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Table of Contents
Volume 4, Issue 11
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Taking the Stab Out of Stabbings
An Inside Look at Puncture Resistant Vests
One of the major hazards encountered by every corrections officer in the
United States is an attack by an inmate armed with a sharp-edged or pointed object. The safety of America's corrections officers is about to be increased.
Best of the Rest:
Other Decisions of Note
The Forensic Panel Selects Important Cases You Should Know
Briefs of important case decisions and their significance to the science-law interface. Spot the trends here, where we highlight case you may want to investigate further.
Book Review:
Separation Technologies for the Industries of the Future
Will Recycling Systems Call for Torts Later?
Seperation process are essential to the chemical and materials processing industries. This book explores those techniques for recycling and reducing waste that may some day be a source of a toxic tort lawsuit.
Best of the Rest - Science Discoveries:
Effects of Stress Induced By A Simulated Shooting On Recall By Police and Citizen Witnesses
A Scientific Review
Research study explores the effects of recalling police shooting in witnesses. Does the stress levels rise and/or affect their testimony?
Best of the Rest - Science Discoveries:
Debriefing Following Trauma
Scientific Summary on Result of Airplane Crash Trauma Research
How effective is a psychological debriefing following a horrific tragedy such as an airplane crash. Researchers find out.
Best of the Rest - Science Discoveries:
Stress and Vulnerability to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder In Children and Adolescents
How Does PTSD Develop in the Younger Ages?
Do children really get PTSD? How does it happen? Researchers Investigate this mental health problem.
Best of the Rest - Science Discoveries:
Targeting Adolescent Risk-Taking Behaviors
Contributions of Egocentrism and Sensation-Seeking
What makes teens do those things they do? Researchers investigate how ego and sensation lust leads to risky behavior.
Best of the Rest - Science Discoveries:
Fraternal Birth Order and Sexual Orientation in Pedophiles
How many older brothers do heterosexual pedophiles in comparison to homosexual pedophiles? Researchers find out.
Editorial:
The Lost Generation
Racism Nurtures on the West Bank
Teenagers go from school to the front lines and lynchings follow. Who pulls the strings and pushes the buttons?
Feature:
New Technology is Coming to Law Enforcement
But Will the Courts Admit It?—A Review of the National Commercialization Conference
New technology is being invented to increase law enforcement effectiveness and forensic crime scene analysis. Will the technology make it to the crime scene or will the ideas fizzle before making it to the field?
Feature:
Guilt, Innocence, and Data Just Waiting for? Part III
Statistics in DNA May Prove the Deciding Factor
Aside from the problems with human error at the laboratory, attorneys must also wrestle with finding an appropriate way to present a DNA match to the jury. Part III completes our journey into DNA in the year 2000.
Feature:
Toxicological Investigations of Drug-Facilitated Sexual Assaults
Recent increases of alleged drug-facilitated sexual assault cases have alarmed the general public and law enforcement agencies throughout North America. This article addresses some of the common problems encountered by toxicologists in cases of drug-facilitated sexual assault. It also provides suggestions to overcome some of these obstacles.
Feature:
A New Direction in Date Rape
Sexual Assault Drugs - New and Old
Sex crimes go unreported for various reasons including shame, cultural beliefs, and fear of stigmatization. But another explanation is that the victim cannot recall the details of the events surrounding the attack. What drugs are used, and what is the result?
Recent Cases:
Bad M.D. Record a Sign of Depression?
Resident Can't Be Saved
After giving one of its anesthesiology residents extensive academic assistance and several leaves of absence, a medical center fires that resident based on her consistently poor performance and her failure to pass professional examinations by-products of her ongoing depression. Did the medical center violate the Americans With Disabilities Act?
Recent Cases:
Too Disabled to Lie
Jury the Ones to Decide
Perhaps even the “cognitively disabled” among us are capable of artifice, especially when it comes to matters of the heart. But that determination must be made by the jury.
Recent Cases:
Linked Crimes Missing Evidence
Similar Events Need More than Same Modus Operandi for Conviction
A female police officer is sexually assaulted. When her assailant is tried for an unrelated crime with an arguably similar modus operandi, can the state introduce the testimony of an expert on the procedure used by criminal investigators to conclude that two crimes were committed by the same person?
Recent Cases:
That’s Not My Hair
Hair Analysis Acceptable Means of Identification
A man is convicted of his father’s death based on, among other things, the fact that hair found in the victim’s hands matched hair samples taken from his head. Could the trial court’s admission of the testimony of an expert on hair analysis—a long-accepted technique—possibly have been in error?
Recent Cases:
Did Jury Instructions Forget the Insulin?
Too Much Sugar, Wrong Timing of Outburst
A diabetic man attempts to convince the court trying him for assault of a public officer that he committed the subject acts while under the influence of hypoglycemia. Should the court have instructed the jury on involuntary intoxication irrespective of the man’s blood sugar levels when he committed the incidents in question?
Recent Cases:
Competency Decided for Extradition
Will Texas Allow Suspect Vacation to Michigan?
In response to a rendition requisition from Michigan’s governor, Texas governor George W. Bush issues a warrant for the arrest of a defendant accused of arson in Michigan. Is the defendant’s mental competence relevant in determining whether he should be extradited?
Recent Cases:
Nurse Jurors Talked Too Much
Shared Expertise Prejudices Material Issue
A man is tried for his alleged involvement in his girlfriend’s death. While they are deliberating over the evidence presented at his trial, jurors who are registered nurses share, with the rest of the jury, their professional assessments of the medical evidence supporting the defendant’s theory of the case. Is it enough to overturn the defendant’s subsequent conviction?
Recent Cases:
Rohypnol: Invisible Seduction to the Bedroom
Will Testimony of Expert Be Allowed to Get the Conviction?
In considering modus operandi, is videotaped conduct in unrelated incidents admissible? Can an expert testify regarding the effects of Rohypnol and regarding the results of a urine test, even though he did not actually perform the test?
Science Discoveries:
Bilingual Spanish Verse Monolingual Spanish?
Implications for Neuropsych Testing Raised
Researchers investigate the interfering effects of learning English upon subjects’ Spanish language abilities in a sample of native Spanish speakers. Do these effects have implications for the forensic neuropsychological evaluations of Spanish-English bilinguals?
Science Discoveries:
Suicides vs. Homicides a Tougher Call in Sharp Force Death
How do we tell the difference between a sharp force suicide and a homicide? Distinguishing suicide from homicide in sharp injury deaths has been an important responsibility for the death investigating pathologist and psychiatrist.
Science Discoveries:
Can Lung Proteins Distinguish Those Who Asphyxiate
Research Decides If Trace Evidence = Strangleholds
Suicide or Homicide? A research article investigates whethere lung protein testing can be used to see if asphyxia was caused by natural causes or outside compression.
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