Forensic Law Casebook

Addresses cases relating on specific disciplines of forensic science—fingerprints, pathology, ballistics, questioned documents, forensic odontology, forensic biology and DNA, and more—focussing on the judicial interpretation of forensic legal and scientific principles through landmark cases.

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While there are several texts that focus on forensic science techniques and applications, there are few to no quality books that adequately address the judicial interpretation of forensic legal and scientific principles. The field of forensic science and law has long been in need of a historic casebook.

Forensic Law Casebook: Judicial Reasoning and the Application of Forensic Science in Criminal Cases fills the current void by reviewing actual case law and translating the practical application of science to the courtroom. Each chapter represents a unique forensic discipline, providing a short introduction to the subject matter, the relevant case law and court cases that pertain to that subject area and posing a variety of questions and issues to the student. All cases provided contain a sufficient portion of the legal decision - and its implications to the evidence and analytical practices of that discipline - in order to then pose critical and analytical questions to the student, once they have fully read the case material and the decision and considered its implications.

Each chapter ends its theoretical examination with real-world experience encountered by those laboring in the investigative and collection processes - as well as problems or challenges encountered by those employed in the office of the prosecutor, public defender, medical examiner or other aligned office. This last section of each chapter gives true meaning and impact as to how forensic law decision-making impacts forensic practitioners, and a true understanding of the responsibility placed on law enforcement, investigators and scientists tasked with collecting, preserving and analyzing the evidence.

Forensic Law Casebook provides the reader with an array of legal cases and decisions that lay out the parameters of forensic law and its evidentiary value. In the end, what emerges from this are the bedrock principles that guide current forensic evidence and the admissibility of various practices common to the field applications of forensic science. Practitioners, law students, undergraduate and graduate students in compatible majors - as well as law and university libraries - will benefit from this essential reference and adjunct to anyone studying forensic science, criminalistics and the law.