Crime Laboratories PDF

# Crime Laboratories The steady advance of forensic science technologies during the 20th century led to the establishment of the first facilities specifically dedicated to forensic analysis of criminal evidence. These crime laboratories are now the centers for both forensic investigation of ongoin...

# Crime Laboratories The steady advance of forensic science technologies during the 20th century led to the establishment of the first facilities specifically dedicated to forensic analysis of criminal evidence. These crime laboratories are now the centers for both forensic investigation of ongoing criminal cases and research into new techniques and procedures to aid investigators in the future. ## History of Crime Labs in the United States The oldest forensic laboratory in the United States is that of the Los Angeles Police Department, created in 1923 by August Vollmer, a police chief from Berkeley California. In the 1930s, Vollmer headed the first U.S. university institute for criminology and criminalistics at the University of California at Berkeley. However, this institute lacked any official status in the university until 1948, when a school of criminology was formed. The famous criminalist Paul Kirk was selected to head its criminalistics department. Many graduates of this school have gone on to develop forensic laboratories in other parts of the state and country. In 1932, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), under the directorship of J. Edgar Hoover, organized a national laboratory that offered forensic services to all law enforcement agencies in the country. During its formative stages, Hoover consulted extensively with business executives, manufacturers, and scientists whose knowledge and experience guided the new facility through its infancy. The FBI Laboratory is now the world's largest forensic laboratory, performing more than one million examinations every year. Its accomplishments have earned it worldwide recognition, and its structure and organization have served as a model for forensic laboratories formed at the state and local levels in the United States as well as in other countries. Furthermore, the opening of the FBI's Forensic Science Research and Training Center in 1981 gave the United States, for the first time, a facility dedicated to conducting research to develop new and reliable scientific methods that can be applied to forensic science. This facility is also used to train crime laboratory personnel in the latest forensic science techniques and methods. Despite the existence of the FBI Laboratory, the United States has no national system of forensic laboratories. Instead, many local law enforcement jurisdictions—city, county, and state, around the country each operate their own independent crime labs. California, for example, has numerous federal, state, county, and city crime laboratories, many of which operate independently. However, in 1972 the California Department of Justice created a network of integrated state-operated crime laboratories consisting of regional and satellite facilities. An informal exchange of information and expertise occurs within California's criminalist community through a regional professional society, the California Association of Criminalists. This organization was the forerunner of a number of regional organizations that have developed throughout the United States to foster cooperation among the nation's growing community of criminalists. ## Organization of a Crime Laboratory The development of crime laboratories in the United States has been characterized by rapid growth accompanied by a lack of national and regional planning and coordination. Approximately four hundred public crime laboratories operate at various levels of government—federal, state, county, and municipal. The size and diversity of crime laboratories make it impossible to select any one model that best describes a typical crime laboratory. Although most of these facilities function as part of a police department, others operate under the direction of the prosecutor's or district attorney's office; some work with the laboratories of the medical examiner or coroner. Far fewer are affiliated with universities or exist as independent agencies in government. Laboratory staff sizes range from one person to more than a hundred, and their services may be diverse or specialized, depending on the responsibilities of the agency that houses the laboratory. ## The Growth of Crime Laboratories Crime laboratories have mostly been organized by agencies that either foresaw their potential application to criminal investigation or were pressed by the increasing demands of casework. Several reasons explain the unparalleled growth of crime laboratories during the past 35 years. Supreme Court decisions in the 1960s were responsible for greater police emphasis on securing scientifically evaluated evidence. The requirement to advise criminal suspects of their constitutional rights and their right of immediate access to counsel has all but eliminated confessions as a routine investigative tool. Successful prosecution of criminal cases requires a thorough and professional police investigation, frequently incorporating the skills of forensic science experts. Modern technology has provided forensic scientists with many new skills and techniques to meet the challenges accompanying their increased participation in the criminal justice system. Coinciding with changing judicial requirements has been the staggering increase in crime rates in the United States over the past 40 years. This factor alone would probably have accounted for the increased use of crime laboratory services by police agencies, but only a small percentage of police investigations generate evidence requiring scientific examination. There is, however, one important exception to this observation: drug-related arrests. All illicit-drug seizures must be sent to a forensic laboratory for confirmatory chemical analysis before the case can be adjudicated. Since the mid-1960s, drug abuse has accelerated to nearly uncontrollable levels and has resulted in crime laboratories being inundated with drug specimens. Current estimates indicate that nearly half of all requests for examination of forensic evidence deal with abused drugs. A more recent impetus leading to the growth and maturation of crime laboratories has been the advent of DNA profiling. Since the early 1990s, this technology has progressed to the point at which traces of blood, semen stains, hair, and saliva residues left behind on stamps, cups, bitemarks, and so on have made possible the individualization or near-individualization of biological evidence. To meet the demands of DNA technology, crime labs have expanded staff and in many cases modernized their physical plants. The labor-intensive demands and sophisticated requirements of the technology have affected the structure of the forensic laboratory as has no other technology in the past 50 years. Likewise, DNA profiling has become the dominant factor in explaining how the general public perceives the workings and capabilities of the modern crime laboratory. In coming years thousands of forensic scientists will be added to the rolls of both public and private forensic laboratories to process crime-scene evidence for DNA and to acquire DNA profiles, as mandated by state laws, from the hundreds of thousands of individuals convicted of crimes. This endeavor has already added many new scientists to the field and will eventually more than double the number of scientists employed by forensic laboratories in the United States. A major problem facing the forensic DNA community is the substantial backlog of unanalyzed DNA samples from crime scenes. The number of unanalyzed casework DNA samples reported by state and national agencies is more than 169,000 in 2017. The estimated number of untested convicted offender samples is 800,000 in 2017. In an attempt to eliminate the backlog of convicted offender or arrestee samples to be analyzed and entered into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), the federal government has initiated funding for in-house analysis of samples at the crime laboratory or outsourcing samples to private laboratories for analysis. In 2008, California began collecting DNA samples from all people arrested on suspicion of a felony, not waiting until a person is convicted. The state's database, with approximately one million DNA profiles, is already the third largest in the world, behind those maintained by the United Kingdom and the FBI. Currently, 30 states and the federal government have laws permitting DNA collection from arrestees. ## Crime Laboratories in the United States Historically, a federal system of government, combined with a desire to retain local control, has produced a variety of independent laboratories in the United States, precluding the creation of a national system. Crime laboratories to a large extent mirror the fragmented law enforcement structure that exists on the national, state, and local levels. The federal government has no single law enforcement or investigative agency with unlimited jurisdiction. Four major federal crime laboratories have been created to help investigate and enforce criminal laws that extend beyond the jurisdictional boundaries of state and local forces. The FBI (Department of Justice) maintains the largest crime laboratory in the world. An ultramodern facility housing the FBI's forensic science services is located in Quantico, Virginia. Its expertise and technology support its broad investigative powers. The Drug Enforcement Administration laboratories (Department of Justice) analyze drugs seized in violation of federal laws regulating the production, sale, and transportation of drugs. The laboratories of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (Department of Justice) analyze alcoholic beverages and documents relating to alcohol and firearm excise tax law enforcement and examine weapons, explosive devices, and related evidence to enforce the Gun Control Act of 1968 and the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service maintains laboratories concerned with criminal investigations relating to the postal service. Each of these federal facilities offers its expertise to any local agency that requests assistance in relevant investigative matters. Most state governments maintain a crime laboratory to service state and local law enforcement agencies that do not have ready access to a laboratory. Some states, such as Alabama, California, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, Texas, Washington, Oregon, Virginia, and Florida, have developed a comprehensive statewide system of regional or satellite laboratories. These operate under the direction of a central facility and provide forensic services to most areas of the state. The concept of a regional laboratory operating as part of a statewide system has increased the accessibility of many local law enforcement agencies to a crime laboratory, while minimizing duplication of services and ensuring maximum interlaboratory cooperation through the sharing of expertise and equipment. Local laboratories provide services to county and municipal agencies. Generally, these facilities operate independently of the state crime laboratory and are financed directly by local government. However, as costs have risen, some counties have combined resources and created multicounty laboratories to service their jurisdictions. Many of the larger cities in the United States maintain their own crime laboratories, usually under the direction of the local police department. Frequently, high population and high crime rates combine to make a municipal facility, such as that of New York City, the largest crime laboratory in the state. ## Crime Laboratories Abroad Like the United States, most countries in the world have created and now maintain forensic facilities. In contrast to the American system of independent local laboratories, Great Britain has developed a national system of regional laboratories under the direction of the government's Home Office. In the early 1990s, the British Home Office reorganized the country's forensic laboratories into the Forensic Science Service and instituted a system in which police agencies are charged a fee for services rendered by the laboratory. The fee-for-service concept encouraged the creation of a number of private laboratories that provide services to both police and criminal defense attorneys. One such organization is LGC. In 2010, the British government announced the closure of the Forensic Science Service, citing financial losses. The laboratories closed in 2012, and forensic work in England and Wales is now contracted out to the private sector. Since privatization, LGC has grown to be the largest forensic science provider in the United Kingdom, employing more than seven hundred forensic scientists servicing both police agencies and the private sector. In Canada, forensic services are provided by three government-funded institutes: (1) six Royal Canadian Mounted Police regional laboratories, (2) the Centre of Forensic Sciences in Toronto, and (3) the Institute of Legal Medicine and Police Science in Montreal. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police opened its first laboratory in Regina, Saskatchewan, in 1937. Altogether, more than a hundred countries throughout the world have at least one laboratory facility offering services in the field of forensic science. ## Services of the Crime Laboratory Bearing in mind the independent development of crime laboratories in the United States, the wide variation in total services offered in different communities is not surprising. There are many reasons for this, including (1) variations in local laws, (2) the different capabilities and functions of the organization to which a laboratory is attached, and (3) budgetary and staffing limitations. In recent years, many local crime laboratories have been created solely to process drug specimens. Often these facilities were staffed with few personnel and operated under limited budgets. Although many have expanded their forensic services, some still primarily perform drug analyses. However, even among crime laboratories providing services beyond drug identification, the diversity and quality of services rendered varies significantly. For the purposes of this text, I have arbitrarily designated the following units as those that should constitute a "fullservice" crime laboratory. ### Basic Services Provided by Full-Service Crime Laboratories * **Physical science unit.** The physical science unit applies principles and techniques of chemistry, physics, and geology to the identification and comparison of crime-scene evidence. It is staffed by criminalists who have the expertise to use chemical tests and modern analytical instrumentation to examine items as diverse as drugs, glass, paint, explosives, and soil. In a laboratory that has a staff large enough to permit specialization, the responsibilities of this unit may be further subdivided into drug identification, soil and mineral analysis, and examination of a variety of trace physical evidence. * **Biology unit.** The biology unit is staffed with biologists and biochemists who identify and perform DNA profiling on dried bloodstains and other body fluids, compare hairs and fibers, and identify and compare botanical materials such as wood and plants. * **Firearms unit.** The firearms unit examines firearms, discharged bullets, cartridge cases, shotgun shells, and ammunition of all types. Garments and other objects are also examined to detect firearms discharge residues and to approximate the distance from a target at which a weapon was fired. The basic principles of firearms examination are also applied here to the comparison of marks made by tools. * **Document examination unit.** The document examination unit studies the handwriting and typewriting on questioned documents to ascertain authenticity and/or source. Related responsibilities include analyzing paper and ink and examining indented writings (the term usually applied to the partially visible depressions appearing on a sheet of paper underneath the one on which the visible writing appears), obliterations, erasures, and burned or charred documents. * **Photography unit.** A complete photographic laboratory examines and records physical evidence. Its procedures may require the use of highly specialized photographic techniques, such as digital imaging, infrared, ultraviolet, and X-ray photography, to make invisible information visible to the naked eye. This unit also prepares photographic exhibits for courtroom presentation. ### Optional Services Provided by Full-Service Crime Laboratories * **Toxicology unit.** The toxicology group examines body fluids and organs to determine the presence or absence of drugs and poisons. Frequently, such functions are shared with or may be the sole responsibility of a separate laboratory facility placed under the direction of the medical examiner's or coroner's office. In most jurisdictions, field instruments such as the Intoxilyzer are used to determine the alcoholic consumption of individuals. Often the toxicology section also trains operators and maintains and services these instruments. * **Latent fingerprint unit.** The latent fingerprint unit processes and examines evidence for latent fingerprints when they are submitted in conjunction with other laboratory examinations. * **Polygraph unit.** The polygraph, or lie detector, has come to be recognized as an essential tool of the criminal investigator rather than the forensic scientist. However, during the formative years of polygraph technology, many police agencies incorporated this unit into the laboratory's administrative structure, where it sometimes remains today. In any case, its functions are handled by people trained in the techniques of criminal investigation and interrogation. * **Voiceprint analysis unit.** In cases involving telephoned threats or tape-recorded messages, investigators may require the skills of the voiceprint analysis unit to tie the voice to a particular suspect. To this end, a good deal of casework has been performed with the sound spectrograph, an instrument that transforms speech into a visual graphic display called a voiceprint. The validity of this technique as a means of personal identification rests on the premise that the sound patterns produced in speech are unique to the individual and that the voiceprint displays this uniqueness. * **Crime-scene investigation unit.** The concept of incorporating crime-scene evidence collection into the total forensic science service is slowly gaining recognition in the United States. This unit dispatches specially trained personnel (civilian and/or police) to the crime scene to collect and preserve physical evidence that will later be processed at the crime laboratory. Whatever the organizational structure of a forensic science laboratory may be, specialization must not impede the overall coordination of services demanded by today's criminal investigator. Laboratory administrators need to keep open the lines of communication between analysts (civilian and uniform), crime-scene investigators, and police personnel. Inevitably, forensic investigations require the skills of many individuals. One notoriously high-profile investigation illustrates this process the search for the source of the anthrax letters mailed shortly after September 11, 2001. ## Other Forensic Science Services Even though this textbook is devoted to describing the services normally provided by a crime laboratory, the field of forensic science is by no means limited to the areas covered in this book. A number of specialized forensic science services outside the crime laboratory are routinely available to law enforcement personnel. These services are important aids to a criminal investigation and require the involvement of individuals who have highly specialized skills. * **Forensic pathology.** Forensic pathology is a specialized area that examines the relationship between human behavior and legal proceedings. Forensic psychiatrists are retained for both civil and criminal litigations. In civil cases, they typically perform tasks such as determining whether an individual is competent to make decisions about preparing a will, settling property, or refusing medical treatment. In criminal cases, forensic psychologists evaluate behavioral disorders and determine whether defendants are competent to stand trial. Forensic psychiatrists also examine behavior patterns of criminals as an aid in developing a suspect's behavioral profile. * **Forensic odontology.** Practitioners of forensic odontology help identify victims when the body is left in an unrecognizable state. Teeth are composed of enamel, the hardest substance in the body. Because of enamel's resilience, the teeth outlast tissues and organs as decomposition begins. The characteristics of teeth, their alignment, and the overall structure of the mouth provide individual evidence for identifying a specific person. With the use of dental records such as X-rays and dental casts or even a photograph of the person's smile, a set of dental remains can be compared to a suspected victim. Historically, forensic odontologists have also interpreted human bitemarks as a means of identifying a potential perpetrator with a mark left on a victim. Bitemark comparison evidence was first admitted in courts in the United States in 1975 and were soon admissible in all 50 states. In light of recent scientific advancements, namely DNA testing, it has been demonstrated that there are serious flaws in the assertions made by forensic dentists during a bitemark comparison. Since the advent of DNA, a number of cases involving trial level bitemark identifications have been overturned following post-conviction DNA testing. In 2009, the National Academy of Sciences took a hard look at the scientific underpinnings of forensic bitemark identification and found glaring gaps in the scientific research. There are two assumptions on which the practice of human bitemark comparison rests. First, that human dentition is substantially unique such that a person can be identified by marks made by their teeth. Second, that human skin is an accurate impression material for the individual marks made by the teeth, if they exist. In 2016, the U.S. American Board of Forensic Odontology published a rejection of past practices of using bitemarks for human identification. Still, some experts practicing in this area disagreed with criticisms that there was a lack of scientific evidence to support the “assumptions and assertions made by forensic dentists during bitemark comparisons.”2 The controversy highlights an important struggle where law and science intersect. What evidence will be admitted in a criminal trial is often governed by legal precedent. Once that legal precedent is firmly established, as with human bitemark comparisons, it is hard to change what has been admissible in courts for the past 40 years. As more scientific evidence mounts rejecting the use of bitemark comparison as a means of human identification, scientists are becoming more skeptical of its use in courtrooms, but many prosecutors and judges are proceeding undeterred. On February 12, 2016, the Texas Forensic Science Commission published a report on bitemark comparison in response to a complaint filed by the National Innocence Project on behalf of Steven Mark Chaney. The Commission concluded the following: (1) at the current time, the overwhelming majority of existing research does not support the contention that bitemark comparison can be performed reliably and accurately from examiner to examiner due to the subjective nature of the analysis and (2) in addition to the foundational scientific and research issues, there are significant quality control and infrastructure differences between forensic odontology and other patterned and impression disciplines performed in accredited laboratories. The Commission recommended bitemark comparison evidence not be admitted in criminal cases in Texas unless and until the following are established: (1) criteria for identifying when a patterned injury constitutes a human bitemark, (2) criteria for identifying when a human bitemark was made by an adult versus a child, and (3) rigorous and appropriately validated proficiency testing. * **Forensic engineering.** Forensic engineers are concerned with failure analysis, accident reconstruction, and causes and origins of fires or explosions. Forensic engineers answer questions such as these: How did an accident or structural failure occur? Were the parties involved responsible? If so, how were they responsible? Accident scenes are examined, photographs are reviewed, and any mechanical objects involved are inspected. * **Forensic computer and digital analysis.** Forensic computer science is a new and fast-growing field that involves identifying, collecting, preserving, and examining information derived from computers and other digital devices, such as cell phones. Law enforcement aspects of this work normally involve recovering deleted or overwritten data from a computer's hard drive and tracking hacking activities within a compromised system. This field of forensic computer analysis will be addressed in detail in Chapter 19. ## Quick Review * The development of crime laboratories in the United States has been characterized by rapid growth accompanied by a lack of national and regional planning and coordination. * Four major reasons for the increase in the number of crime laboratories in the United States since the 1960s are as follows: (1) the fact that the requirement to advise criminal suspects of their constitutional rights and their right of immediate access to counsel has all but eliminated confessions as a routine investigative tool, (2) the staggering increase in crime rates in the United States, (3) the fact that all illicit-drug seizures must be sent to a forensic laboratory for confirmatory chemical analysis before the case can be adjudicated in court, and (4) the advent of DNA profiling. * The technical support provided by crime laboratories can be assigned to five basic services: the physical science unit, the biology unit, the firearms unit, the document examination unit, and the photography unit. * Some crime laboratories offer optional services such as toxicology, fingerprint analysis, polygraph administration, voiceprint analysis, and crime-scene investigation. * Special forensic science services available to the law enforcement community include forensic pathology, forensic anthropology, forensic entomology, forensic psychiatry, forensic odontology, forensic engineering, and forensic computer and digital analysis. # Ted Bundy, Serial Killer The name Ted Bundy is synonymous with the term serial killer. This handsome, gregarious, and worldly onetime law student is believed to be responsible for 40 murders between 1964 and 1978. His reign of terror stretched from the Pacific Northwest down to California and into Utah, Idaho, and Colorado, finally ending in Florida. His victims were typically young women, usually murdered with a blunt instrument or by strangulation, and sexually assaulted before and after death. First convicted in Utah in 1976 on a charge of kidnapping, Bundy managed to escape after his extradition to Colorado on a murder charge. Ultimately, Bundy found his way to the Tallahassee area of Florida. There he unleashed mayhem, killing two women at a Florida State University sorority house and then murdering a 12-year-old girl three weeks later. Fortunately, future victims were spared when Bundy was arrested while driving a stolen vehicle. As police investigated the sorority murders, they noted that one victim, who had been beaten over the head with a log, raped, and strangled, also had bitemarks on her left buttock and breast. Supremely confident that he could beat the sorority murder charges, the arrogant Bundy insisted on acting as his own attorney. His unfounded optimism was shattered in the courtroom when a forensic odontologist matched the bitemark on the victim's buttock to Bundy's front teeth. Bundy was ultimately executed in 1989.