Forensics Under Fire

by Fisher, Jim

• ISBN13: 9780813542713
• ISBN10: 0813542715
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-04-30
• Publisher: Rutgers Univ Pr

Summary

Murder, kidnapping, the evidence of crimes committed--it's front-page news and the subject of countless popular films and television shows. But as these portrayals reveal, the path from crime to conviction is never straight and smooth, and much controversy and skepticism swirls around claims of evidence and innocence. In Searching for Clues: Problems in Forensic Science, Jim Fisher takes us on a journey through cases in which the details of true crime remain obscure. While convictions may have been handed down, or the guilty set free, the facts of many case are fraught with errors, corruption, misinterpretation, and false conclusions.

Author Biography

Jim Fisher taught criminal investigation, criminal law, and forensic science at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
Diagnosing Death: Problems in the Science and Practice of Forensic Pathology	p. 9
Forensic Pathologists from Hell: Bungled Autopsies, Bad Calls, and Blown Cases	p. 13
A Question of Credibility: Bad Reputations and the Politics of Death	p. 29
The Sudden Infant Death Debate: Dr. Roy Meadow, Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, and Meadow's Law	p. 47
Infants Who Can't Breathe: Illness or Suffocation?	p. 67
Swollen Brains and Broken Bones: Disease or Infanticide?	p. 79
Crime-Scene Impression Identification: Forensic Science or Subjective Analysis?	p. 101
Fingerprint Identification: Trouble in Paradise	p. 103
Fingerprints Never Lie: Except in Scotland	p. 123
Shoe-Print Identification and Foot Morphology: The Lay Witness and the Cinderella Analysis	p. 139
Bite-Mark Identification: Do Teeth Leave Prints?	p. 153
Ear-Mark Identification: Emerging Science or Bad Evidence?	p. 169
Hired Guns, Smoke Blowers, and Phonies: The Expert Witness Problem	p. 179
Expert versus Expert: The Handwriting Wars in the Ramsey Case	p. 182
John Mark Karr: DNA Trumps the Graphologists in the Ramsey Case	p. 206
Hair and Fiber Identification: An Inexact Science	p. 218
DNA Analysis: Backlogs, Sloppy Work, and Unqualified People	p. 231
Bullet Identification, FBI Style: Overselling the Science	p. 244
The Celebrity Expert: Dr. Henry Lee	p. 253
Conclusion	p. 275
Notes	p. 287
Sources	p. 291
Index	p. 317
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