Forensic Fraud

by Turvey

• ISBN13: 9780124080737
• ISBN10: 0124080731
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-05-17
• Publisher: Elsevier Science

Summary

Forensic fraud occurs when experts provide sworn testimony, opinions, or documents bound for court that contain deceptive or misleading findings, opinions, or conclusion, deliberately offered in order to secure an unfair or unlawful gain. Such misconduct has an undeniably devastating impact: it destroys the reputation of the forensic examiners involved, if not their careers; it erodes public confidence in the institutions where they are employed; it can result in overturned convictions, individual and institutional liability, and costly civil judgments; and it is corrosive to the collective faith in the justice system as a whole. However, owing to a lack of research into the phenomenon of forensic fraud that is exacerbated by the constraints on would-be-whistleblowers, in tandem with the denials of forensic science stakeholders, there is a general perception that forensic fraud is primarily the result of a few "bad apples" rather than being cultural or systemic in origin. This work examines the problem of forensic fraud both theoretically and empirically, to assess the relationships between examiner, workplace, evidentiary, and impact variables. Written by a forensic scientist for the forensic science community, rather than by legal scholars or practitioners as had been the trend. *Responds directly to the dramatic increase in forensic fraud related laboratory scandals and closures that have plagued the forensic science community *Offers realistic recommendations and reforms *Ideally suited for forensic science professionals, legal practitioners, laboratory supervisors, forensic science students and academicians