Murders for profit. The case of John Donald Merrett

Forensic cases may be of historical interest because of their rarity, unique characteristics and conclusions, and potential for educating forensic scientists. The case of John Donald Merrett, who committed multiple murders for profit in Great Britain in 1926 and in 1954, is a notable example of a case in which both police and forensic scientists made serious errors, these errors leading to Merrett's acquittal when he was tried in 1927 for the shooting death of his mother. Imprisoned for forgery, Merrett was released only to resume a life of crime culminating in 1954 in the brutal murders of his wife and mother-in-law. Pursued by the police, he committed suicide. The Merrett case was of great benefit to forensic medicine in emphasizing the necessity for close teamwork among police and forensic scientists and in furthering the development of forensic ballistics.     

How do forensic scientists learn to become competent in casework reporting in practice: a theoretical and empirical approach

In their day-to-day work, carrying out complex tasks, forensic scientists use a combination of explicit, codified standard operating procedures and tacit knowledge developed through their ongoing practice. We show that tacit knowledge is an integral part of the activities of expert forensic science practitioners who continually add to their knowledge repertoire by engaging other scientists through communities of practice. We wish to shed fresh light on the gaining of tacit knowledge by forensic scientists during their apprentice formative years, termed as legitimate peripheral participation. In quantifying tacit knowledge exchanges, we use social network analysis, a methodology for the analysis of social structures, to map relational knowledge flows between forensic scientists within communities of practice at the Forensic Science Laboratory, Ireland. This paper sheds light on the importance of tacit knowledge within the training regime of forensic scientists and its recognition as equal to the part played by explicit knowledge.     

On the "general acceptance" of handwriting identification principles

Informed by the admissibility requirements of the broad and narrow Frye tests as well as Daubert's general acceptance factor, the present study elicited the views of a homogeneous group of forensic document examiners and a heterogeneous group of handwriting scientists regarding the degree to which a set of principles relating to the nature of handwriting and its identification were generally accepted within the respondents' fields. Among forensic document examiners, the greatest agreement was found concerning the process of examination, and somewhat less agreement on other matters. Forensic document examiners and handwriting scientists appear not to agree on the acceptability of most of the propositions.     

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.     

The future of forensic and crime scene science. Part II. A UK perspective on forensic science education

This paper builds on the views presented by the author at 'The Future of Forensic and Crime Scene Science Conference'. Forensic science has become an increasingly prominent area of science within the last 10 years. This increasing prominence together with popularity in the subject has seen the number of undergraduate students studying forensic science related courses at UK Universities increase rapidly in just 5 years and there are no short term signs of this trend reducing. In 2005, there were 450 courses with forensic in the title offered by higher education institutes. Although the forensic community has expressed its concern that job prospects for these students wishing to pursue careers as forensic scientists will be limited numbers of students undertaking science courses have still increased. The increase in students studying forensic science comes in an era of decreasing science numbers in higher education with the potential to produce high calibre science graduates with sought after skills in critical thinking, analysis, interpretation and communication. Technology has continued to advance at a similar pace providing those responsible for managing crime with a need and opportunity to identify and predict new and future applications of science and technology; not just in reducing and detecting crime but also in predicting how technology will be used by criminals in the future. There is therefore a need for forensic science users, providers and educators to identify the knowledge and skills required by forensic scientists and crime investigators of the future to ensure that technology continues to be used and applied to its full advantage. This provides universities an opportunity to contribute to the development of both the practice and practitioners of forensic science. This paper outlines the current issues facing universities in relation to forensic science and identifies their future role in providing high quality relevant courses for future forensic practitioners; developing current forensic practitioners through their participation in applied research, short courses, conferences and qualifications linked to professional practice; and supporting and developing the practice of forensic and crime scene science, through the identification, engagement and dissemination of pure and applied research.     

Interdisciplinary approaches to the teaching of forensic science in the Forensic Science Undergraduate Program of the National Autonomous University of Mexico,before and after COVID-19

In 2013, the Forensic Science Undergraduate Program (FSUP) at the National Autonomous University of Mexico was created in response to an alarming criminal situation in Mexico, as well as to the radical reform of its criminal justice system. Its mission is to educate and train ethical, critical, and humanistic forensic scientists capable of conducting inquiries that meet scientific quality standards and assist the justice system in firmly linking legal rulings to the available evidence. At the time, it was the first such program in the country, and the contributions that interdisciplinary forensic scientists could make to criminal investigations were largely unknown among forensic and legal practitioners. During its existence, providing an interdisciplinary, competence-based education to students has been one of the main challenges. To overcome it, teaching and assessment approaches—centered on the achievement of specifically forensic competencies as learning outcomes and the integration of forensic disciplines towards the resolution of simulated cases—have been devised to help develop the professional skill set expected of graduates. The COVID-19 pandemic led to adapting these approaches to distance or hybrid modes of learning, increasing their versatility and enriching the pedagogic repertoire of the FSUP. Currently, the main impact of the program lies in the successful incorporation of some of its graduates to agencies belonging to or related to the criminal justice system, such as the National Prosecutor’s Office, the Commission for Truth and Justice for the Ayotzinapa Case, and the National Commission for the Search of Missing and Disappeared Persons, among others.     

The Criminal Justice System Creates Incentives for False Convictions

Abstract

The American criminal justice system creates incentives for false conviction. For example, many public crime labs are funded in part per conviction. We show that the number of false convictions per year in the American criminal justice system should be considered “high.” We examine the incentives of police, forensic scientists, prosecutors, and public defenders in the U.S. Police, prosecutors, and forensic scientists often have an incentive to garner convictions with little incentive to convict the right person. These incentives create what economists call a “multitask problem” that seems to be resulting in a needlessly high rate of false convictions. Public defenders lack the resources and incentives needed to provide a vigorous defense for their clients. Corrective measures are discussed, along with a call for more research.     

The Intergenerational Cycle of Criminality—Association with Psychopathy*

Abstract: Preventive interventions early in life are likely to lower the risk of intergenerational transmission of criminal behavior. We investigated if psychopathy among homicidal offenders is associated with criminal offending among the offenders’ offspring. The basic sample consisted of consecutive Finnish homicide offenders (during 1995–2004) who had been subjected to a forensic psychiatric examination and rated for a file‐based PCL‐R, and their offspring. Criminal behavior among both genders of the offspring was more common than in the general population. In general, the offspring’s crimes against others (e.g., threat, intimidation, deprivation of freedom, breach of domicile) were associated with their parent’s psychopathy. A grandfather’s major mental disorder was associated with a high rate of crime committed by the offspring. Especially, the sons of male psychopathic homicidal offenders had the highest rate of committing crimes, which was often expressed as vandalism. However, both genders of offspring seem to require special preventive programs to ameliorate these problems.     

The CSI effect and the Canadian and the Australian Jury

Television shows, such as CBS's CSI and its spin-offs CSI: Miami; CSI: Las Vegas; and CSI: New York, have sparked the imagination of thousands of viewers who want to become forensic scientists. The shows' fictional portrayals of crime scene investigations have prompted fears that jurors will demand DNA and other forensic evidence before they will convict, and have unrealistic expectations of that evidence. This has been dubbed the "CSI effect." This phenomenon was explored using results from a Canadian study based on 605 surveys of Canadian college students who would be considered jury-eligible and Australian quantitative and qualitative findings from a study that surveyed and interviewed real posttrial jurors. Information about the way jurors deal with forensic evidence in the context of other evidence and feedback about the way in which understanding such evidence could be increased were gained from both these studies. The comparison provides insights into the knowledge base of jurors, permitting adaptation of methods of presenting forensic information by lawyers and experts in court, based on evidence rather than folklore. While the Canadian juror data showed statistically significant findings that jurors are clearly influenced in their treatment of some forensic evidence by their television-viewing habits, reassuringly, no support was found in either study for the operation of a detrimental CSI effect as defined above. In the Australian study, in fact, support was found for the proposition that jurors assess forensic evidence in a balanced and thoughtful manner.     

The nature of forensic science opinion--a possible framework to guide thinking and practice in investigations and in court proceedings.

The questions that are asked of forensic scientists during the course of a criminal investigation, and during subsequent court proceedings, are of varied form. This paper attempts to place these questions into broad generic types and explores the difference in the inferential process that a scientist may employ when forming opinions that help answer these questions. From this model, a working definition of different roles and attributes for forensic scientists is described which may offer greater clarity for both practitioners and users of forensic science.     

The over-citation of Daubert in forensic anthropology

The 1993 US Supreme Court decision Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. presented new guidance for the judicial assessment of expert witness evidence and testimony in the determination of admissibility. Despite the rarity of admissibility challenges to forensic anthropology evidence, Daubert is frequently cited in published forensic anthropology research. This study undertook a qualitative thematic analysis of forensic anthropology articles published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences to assess why authors continue to cite Daubert and express concerns over potential exclusion. The results show a significant increase in the number of articles that cite legal admissibility standards over time (p < 0.001). Authors frequently cite these standards to contextualize their results within the Daubert framework or to justify the need for their research. Notably, many articles present Daubert as a constraining force, misinterpreting the guidelines as rigid criteria or that they require methods to be strictly quantitative. However, Daubert was intended to be a flexible tool for judges—not a standard or instruction for scientists. While it was reasonable to reflect on the scientific rigor of methods in the wake of the Daubert decision, a new perspective is warranted in which forensic anthropologists shift their focus from trying to “satisfy” admissibility guidelines to adopting quality assurance measures that minimize error and ensure confidence in analytical results, and developing and using methods that are grounded in good science—which is important regardless of whether or not the results are ever the subject of a trial.     

The Role of Forensic Botany in Crime Scene Investigation: Case Report and Review of Literature

Management of a crime is the process of ensuring accurate and effective collection and preservation of physical evidence. Forensic botany can provide significant supporting evidences during criminal investigations. The aim of this study is to demonstrate the importance of forensic botany in the crime scene. We reported a case of a woman affected by dementia who had disappeared from nursing care and was found dead near the banks of a river that flowed under a railroad. Two possible ways of access to crime scene were identified and denominated “Path A” and “Path B.” Both types of soil and plants were identified. Botanical survey was performed. Some samples of Xanthium Orientalis subsp. Italicum were identified. The fall of woman resulted in external injuries and vertebral fracture at autopsy. The botanical evidence is important when crime scene and autopsy findings are not sufficient to define the dynamics and the modality of death.     

Accidental railway-related fatalities. The Metro Dade County experience, 1980-1984

A study of accidental railway-related fatalities was performed using the case files of the Office of the Medical Examiner of Metropolitan Dade County in Miami, Florida, during the years 1980-1984. The nine cases that were collected are presented here in some detail. A discussion ensues concerning the most common type of accidental railway-related fatalities, why they occur, and what future work remains in order to avoid such fatalities. Evidently, fatalities more frequently result from victims' disregard for safety--either by crossing the tracks despite warning, or by utilizing railroad trestles as a fishing pier--than from mass disaster. Future work involving forensic engineers, forensic pathologists, and lawyers along with community activists should include both public education and a design of less accessible trestles to avoid such tragedies. In conclusion, it is hoped that this article will serve as a catalyst for further research on this subject.     

Context Effects in Forensic Entomology and Use of Sequential Unmasking in Casework

Context effects are pervasive in forensic science, and are being recognized by a growing number of disciplines as a threat to objectivity. Cognitive processes can be affected by extraneous context information, and many proactive scientists are therefore introducing context‐minimizing systems into their laboratories. Forensic entomologists are also subject to context effects, both in the processes they undertake (e.g., evidence collection) and decisions they make (e.g., whether an invertebrate taxon is found in a certain geographic area). We stratify the risk of bias into low, medium, and high for the decisions and processes undertaken by forensic entomologists, and propose that knowledge of the time the deceased was last seen alive is the most potentially biasing piece of information for forensic entomologists. Sequential unmasking is identified as the best system for minimizing context information, illustrated with the results of a casework trial (n = 19) using this approach in Victoria, Australia.     

Who are the most highly cited forensic scientists in the United States?

The most highly cited forensic practitioners in the United States were identified using a publicly available citation database that used six different citation metrics to calculate each person's composite citation score. The publication and citation data were gleaned from Elsevier's SCOPUS database, which contained information about ~7 million scientist each of whom had at least five entries in the database. Each individual was categorized into 22 scientific fields and 176 subfields, one of which was legal and forensic medicine (LFM). The database contained citation records for 13,388 individuals having LFM as their primary research discipline and 282 of these (2%) were classified as being highly cited. Another 99 individuals in the database had LFM as their secondary discipline, making a total of 381 highly cited forensic practitioners from 35 different countries. The career-long publication records of each individual were compared using their composite citation scores. Of the 381 highly cited scientists, 93 (24%) had an address somewhere in the United States. The various branches of forensics they specialized in were anthropology, criminalistics, DNA/genetics, odontology, pathology, statistics/epidemiology, and toxicology. The two most highly cited scientists, according to their composite citation score, were both specialists in DNA/genetics. Bibliometric methods are widely used for evaluating research performance in academia and a similar approach might be useful in jurisprudence, such as when an expert witness is instructed to testify in court and explain the meaning of scientific evidence.     

Science serving justice: opportunities for enhancing integrity in forensic science in Africa

Forensic science is a unique discipline of applied science. At its core it is a science, yet finds its use in the application to cases that often go to a court of law. Practicing at the intersection of science and law poses distinct challenges, but also holds incredible potential in its ability to serve as a vehicle for integrity. The practice of forensic science in Africa is at a tipping point. Unchartered waters lie ahead for the continent and its forensic scientists. Often working in inadequately resourced environments, obstacles may seem insurmountable. As African forensic scientists, we can overcome these obstacles as we accept that we are connected and united in our goal to allow science to serve justice.     

Understanding of forensic expert reports by judges,defense lawyers and forensic professionals

Forensic scientists strongly advocate the use of likelihood ratios for expressing the diagnostic value of evidence in technical forensic reports. They call this the logically correct approach. The correct comprehension of such likelihood ratios by jurists, however, appears to be particularly problematic. The present research has empirically investigated this issue for defense lawyers and criminal judges. For comparative purposes forensic professionals, many of whom use the logically correct approach, were included in the study as well.

Using fictitious forensic reports, it was shown that proper understanding of likelihood ratios by jurists is quite poor, due mainly, but not exclusively, to the prosecutor's fallacy. Forensic professionals outperformed jurists to a large extent but made many mistakes themselves. It is further shown that participants’ self-expressed supposed level of understanding of logically correct conclusions is quite high and thus not justified by their levels of proper understanding. Suggestions for how to improve the situation are presented.     

The Ripper Project. Modern science solving mysteries of history

Modern scientific techniques may be applied to solve historical--even ancient--mysteries. Many such mysteries have been studied by forensic scientists, including anthropologists. One example is the recent examination of the artifacts and grave sites at the Little Bighorn in Montana, the scene of the battle between General George A. Custer's troops and the Northern Plains Indian tribes. Similarly, skeleton remains of the Indian tribes of the Pre-Columbian and Columbian periods have been studied to answer many questions regarding life and death in those early civilizations. The Ripper Project began as a research activity of the Milton Helpern International Center for the Forensic Sciences at Wichita State University Wichita, Kansas, in 1981, after the concept had been discussed in a night session during the annual meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in Los Angeles. These century-old serial murders of five prostitutes--The Whitechapel Murders--in London in 1888 were discussed in great detail from the standpoints of the forensic pathologist, the forensic psychiatrist, the criminalist, the forensic historian, and the forensic dentist. The information gained during this phase of the project plus the advances made possible by the development of criminal personality profiling by the FBI led to the present status of this project, which was recently discussed in a live telecast, and which is the subject of this article.     

The approach of the New Zealand forensic scientist

Laboratory findings can be used by the police to guide their investigations, to clear the innocent or to indicate guilt in court proceedings. Although called by the prosecution the forensic scientist is in court to tell the whole truth and present impartial evidence to assist the court. His evidence should be clear to lay persons. The challenge of problems arising from daily work can extend the best scientists.