Cadaver mix-up--an avoidable problem?

Depending on local conditions it may happen from time to time that no officer involved in the previous investigation is present during the forensic autopsy. In this case, the post mortem examiner often has to rely solely on written documentation concerning the identity of the deceased. The authors report a case where the body had already been mixed up with another body by the undertaker prior to the inspection by the police. In spite of clear distinguishing characteristics in the written documentation, this led to the wrong body being autopsied. For the post mortem examiner, the only safe way to identify a body seems to be the presence of persons who had known the deceased or of police officers as acknowledging witnesses. If these conditions are not given, other means of safe information on the identity are called for, for example a "police body card" similar to an evidence card.     

Current status of accreditation for drug testing in hair

At the annual meeting of the Society of Hair Testing in Vadstena, Sweden in 2006, a committee was appointed to address the issue of guidelines for hair testing and to assess the current status of accreditation amongst laboratories offering drug testing in hair. A short questionnaire was circulated amongst the membership and interested parties. Fifty-two responses were received from hair testing laboratories providing details on the amount and type of hair tests they offered and the status of accreditation within their facilities. Although the vast majority of laboratories follow current guidelines (83%), only nine laboratories were accredited to ISO/IEC 17025 for hair testing. A significant number of laboratories reporting that they were in the process of developing quality systems with a view to accrediting their methods within 2-3 years. This study provides an insight into the status of accreditation in hair testing laboratories and supports the need for guidelines to encourage best practice.     

Immunocytochemical examinations of biological traces on expanding bullets (QD-PEP)

When a crime victim has been injured with several different objects, it is of central importance for the forensic investigation to be able to show which object caused which injury, especially if one of the injuries was lethal. In cases of bullet penetration wounds it is often not possible to find such evidence. However, immunocytochemical investigations can accurately match a victim's injury to a particular bullet path through the body. In cases where expanding bullets have been used and the heart or liver has been struck by a projectile, it can be shown that the cells remaining on the bullet stem from those particular organs. In this case the specific cytological evidence was established by means of marking heart- and liver-specific tissue proteins with appropriate antibodies (cardiac troponin I and HepPar 1) followed by disclosure with an appropriate chromogen. Thus, in principle, cells can be used as evidence after being extracted from the projectiles by either damp cotton-wool swabs or adhesive trace evidence tape. Because of the specificity of the used immunocytochemical antibodies, finding evidence of an antigen on a particular projectile proves that it was the object that injured the organs.     

Evaluation of haplotype discrimination capacity of 35 Y-chromosomal short tandem repeat loci

The haplotype discrimination capacity of the 9 Y-chromosomal short tandem repeat (Y-STR) loci comprising the so called minimal haplotype together with additional 26 recently described single-copy Y-STRs was evaluated within 391 males from Germany, The Netherlands, and Turkey. The aim of this study was to identify the minimum number of Y-STRs needed in addition to the recommended 9 minimal haplotype loci or the 11 SWGDAM loci for individualizing male lineages. Highest gene diversities were shown for DYS385 loci, DYS449, DYS481, DYS570, DYS447, DYS576, DYS389-II, and DYS390 (D=0.7518-0.8746). The five Y-STRs DYS447, DYS449, DYS481, DYS570, and DYS576 comprised the smallest set of loci in addition to the previously recommended standard Y-STRs leading to the individualization of all males from each single population group. Complete resolution of the pooled population was achieved by the additional genotyping of two further loci, DYS446 or DYS505 and DYF406S1 or DYS522.     

“It’s All About Something We Call Wasta”: A Motivated Moralization Approach to Favoritism in the Jordanian Workplace

There has been a limited focus on the construal of justice judgments in contexts where norms are potentially conflicting, despite the relevance of norms in justice research. The present study aimed to close this gap by looking at the case of favoritism in Jordan where such conflicting norms are highly salient. A qualitative approach was chosen to facilitate ample exploration of the contextual complexities of the study’s setting. The main data basis were 22 problem-centered interviews conducted with managers and employees in Jordanian non-profit organizations. Data collection and analysis were guided by grounded theory methodology. The resulting theoretical framework of motivated moralization demonstrated that people flexibly construed favoritism as either unjust or justifiable to pursue a number of goals. Instead of relying on a single norm or standard, people strategically adopted the norms that were best suited to substantiate or legitimize a desired position. The norm conflict surrounding favoritism in Jordan facilitated this process by providing a selection of fitting norms for appropriation.     

Determination of calcium and magnesium in postmortem human vitreous humor as a test to ascertain the cause and time of death

The concentrations of magnesium and total calcium human vitreous humors obtained postmortem was tested. In the groups of heart disease and asphyxia a correlation between the postmortem interval and calcium or magnesium concentrations was found. There was no correlation between postmortem interval and calcium respectively magnesium in the other causes of death. It seems possible that the analysis of vitreous humor may be useful in both diagnosis and determination of postmortem interval in the cases of heart death and asphyxia.     

Literatur

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