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Processing Human Remains: Step by Step

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Morgue

 

CBC News’ Fabiola Carletti reports her interview with Jim Van Allen about evidence collection and processing in her August 21, 2012, posting, “How body parts evidence gets from crime scene to courtroom.” Van Allen, president of the Behavioural Science Solutions Group, describes steps in a real-life dismemberment investigation. The objective of the article is to present the complexity of the investigation process, as opposed to the simplified, rushed approach depicted in some TV shows.

This article is definitely worth a read if you want to infuse your fictional investigation with realism.

The Devil Made’em Do It

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KPLC 7 News, Lake Charles, Louisiana
 

 

During August, KPLC 7 News of Lake Charles, Louisiana, posted a news item about a technology closely related to forensics: biometrics. Charles Caldarera, principal of Moss Bluff Elementary School, had sent a letter to parents about the planned installation of a biometric system. To reduce errors in lunch accounting and accelerate the cafeteria line, the school would install a Fujitsu PalmSecure™ biometric authentication system, which enables positive identification using a scanner that reads the unique patterns of blood vessels in a human palm. 

“With an elementary school, they all come through line, and most of them eat here,”
 Caldarera explained to KPLC. “It would make us more efficient and more accurate. We’ve had parents complain in the past, because they felt like their children weren’t eating, that we assigned them a charge for the day, and they might have been right.”

This sounds reasonable. About 1,000 students attend the school. Yet some parents objected to the biometric system. Vehemently.

“As a Christian, I’ve read the Bible,” said one parent, “you know, go to church and stuff. I know where it’s going to end up coming to, the mark of the beast. I’m not going to let my kids have that.”

The basis for the objection is elusive, since the scanner would only detect something that was already there. Perhaps, a monstrous surprise awaits school personnel when they begin to scan the little devils.

As Mike Elgan notes in his Computerworld article, “Are biometric ID tools evil?” many oppose biometric identification systems. However, the objections are usually based on privacy concerns.

Who Are You? – Revisited

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SNPs

 

Several weeks ago, I described research at Israel’s Tel-Hai Academic College, which may enable investigators to create a rough portrait of a person from DNA. In the August/September 2012 issue of Forensic Magazine, Timothy D. Kupferschmid provides background information about this type of technology.

Kupferschmid, executive director of Sorenson Forensics, explains that early attempts at forensic phenotyping (i.e., creating a portrait from DNA) used DNA analysis to determine gender, and to predict hair and eye color. Sorenson Forensics developed a DNA test to predict a person’ genetic ancestry. The test relies upon the observation that, during the course of human history, portions of the DNA of human populations living in geographically isolated regions became slightly distinct from the DNA of human populations in other regions. Certain DNA markers are associated with five populations: Western European, Western Sub-Saharan African, East Asian, Indigenous American, and residents of the Indian Subcontinent. As Kupferschmid emphasizes, the test does not reveal “ethnicity” or “race,” which are social concepts that geneticists consider to be arbitrary and without scientific foundation.

You can find details about this new aid for criminal investigations in Kupferschmid’s article, “Forensic Phenotyping: the 21st Century Composite Sketch.” The investigators of your mystery story will thank you.

Arrestee DNA Law on Trial

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Arrestee-DNA

During the late 1980s, Colorado enacted the first US DNA databank law, a law that required sex offenders to provide a DNA sample to law enforcement officials. This was based on the theory that a person convicted of a sex offense was likely to repeat the crime, and therefore, quick access to a DNA profile could identify a repeat offender. Other states enacted DNA laws, expanding the categories of individuals who must donate a DNA sample. Today, all states require the collection of DNA from sex offenders, and most states collect DNA from felony offenders. Many states obtain DNA from juveniles convicted of certain crimes and from individuals convicted of certain misdemeanors. Some states also require collection of DNA from probationers and parolees.

Taking DNA from persons arrested for certain crimes remains controversial. The federal government and about half of the states have laws that allow DNA sampling before conviction. Courts have ruled on both sides of the issue. In 2006, for example, the Minnesota court of appeals ruled that an individual’s privacy interests trumped the state’s interest in analyzing DNA. The court decided that portions of the state’s DNA law “that direct law-enforcement personnel to take a biological specimen from a person who has been charged but not convicted violate the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 10 of the Minnesota Constitution.” Other courts have approved arrestee DNA collection laws, and supporters of the laws assert that the laws increase the efficiency of criminal investigations and save lives.

Now, the issue is headed toward the US Supreme Court. The case began in 2009 when Maryland police arrested Alonzo Jay King for first-degree assault. Following Maryland’s DNA Collection Act, personnel at the booking facility collected King’s DNA. Analysis revealed that it matched DNA evidence from a rape committed in 2003. Based on this hit, the State charged and convicted King of first degree rape. He was sentenced to life in prison. King appealed the conviction. The Maryland Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, overturned King’s conviction, holding that the collection of his DNA violated the Fourth Amendment, because his expectation of privacy outweighed the State’s interests. Maryland appealed the decision to the Supreme Court.

During July 2012, Chief Justice Roberts indicated that the Court will probably take the appeal. He also said that “given the considered analysis of courts on the other side of the split, there is a fair prospect that this Court will reverse the decision below.” Taking arrestee DNA may be here to stay.