Crime Scene To Courtroom

Locard's Exchange Principle

"Every contact leaves a trace."

Sketches should include the statement

"not to scale"

The first appearance hearing must occur within

24 Hours

The state attorney may require additional information in making a filing decision and can request

A follow-up investigation

A person occupying private property has an expectation of privacy that no one can violate without:

A search warrant or a valid exception to the warrant requirement.

You will need to be able to testify that the photographs and diagrams are:

A true and accurate representation of the scene as it appeared

relevant evidence tending to prove or disprove an important fact, with numerous exceptions specified.

Admissible evidence

Perishable evidence

Based on the circumstances at the scene, you need to photograph this type of evidence first.

Blood, semen, saliva, bones, teeth, body tissues, hair, DNA, Touch DNA

Biological and Touch DNA Evidence

You may find this evidence at murder, aggravated battery, sexual assault, hit-and-run, and burglary scenes.

Biological evidence

The most common method of sketching is using the

Bird's-eye-view or Downward observation perspective.

Is a legal order for an arrest issued by the clerk of courts at the request of the state attorney's office.

Capias

Is a documentation of everyone who handled the evidence as well as when, why, and what changes, if any, were made to it.

Chain of custody

one of the most common ways to locate an individual

Checking for a driver's license

blood alcohol levels, drugs, poisons, etc.

Chemistry or Toxicological Evidence

Show the details of a specific item of evidence and must include a scale or identifier.

Close-up view shots

A person who alleges that a crime has been committed or can be the person who calls the police.

Complainant

CAD

Computer Aided Dispatch

is a computerized logging system in which dispatch records every event reported and every instruction given chronologically by date and time.

Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) (defined)

To determine the original owner of the firearm or the firearms dealer.

Conduct an eTrace database search through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF)

Are people who furnish police with information about crimes, primarily because of the expectation of some personal benefit or advantage, and rarely out of a sense of civic duty.

Confidential informant

Can damage, contaminate, or destroy evidence at a scene.

Curious unauthorized people

Biological evidence left at crime scenes may contain:

DNA

Prior to entering the crime scene to process evidence:

Determine if the scene location is public or private property.

This is the second event that should take place after photographing the scene and before any detailed work begins.

Diagram the crime scene

Determine their degrees of _____________________ and the role each person played in the incident.

Direct or Indirect involvement

A suspect ________________ photographing injuries such as scratches from the victim or blood evidence.

Does not have the right to refuse

A pioneer in forensic science, formulated the fundamental principle of forensic science: "Every contact leaves a trace."

Dr. Edmond Locard

computers, cell phones, pda, thumb drives, external hard drives, CDs, DVDs, VHS tapes, digital cameras, answering machines, digital recording devices.

Electronic Evidence

Allow fingerprint analysts to distinguish between prints belonging to either the victims and witnesses or the possible suspects.

Elimination prints

Help to document the relative positions of evidence items in the crime scene.

Evidence markers

Any person an officer has contact with while on patrol—such as a concerned citizen or an anonymous complainant with a sense of civic duty—who does not necessarily generate an incident report.

Field contact

weapons, projectiles, gunshot residue, cartridge cases, tool marks & database information.

Firearms Evidence

Can include a bullet hole in glass held into place by a thin window tint.

Fragile evidence

If you need to take photographs of an injury to any external genital organs.

Have an officer of the same gender as the victim observe and photograph the injuries.

______ is ________ In first appearance hearings that determine probable cause and bond.

Hearsay is admissible

A bond hearing will determine

If the defendant is eligible to bond out.

All objects pictured must be

Important or relevant to the scene.

fingerprints, tire tracks, footwear Impressions, footprints, bite marks, tool marks.

Impression Evidence

Smaller agencies require responding officers to process scenes or:

In serious cases, agencies may call for outside assistance, such as the FDLE's crime scene personnel.

When submitting photographs or diagrams.

Include the case number, location, date and time, and your name

Is the process of making detailed and systematic inquiries and observations about a criminal complaint.

Investigation

Evidence

Is anything that tends to prove or disprove an alleged fact.

Are among the most valuable types of physical evidence and one of the most common types of evidence you will recover at a crime scene. Invisible to the naked eye.

Latent prints

This contends that everyone who enters a crime scene will both bring something into and take something from it.

Locard's Exchange Principle

meaning mode of operating or MO, refers to how someone does something, usually repetitive in nature.

Modus operandi

is following a person of interest on foot or in a police vehicle. It requires a safe distance, more than one police officer, more than one police vehicle, and a coordinated approach, none of which can draw undue attention to the officers' presence.

Moving surveillance

There are several ways to perform surveillance on a suspect's location

Moving, stationary, and electronic.

Use the identifying marks to conduct

NCIC/FCIC database check on the firearm

Field contacts are

Often instrumental to solving a case.

Deals with media

PIO

will protect the evidence from contamination and you from exposure to dangerous substances.

PPE

Are transferred from the friction ridges on fingers by a foreign substance (not a body residue), like blood, paint, or dirt, and are readily visible.

Patent prints

Include blood, footwear and tire impressions, or trace evidence such as hair or fibers.

Perishable evidence

Consists of objects or perishable evidence such as fingerprints, blood, or tire tracks.

Physical Evidence

From the ______________, you should be able to recreate the initial investigative steps taken at the crime scene.

Preliminary incident report

checks, bank statements, address books, wire transfers, credit cards, phone bills, photographs and cameras, photo copies.

Questioned Documents Evidence

s. 914.28, F.S

Rachel's Law

It is easier to _________ the size of a perimeter than to _________ it.

Reduce/Enlarge

Latent Prints

Result from body residues left behind when the friction ridges of the hands or feet make contact with a surface.

States that you must follow the judges' orders completely when he or she invokes the rule. You must not be in the courtroom when other witnesses are giving testimony.

Rule of sequestration

Might make a bad situation even worse.

Separating family members during a crisis

_______________ will help each of them focus on what they saw or heard, better maintaining the integrity of their statements.

Separating involved parties

Occurs after the defense files a motion to suppress or to exclude certain testimony or evidence from the trial, alleging that your improper actions violated their client's rights.

Suppression hearing

A person believed to have committed a crime or offense.

Suspect

If bruising intensifies. (Injured people)

Tell the victim to notify law enforcement for further documentation

Evidence gathered from witnesses.

Testimonial Evidence

Record the names of medical personnel who provide services to the victim: (Injured people)

The court may call any of them as a witness.

A sentencing hearing can occur before a trial if:

The defendant accepts a plea

Establishing a case file, reviewing the information gathered during the preliminary investigation, and identifying and pursuing leads. Locate and interview individuals who may have additional information pertinent to the investigation.

The first steps in a follow-up investigation

Rachel's Law

This includes preserving the safety of the confidential informant, law enforcement, the target, and the public.

hairs, fibers, clothing, paint chips, transfer evidence, glass, wood, soil, dirt

Trace evidence

Is evidence that can blow or wash away.

Transitory evidence

is the examination of facts and related law presided over by a judge or other magistrate who has the authority or jurisdiction to hear the matter.

Trial

_____________ is the most common method of surveying (measuring and documenting) objects within the crime scene. This method measures objects from at least two fixed points, forming a ____________.

Triangulation

Is a person harmed by a crime.

Victim

An investigation occurs:

When you make detailed and systematic inquiries or observations.

If packaged improperly, wet items

Will deteriorate to a point where they have no evidentiary value.

A person who sees, knows, or vouches for something and may make a sworn statement about that information.

Witness

When the deposition ends, the attorney will ask if:

You wish to read the transcribed or typed deposition or waive the review.

Avoid including ___________ in crime scene photographs.

bystanders, other officers, your equipment, or pets

is a door-to-door inquiry of all possible sources of information in a given area.

canvass

Note whether the information the victim provides appears to be: (Injured people)

consistent with the injuries and evidence at the scene.

A lead is valuable when it

corroborates or disproves the physical evidence, statements, and/or confessions.

Provides proof of security and validates the evidence collected at a crime scene.

crime scene log

is an official court proceeding in which all parties, with the exception of the defendant, provide sworn testimonies regarding the facts of the case to one of the attorneys (defense or prosecutor) prior to trial.

deposition

The overall flow of crime scene photography moves from _______________;

general to specific

Often used indoors; a variation of the strip/line search pattern. Searchers overlap a series of lanes in a cross pattern, making the search more methodical and thorough.

grid search pattern

an officer who administers a photographic array, has no knowledge of the suspect information, and will meticulously avoid any conduct that might influence, directly or indirectly, a victim's or a witness' decision.

independent administrator

Types of confidential informants include:

mercenary, rival, plea-bargaining, anonymous, self-aggrandizing, false, and fearful.

Flow of Photography

overall, midrange, and then close-up

Wet evidence, such as items soaked with body fluids or living plant material, must either be air-dried, packaged in breathable containers such as:

paper bags

is a group of photographs used in a photographic line-up. A photographic array can be more efficient than a live line-up because the agency can reprint existing photographs.

photographic array

the process of showing a photographic array to a victim or witness, one at a time, to allow for the identification or elimination of suspects.

photographic line-up

Entails dividing the area into a number of wedgeshaped sections, which are usually searched using the strip/line search pattern. Use this method for extremely large search areas.

pie/wheel search pattern

is a molded or imbedded fingerprint created by touching an impressionable surface, such as wet paint or mud that you can easily see.

plastic print

focuses on establishing whether a criminal act has been committed and, if so, what type and when and where it was committed.

preliminary investigation

There are two main types of information

public records and private records

When photographing specific items such as blood drops, weapons, or tire marks, place a ___________ in the photograph with the evidence to establish the original positions and draw attention to relevant objects or evidence for photographing and sketching.

scale or identifier

A photographic array consists of a minimum of

six photographs with similar physical characteristics

Usually used outside by one person. The searcher begins at a certain point and walks in increasingly larger circles to the outermost boundary of the search area.

spiral search pattern

Usually used outside by several people. Divide the search area into lanes. Have one or more people search each lane by moving in both directions, examining all areas.

strip/line search pattern

Microanalysis is the process of microscopically analyzing ______ such as paint, glass, and cloth fibers, to determine a possible source or origin.

trace evidence

Used for vehicle searches, outdoors, or a large area. Divide the area into four different sections and search each using one of the patterns above.

zone/quadrant search pattern

The officer posted at the access point must document these details in the crime scene log:

• Name • Rank • agency • Date and time of the person's entry or exit

You will collect two types of evidence at a crime scene.

• Testimonial evidence • Physical Evidence

All arrested individuals go to a first appearance hearing, except under the following circumstances:

• a law enforcement officer, in lieu of a physical arrest, issues a notice to appear in a designated court at a specified date and time, • the magistrate releases the person from custody on his or her own recognizance, • the individual bonds out from custody.

At the scene of an incident, you must identify all parties involved

• complainants • victims • suspects • witnesses