Forensic Science

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Forensic Science

By Jay A. Siegel Article History

Related Topics: autopsy forensic anthropology forensic medicine forensic psychology forensic dentistry

forensic science, the application of the methods of the natural and physical sciences to matters of criminal and civil law. Forensic science can be involved not only in investigation and prosecution of crimes such as rape, murder, and drug trafficking but also in matters in which a crime has not been committed but in which someone is charged with a civil wrong (see tort), such as willful pollution of air or water or causing industrial injuries.

Almost any science can be a forensic science because almost any science can contribute to solving a crime or eval‎uating a civil harm. In fact, with few exceptions, forensic sciences are no different in what they study than traditional sciences. The only difference is that forensic scientists apply the methods and techniques of established sciences to legal matters.

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Short descriptions of each of the main areas of forensic science follow.

Forensic anthropology

There are a number of applications of anthropology to the forensic sciences. A large part of physical anthropology deals with skeletal biology, which includes bone and bone system structures and their relationships to characteristics such as gender, age, race, socioeconomic status, and so forth. That knowledge can be applied to the examination of characteristics of skeletal remains that are part of a crime scene. In such cases, the goal of the analysis may be to determine the identity of the deceased person and, perhaps, the cause of death. To those ends, forensic anthropologists make use of a number of unique techniques.

Two major types of human-remains evidence confront the forensic anthropologist. First is the single bone or bone fragment or small group of bones. When that is the only type of evidence present, the forensic anthropologist seeks to determine if the bone is human and, if not, what type of animal the bone belongs to. If the sample is human bone, then the anthropologist will determine the part of the body from which it came. For example, if a single human arm bone is recovered from a field, there will most likely be other human bones belonging to the same individual around also.

The second major type of forensic anthropological evidence is the complete (or nearly complete) skeleton. From that evidence, the accomplished forensic anthropologist may be able to determine gender, race, approximate age, stature, and approximate socioeconomic status. If there is damage to some of the bones, the anthropologist may be able to determine what type of trauma caused it. If the skull is present, it may be possible to prepare an approximate face on the skull using skull superimposition—building a face out of clay using average thickness measurements developed by anatomists, pathologists, and anthropologists. Investigators may then publish a picture of the face to see if it evokes a response from a relative of a missing person. If a possible match to the skeleton is found and there are antemortem pictures available, then a new video superimposition technique may be used. That technique utilizes two cameras to superimpose the skull over the picture of the actual face to determine if the skull could be the right one.

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Criminalistics

Criminalistics can be defined as the application of scientific methods to the recognition, collection, identification, and comparison of physical evidence generated by criminal or illegal civil activity. It also involves the reconstruction of such events by eval‎uation of the physical evidence and the crime scene.

Criminalists, usually called “forensic scientists,” analyze evidence such as body fluids in order to determine if DNA in those fluids matches blood found at a crime scene (see DNA fingerprinting). Other forensic scientists may help identify, collect, and eval‎uate physical evidence at a crime scene.

Forensic engineering

Forensic engineering uses the concepts of mechanical, chemical, civil, and electrical engineering as tools in the reconstruction of crimes and accidents and the determination of their cause. A major component of that work involves traffic accident reconstruction. To determine what may have caused the accident, forensic engineers use evidence such as skid marks; damage to cars and their positions after the accident; road and environmental conditions; injuries to drivers, passengers, and pedestrians; and witness accounts. In developing their explanations, engineers may work in concert with forensic pathologists, toxicologists, criminalists, and other engineers. Some forensic engineers specialize in marine incidents or aircraft crashes.

Another major area of forensic engineering is failure analysis. Mechanical, chemical, civil, and structural engineers all bring their skills to bear on problems involving how and why buildings or other structures deteriorate or fail prematurely. An example of such work was the collapse of a walkway high above the lobby of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel in 1981, which killed and injured many people. Forensic engineers were called in to determine why the balcony collapsed.

A somewhat unusual application of forensic engineering involves animals on farms where high-voltage power lines or communication transmission lines pass overhead. For many years, there have been suggestions by farmers that transient currents from these power lines affect the health of their animals, including cows’ ability to give milk. Many electrical engineers have studied this problem and cases have ended up in court.

Forensic engineers are usually educated engineers who have earned a doctorate and who develop expertise in one or more of the forensically important disciplines. There are no university graduate programs in forensic engineering; most of the expertise is developed on the job, perhaps working with more-experienced practitioners.

Jurisprudence

Most members of the jurisprudence section of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences are lawyers. They have a strong interest in the legal aspects of the status of scientific evidence in the courts. They study and comment on the admissibility of scientific evidence, especially new types of evidence. They are also concerned with the role of forensic science in general in the criminal justice system and about ethical issues as they apply to judges and lawyers. Some of the lawyers have a strong background themselves in scientific issues and are well positioned to work with other lawyers and scientists on such matters.

Forensic odontology

Perhaps a more familiar term for this branch would be forensic dentistry. There are several important applications of dentistry to the forensic sciences. One of the most long-standing and important is the identification of a body from its dentition, which may be the only reliable way of identifying human remains in mass disasters, such as airplane crashes, fires, or wars. A body may be too badly damaged to have any fingerprints or usable DNA for typing, but dentition is very hardy and can survive crashes, fires, and even explosions. The forensic dentist can obtain an X-ray of the surviving teeth and compare it to antemortem dental X-rays. Of course, there must be some information about the possible identity of the body, and there must be some antemortem X-rays available for comparison. Almost anyone who has been to a dentist will have dental X-rays on file, so the main difficulty in such analysis is knowing whose X-rays to compare to the dental remains. A comparison of dental X-rays can lead to a definitive identification.

Forensic dentists also have an important role in the analysis of facial injuries received in a suspected battering. Their work is especially important in the case of children who may be brought to an emergency room at a hospital with facial injuries. A forensic dentist may be able to verify or refute a claim that the injuries were accidental, as a result of falling down a flight of stairs, for example. In such analysis, the forensic dentist will work closely with emergency room physicians and nurses and perhaps forensic pathologists.

A relatively recent application of forensic dentistry is in the area of bite mark analysis. In many sex-crime and homicide situations, the perpetrator may bite the victim. Often the bites are deep, and the resulting marks may persist for a long time, especially if the victim is bitten after death. During the postmortem exam, the pathologist can take a cast of the bite mark using dental plaster or some other medium. That cast can be compared with a cast taken of the suspect’s dentition. Everyone’s teeth are believed to be unique in their bite surfaces (taken as a whole), and thus the comparison can individualize the bite mark to a particular person.

Such evidence can show up in a variety of crimes. During one reported case of burglary in England, for example, the perpetrator evidently became hungry and took a bite out of a piece of Swiss cheese, leaving a mark that was traced back to his mouth. A more serious and notorious case in which bite mark evidence was important was that of the American serial killer Ted Bundy. Bundy was believed to have killed more than 40 people, most of them young women. One of his habits was to bite his victims, often after they were dead, as he did in the case of one of his last murders in Florida. A forensic odontologist was able to match a bite mark impression taken from the victim’s flesh to Bundy’s dentition. That identification was pivotal evidence in Bundy’s conviction.

Forensic dentists are, of course, first and foremost, dentists. They should have a particular interest and expertise in taking and interpreting dental X-rays or bite marks, or they should have some special training or expertise in the interpretation of facial injuries.

Forensic pathology

In cases of suspicious death, a forensic pathologist is charged with determining the cause and manner of death. In the United States, each state has its own regulations that govern what constitutes a forensic case, and each has a system to accomplish the tasks of forensic pathology. Many states have a medical examiner system, in which a city or county will have a chief medical examiner, who must be a physician. The chief medical examiner will, in turn, have a number of associate medical examiners who perform the actual duties of the forensic pathologist. Other states have a coroner system, in which the chief officer may not be a physician but employs forensic pathologists to carry out the necessary duties.

Forensic pathologists have three major duties to perform. They are called to crime scenes to make a preliminary examination of the body and perhaps an initial determination of the postmortem interval (the time since death). They will take charge of the body and direct the trained death scene investigators to carefully prepare and remove the body and transport it to the morgue for later analysis.

Forensic pathologists determine the cause and manner of death by use of the postmortem examination, or autopsy. The autopsy entails careful dissection of the body to search for injury patterns, disease, or poisoning that may point to the ultimate cause of death. In that activity, the forensic pathologist will work closely with forensic toxicologists, who take tissue samples and determine what, if any, substances may be in the body that could have caused or contributed to death. Forensic pathologists also work closely with criminal investigators so as to get a complete picture of the circumstances surrounding the death. At times, the forensic pathologist may consult with forensic anthropologists or entomologists in helping to reach relevant conclusions about the cause and manner of death.

When a person dies, a physician must complete and sign a death certificate. In all forensic cases, the certificate must list a manner of death. The possible manners of death are homicide, accident, suicide, and natural causes. In some states, one of those four must be listed. In other states, the pathologist is also permitted to enter “undetermined” or a variant. Although the determination may be straightforward in a normal case, it can be problematic in a death of suspicious origin.

The final duty of the forensic pathologist is to render opinions in court as to the cause and manner of death. Medical examiners and coroners are called to court quite often and must be able to present their testimony without shocking the jury. Many times, judges will limit or not admit gory photos of the deceased for fear of prejudicing the jury.

Forensic pathologists are physicians who specialize in pathology through a residency that may extend three to four years beyond medical school. An additional one-year residency in forensic pathology will enable a pathologist to become certified in forensic pathology. In complicated death cases, it is easy for an untrained pathologist to make a mistake in determining the cause and manner of death, which may lead to a miscarriage of justice. It is therefore important to encourage pathologists to become certified if they are going to be doing forensic work.

Forensic entomology

In addition to forensic pathology, there are other biological sciences that have important forensic applications, including forensic entomology. It has been said that the first visitors to a corpse, especially one left outdoors, are insects. Many different types of insects will seek out a corpse and inhabit it for a short time, to deposit their eggs or larvae and to feed on the body. The role of the forensic entomologist is mainly to help determine the postmortem interval by examining which insect populations inhabit the body. Certain insects will attack the body right after death, whereas others will wait until some decay has taken place. Knowledge of this pattern of insect succession can give important information about when the person died. Accurate determination of the postmortem interval takes a great deal of training and education, because many environmental factors—such as temperature, humidity, moisture, burial conditions, and type of clothing—may need to be considered. There have been poisoning cases in which the only source of the poison after decay of a body was the insects who had ingested the poison. Strictly speaking, this is not part of forensic entomology, but it does involve insect behaviour after death.

Most forensic entomologists are employed by universities full-time and will lend their knowledge and skills to law enforcement agencies on an as-needed basis. Very few people practice forensic entomology as their only vocation.

Psychiatry and behavioral science

The general area of behavioral forensic science has expanded greatly since the mid-20th century. Forensic psychiatrists (and to some extent psychologists) have long been involved in determining whether persons are mentally competent to stand trial and to aid in their own defense. Although each U.S. state has its own standards for determining competence, the question usually reduces to whether a defendant had the mental capacity to form an intent to commit a crime. Intent is usually considered to be a prime factor in determining whether a crime has been committed.

In addition to this role of the behavioral forensic scientist, there are several other emerging duties. One is in the area of psychological crime scene reconstruction and psychological profiling. People who repeat the same type of crime are known as serial criminals. Such people usually have particular motivations and reasons for committing that type of crime and will tend to form behavioral patterns that show up time after time. A trained behavioral scientist can uncover some of these patterns and help predict when, how, and against whom the serial criminal will strike next. Such predictions may enable the police to prevent the next crime in the series. In addition, ritualistic behaviour by serial criminals may result in crime scene clues that can enable a behavioral scientist to develop a physical and psychological profile of the perpetrator, which can help the police narrow their search.

Behavioral scientists also engage in other activities that are less well known to the public. They may, for example, be called upon to develop a physical and behavioral profile of a likely airplane hijacker so that airport security personnel can look out for such people and pay extra attention to their movements in the airport.

A very important role of a behavioral forensic scientist is in interviewing and interrogating suspects and witnesses to crimes. Those processes may involve the use of a polygraph to help determine the veracity of a statement being given by a witness or suspect. Scientists who engage in such activities have an intimate knowledge of police procedures and criminology.

Behavioral scientists usually have advanced degrees in psychiatry or clinical psychology or criminology. They also usually have some type of law enforcement experience that enables them to understand the behavioral aspects of crime.

Questioned-document analysis

Questioned-document analysis involves a number of areas of forensic inquiry. It is an apprenticeship field, requiring years of practice and work with an experienced examiner. The most familiar area of questioned-document examination is handwriting analysis. Here the examiner is called upon to determine if a particular person was the author of a document. The examiner compares characteristics of the questioned document with those of a document either previously written by the suspect or purposely taken as a known handwriting sample, also called an exemplar. There are no universal standards for the number of characteristics that must be present in order for the document examiner to conclude that a particular person was the author of a document. It is up to the individual examiner to determine when there is sufficient evidence.

Forensic document examiners may be called upon to determine if a particular instrument made a typewritten or printed document or if a particular copier made a copy of a document. Unless there are some unusual characteristics or defects in the instrument, it is generally not possible to answer such questions definitively.

Document examiners are also called upon to examine alterations in documents such as erasures, addition of material, obliterated writing, and charred documents. Such work involves chemical analysis as well as physical and observational techniques. Examiners are frequently asked to determine the age of a document, particularly those that are handwritten in ink. A document may consist of a number of entries made at different times, and questions may arise as to whether a particular entry was made at a purported time. In other cases, the age of an entire document may be called into question. The determination of the age of the ink on a document is accomplished by uncovering changes in the chemical composition of the ink that take place over time. A similar type of analysis may also be done on the paper, especially if ink was not used to write the document.

Toxicology

Toxicology is the analysis and identification of poisons and drugs in the body. Forensic toxicology is the application of such analysis to cases in which death or injury may have been caused by the ingestion of drugs or poisons. By far the most common kinds of cases examined by forensic toxicologists involve drunk or drugged driving.

Every U.S. state has a set of laws that govern the use of alcohol while operating or driving a motor vehicle. Each state sets limits for the permissible level of alcohol in a driver’s bloodstream. Usually there are two categories of intoxication: “impaired” and “under the influence.” The latter requires a higher concentration of alcohol. In many states, merely having a blood alcohol level greater than the limit constitutes an offense. In other states, there must also be a demonstration that the driver was actually impaired or under the influence of alcohol. That demonstration is accomplished by requiring the driver to undergo a series of motor coordination tests.

The role of the forensic toxicologist in such cases is to measure the quantity of alcohol in the body, usually by blood analysis, and then to explain the effects of that quantity on the person’s ability to drive. Toxicologists are often asked to “back calculate” what the alcohol concentration in a person’s blood may have been at an earlier time, although this can be a difficult undertaking owing to the large number of variables.

Forensic toxicologists have also been called upon to interpret cases in which a driver has been using a drug—usually illicit—and then driving. There are no established limits for the amount of a drug that can be present in order for a driver to be impaired or under the influence. Therefore, a forensic toxicologist must be intimately familiar with the effects of many types of drugs on motor coordination. In many states, the presence of any amount of a drug that can be reliably detected by a forensic toxicologist constitutes enough to affect the driver.

In addition to drunk or drugged driving cases, forensic toxicologists handle cases in which there has been an overdose of an illicit drug, which may contribute to or cause death. The toxicologist must be able to determine blood levels of the drugs or their metabolites and to interpret those findings and ascertain the role that the drug played in the person’s death. In many cases, more than one drug is taken or a drug may be taken in conjunction with alcohol, and the toxicologist must be able to interpret the interactions among those substances. In such cases, the toxicologist works closely with the forensic pathologist.

In recent years, many companies and public organizations such as police and fire departments have been concerned about the use of drugs by employees on the job. Many drug-testing programs have been set up to measure drug concentrations in workers on a routine or random basis. Such laboratories virtually always employ one or more forensic toxicologists to maintain standards, offer training to technicians, and take overall responsibility for the laboratory. Most such laboratories test urine samples donated by employees, but some also test hair taken from the head. Hair is superior to urine as a medium for drug testing in that it is less invasive to obtain and can provide a drug history of many months’ duration. Also, hair testing is not subject to some of the manipulations that plague urine testing, such as the use of diuretics to flush the drugs from the urine.

Jay A. Siegel