PITS MIDTERMS

• Forensic Science


  The application of science principles and methods to support legal decision-making in matters of criminal and civil law
• Forensic Science is also known as criminalistics
• During criminal investigation, forensic science is governed by the legal standards of admissible evidence and criminal procedure
• Practices in forensic science

  • Analysis of DNA
  • Fingerprints
  • Bloodstain patterns
  • Firearms
  • Documents
  • Ballistics
  • Toxicology
  • Fire debris analysis
• Etymology of 'forensic'


  From the Latin word 'forum' meaning marketplace, 'forensic' means legal
• Criminal Investigation is: '95% Intuition<|>3% Perspiration<|>2% Luck or Chance'
• There are no two persons who were born to be the same
• Sir Francis Galton: 'Let no one despise the ridges on account of their smallness, for they are in some respects the most important of all anthropological data. We shall see that they form patterns considerable in size and curious variety in shape, which are little worlds in themselves.'
• Methods of Identification

  • By Comparison
  • By exclusion
• Identification of Dead Bodies

  • Personal Effects
  • Physical Description
• Portrait Parle (Spoken Picture)


  Verbal description which is sometimes aided by general photographic files, mug files or rogues galleries

  
• Extrinsic Factors in Identification

  • Ornamentation
  • Personal Belongings
  • Wearing Apparel
  • Foreign Bodies
• Ordinary Methods of Identification


  • Occupational Marks
  • Race
  • Structure
  • Tattoo marks
  • Weight
  • Deformities
  • Birth Marks
  • Injuries Leaving Permanent Records
  • Moles
  • Scar
  • Tribal Marks
  • Sexual Organ
  • Blood Examination
• The Aztecs, a tribe in Mexico, had a tradition of printing their palm in mud to be placed in their tombs
• Picture writing of a hand with ridge patterns was discovered in Nova Scotia
• Friction ridge skin impressions were used as proof of person's identity in China perhaps as early as 300BC, in Japan as early as A.D. 702, and in the United States since 1902
• Earthenware estimated to be 6000 years old was discovered at an archaeological site in Northwestern China and found to bear clearly discernible friction ridge impressions
• From 221 BC to A.D. 1637, the Chinese were the first culture known to have used friction ridge impressions as means of identification
• Hua Chi


  The name given by the Chinese in referring to fingerprints
• The Chinese were well acquainted with the essential characteristics of fingerprints, calling arches and whorls "LO" (snail) and loops "KI" (sieve or winnowing basket)
• Emperor Te'in Shi (246-210 BC) was the first Chinese ruler who devised a seal carved from white jade, with the name of the owner on one side and the impression of the thumb on the other side
• The use of friction ridge skin impressions in China continued into the Tang Dynasty (A.D. 617– 907), as seen on land contracts, wills, and army rosters
• In Japan, a "Domestic Law" enacted in A.D. 702 required the following: "In case a husband cannot write, let him hire another man to write the document and after the husband's name, sign with his own index finger"
• Palm prints in India demonstrate authenticity of authorship when writing an important document
• The use of prints on important documents in India was mainly reserved for royalty, and was likely adopted from the Chinese
• Nehemiah Grew


  Published a report on Ridges and Pores before the Royal Society of London in 1684
• Marcello Malpighi


  An Italian professor who studied his observations on skin, pores and ridges in 1856, and is considered the "Grandfather of Dactyloscopy"
• J.C.A. Mayer (1788)


  Strengthened the "Principle of Individuality" by stating that there are no two fingerprints of different individuals that are exactly the same
• Johannes E. Purkinje (1787–1869)


  A Czechoslovakian professor known as the Father of Dactyloscopy, who named 9 fingerprint patterns and laid down classification rules
• Hermann Welcker (1822–1898) recorded his palm print in 1856 and again in 1897, strengthening the "Principle of Permanency"
• Henry Faulds (1843-1930)


  In 1880, he published the first article proposing the use of friction ridge individualization at crime scenes, and gave two practical examples
• Alphonse Bertillon (1882)


  A French Criminologist known as the Father of Personal Identification, who founded the Bertillon System of anthropometric identification
• The Bertillon System was questioned due to the famous "West Case" where two identical twins were mistaken for each other
• Francis Galton (1822-1911)


  Defined and named specific print minutiae, known as Galton details, and attempted to calculate the probability of two persons having the same fingerprints
• Juan Vucetich


  An Argentine Fingerprint Pioneer who devised the Vucetich System, mostly used in Spanish-speaking countries of Central and South America
• Edward Richard Henry (1859-1931)


  The successor of Sir Herschel and Galton, published a book on "Classification and Uses of Fingerprint" and became the Father of Modern Fingerprint
• Edmond Locard (1914)


  Published "The Legal Evidence by the Fingerprints" and proposed the theory of poroscopy, stating that "Every person leaves a contact or trace" and that there is no perfect crime
• René Forgeot, a French medical/legal scientist, published a thesis in 1891 proposing the use of powders and chemicals to develop latent prints at crime scenes
• In 1910, the Bureau of Prison (Bucor) in the Philippines adopted a fingerprint identification system through a certain GENEROSO LA TORRE
• Edmond Locard


  Father of Modern Fingerprint