the model for effective documentation of torture in the present context and there were many attempts in the recent years to create a systematic and uniform approach among professional bodies to document torture by adopting it to the local medico-legal and legal systems in some less resourced countries. The post independent Sri Lanka is widely known in international human rights forums for the prevalence of torture and its endemicity since 1970s. The long term struggle to ensure justice to torture victims in Sri Lanka has been greatly enhanced by the submission of detailed medico-legal reports on them to relevant courts. As strengthening of medico-legal and legal reporting strategies were more focused towards the end of twentieth century the medico-legal and legal professionals in consensus attempted to use Istanbul Protocol for documentation of torture since 2004. However Sri Lankan experience on application of Istanbul protocol for documentation of torture signifies that unless and until a political commitment is shown by the government to internalize Istanbul Protocol into legal and medico-legal systems locally the expected outcome of effective documentation would not be evident.

Uniqueness in the forensic identification sciences--fact or fiction?

Fingerprint analysts, firearms and toolmark examiners, and forensic odontologists often rely on the uniqueness proposition in order to support their theory of identification. However, much of the literature claiming to have proven uniqueness in the forensic identification sciences is methodologically weak, and suffers flaws that negate any such conclusion being drawn. The finding of uniqueness in any study appears to be an overstatement of the significance of its results, and in several instances, this claim is made despite contrary data being presented. The mathematical and philosophical viewpoint regarding this topic is that obtaining definitive proof of uniqueness is considered impossible by modern scientific methods. More importantly, there appears to be no logical reason to pursue such research, as commentators have established that uniqueness is not the essential requirement for forming forensic conclusions. The courts have also accepted this in several recent cases in the United States, and have dismissed the concept of uniqueness as irrelevant to the more fundamental question of the reliability of the forensic analysis.

Trace evidence: here today, gone tomorrow?

The recent report of the National Research Council of the U.S. National Academies "Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: a Path Forward" found evidence that the level of scientific development and evaluation varies substantially among the forensic science disciplines. In this paper the status of trace evidence will be reviewed from an international perspective with particular reference to case studies. The paper will argue that the trace evidence discipline needs to learn from past experience and that serious coordinated action is required at an international level if trace evidence is to continue to meet the standards expected of forensic science in the future. The paper concludes that it is vital that trace evidence remains a key component of forensic investigation due to its important role in addressing the 'what happened' question.

Science convicting the innocent

This paper focuses on the dangers of scientific evidence in criminal cases. The general reliability of scientific evidence is reviewed. Second, cases are evaluated thus tracing the development of the rules set out for the admissibility of scientific expert evidence. Third, cases are analyzed and the existing rules are criticized; this analysis grounds several proposed changes set forth as a protection for an accused person from possible dangers accompanied with scientific evidence. And finally, this paper proposes that the trial judge should exercise more active and comprehensive discretion to exclude potentially dangerous scientific evidence. Instead of assessing threshold reliability questions, the trial judge should determine the actual reliability of scientific evidence under the ad-hoc circumstances of the particular case before him. The trial judge should then determine if the scientific evidence meets the new tests, as proposed in this paper, for scientific admissibility, depending on whether the defense or the prosecution relies on science and how close science is to the ultimate issue of guilt or innocence. In judge-rule trails, judges must rule on the scientifically more accurate theory, but not on the more convincing expert.

Environmental forensics: the case for professional registration

The origins and purpose of the Council for the Registration of Forensic Practitioners (CRFP) is described, and its emergence as the primary source of assurance of the current professional competence of forensic practitioners is demonstrated. While the main emphasis of CRFP thus far is within the criminal justice system, its approach and principles are equally applicable to civil courts, tribunals, arbitrations and like legal contexts. The case is made for those engaged in environmental forensic work to come within the scope of CRFP with resultant benefits to practitioners, their employers and the public at large.

Environmental forensics: an emerging discipline within UK higher education?

Environmental forensics is an established discipline in North America, but has yet to make an impact within Europe and more specifically within the UK. In this paper we explore the reasons for this and explore the nature and fundamental philosophy that underlies this discipline. Case studies can be used to explore the complexity that can be associated with an environmental forensic investigation and we argue that there is a demand for professionals with skills in forensic practice within the environmental sector today. The paper finishes by suggesting that environmental forensics is a discipline of its moment within Europe for which the Higher Education sector must now cater.

Insightlessness and an unscientific forensic expert

In Council for Regulation of Healthcare Professionals v General Medical Council [2005] EWHC 579 (Admin) Collins J heard an appeal relating to sanctions imposed on a medical practitioner who had provided medically unjustifiable opinions in relation to the person responsible for the death of a child in a notorious case for which a solicitor had been convicted of murdering her two sons. The author analyses and evaluates the considerations determined by Collins J to have justified the imposition of conditions rather than erasure of the practitioner from the Medical Register.

Natural justice and the coroner

In R v Doogan (2005) 158 ACTR 1; 193 FLR 239; [2005] ACTSC 74 the Full Court of the Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court made what is arguably thus far the most extensive Australian appellate decision on coronial law and procedure. The court made findings on the nature of coroners' inquests into fires and deaths, the ways in which the parameters of inquests should be determined and the circumstances in which the conduct of coroners and the counsel assisting them could amount to conduct which would lead the hypothetical disinterested bystander to conclude that the coroner was biased. The decision is a contextually sophisticated analysis. One of its consequences is that it will be difficult for parties to have coroners disqualified for apprehended bias. More generally, though, the decision will lend significant assistance for the recurrent difficulty of evaluating when matters sought to be traversed are outside the proper parameters of a coroner's inquest.

The forensic expert witness--an issue of competency

Scientists submitting expert opinions within the legal system are expected to be knowledgeable in the forensic aspects of their particular science, as well as to be ethical and unbiased. Scientists are seldom able to decline a request to provide an expert opinion in their field, even when their forensic expertise is minimal. The competence of scientists providing expert opinions in forensic cases is reviewed here. Three examples of the perils of uninformed "expertise" in forensic biology, medicine and anthropology are presented.