• 
  
  
  Home
• 
  
  Backlog
  Reduction
• Laboratory
  Assessment &
  Enhancement
  Services
• 
  
  Customized
  Training
• 
  
  Biometric
  Identification
  • What is it?
  • Why Is It Important? »
    • Corporate Responsibility
  • What Is It Used For? »
    • Kidnap/Ransom
    • Disaster Situations/
                     Incident Investigation
  • Modes of Identification »
    • DNA
    • Friction Ridge Skin
    • Facial Recognition
    • Iris Capture
    • Dental X-Ray
    • Other Modes
  • Risk Assessment & Custom BI
  • FAQs
• 
  
  Other
  Services
  • Law Enforcement
  • Corporate/Insurance
• 
  
  
  Resources
• 
  
  
  About Us
  • Matt Schwarz
• 
  
  
  Contact

In The News

2015-11-09 | Secondary Transfer a New Phenomenon in Touch DNA
The results won’t cause a wholesale reevaluation of criminal convictions, contends Cynthia Cale, the lead author of the study forthcoming in the January issue of the Journal of Forensic Science. Cale told Forensic Magazine that now is a crucial time to begin understanding how touch DNA needs to be interpreted and analyzed – not just by forensic analysts, but also by prosecutors and defense attorneys. The new technology means we have to relearn how to think about DNA, she said in the phone interview. “With the increased sensitivity, we’re going to be detecting more DNA regardless,” Cale said. “It could be any DNA left on that object, and it’s going to cause interpretation to be more complicated. I don’t think it’s calling into question old cases – it’s now and into the future,” she added. Cale’s experiments began with a two-minute handshake between two people then handling a knife led to the DNA profile of the person who never touched the weapon being identified on the swab of the weapon handle in 85 percent of the samples, according to a new study by University of Indianapolis researchers, entitled “Could Secondary DNA Transfer Falsely Place Someone at the Scene of a Crime?” In one-fifth of those experiments, the person who had never directly touched the knife was identified as the main or only contributor of the DNA on the handle, according to the study. Cale called the results potentially “scary,” in a school statement announcing the results.

2015-11-02 | Medical-Marijuana Patient Alleges Prosecutors Swayed Crime Lab Drug Tests
"Michigan State Police laboratory policy was changed to include the statement “origin unknown” when it is not possible to determine if THC originates from a plant (marihuana) or synthetic means," Banner wrote to Forensic. "This change makes it clear that the source of the THC should not be assumed from the lab results."

2015-11-02 | Super-Sensitive Techniques Make DNA Evidence Lie Sometimes, Expert Says
DNA found under the fingernails of murdered California millionaire Raveesh Kumra led police to Lukis Anderson of San Jose. But after Anderson spent five months in jail, investigators found out that Anderson, a homeless alcoholic, had in fact been drunk and passed out in a hospital at the time of the attack. He couldn't have committed the murder. But investigators discovered that two paramedics who had picked up and moved Anderson also responded to the Kumra murder scene. Police determined that DNA from Anderson somehow got transferred to Kumra's body by the paramedics.

2015-10-30 | Forensic DNA evidence is not infallible
Research done by me and others at the University of Indianapolis in Indiana has highlighted how unreliable this kind of evidence can be. We have found that it is relatively straightforward for an innocent person's DNA to be inadvertently transferred to surfaces that he or she has never come into contact with. This could place people at crime scenes that they had never visited or link them to weapons they had never handled.

2015-10-29 | Crime Lab Scandals Just Keep Getting Worse
Earlier this year, I wrote about a sprawling prosecutorial scandal in Orange County, California, involving a long-standing program of secret jailhouse snitches that had tainted prosecutions in cases almost too numerous to count. This story has only continued to worsen. One of the prosecutors at the heart of the case simply packed up and left California last month, and just this week the news emerged that Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas had been told that his office might have a jailhouse informant problem all the way back to 1999, a full 16 years before the current allegations about the misuse of jailhouse snitches had surfaced.

2015-10-27 | In 42-year-old cold case, suspected murder victim turns up alive
Authorities never found out who Jane Doe was, but, over the years, kept one name close: Betsy Langjahr. Now, four decades later, the news media has helped police learn Langjahr is very much alive.

2015-10-27 | Which Standards Are Standard? Differences between ISO/IEC 17025 and 17020 for forensic agencies
To become accredited, the forensic agency must apply to an accreditation body and complete the necessary requirements of the accreditation process. But there are two standards: ISO/IEC 17020 and ISO/IEC 17025. So the agency quickly needs to consider which requirements are most appropriate for them.

2015-10-27 | Five Case Studies in Forensic Toxicology
So, now that we’ve established the stakes, let’s take a look at five case studies that illustrate the most common errors forensic pathologists make related to toxicology.

2015-10-27 | Evidence Tampering Probe Widens at Oregon Crime Lab
"Investigators assigned to this case have discovered that evidence assigned to at least one analyst other than our suspect has been tampered with, Hummel wrote. "The working assumption is that the suspect in this case tampered with the evidence assigned to the other analyst.

2015-10-27 | DNA issue frees Lakeville man from Texas jail, but '83 murder charge remains
Last month, the Texas Department of Public Safety notified prosecutors about the new standard being needed in the analysis of “mixed DNA.” That refers to when more than one person’s DNA is found on evidence. That means a re-examination is needed of the “mixed DNA” in Otteson’s case, Beck said.