Forensic science employs specialized analytical techniques to extract critical evidence from crime scenes. Firearm and ballistic examinations match ammunition markings to identify the firearms used. Blood pattern analysis examines bloodstain characteristics and patterns to reconstruct events. Fingerprint analysis identifies individuals through their unique, unchanging friction ridge skin patterns. By comprehensively examining evidence using standardized, science-based methodologies, forensic analysts can link people, objects, and physical traces to criminal acts. This essay will describe the intricate processes of firearm and ballistic examination, blood splatter analysis, and fingerprint analysis – three powerful forensic disciplines that, when combined, can unlock key investigative leads and evidence to shed light on crimes.
Firearm and Ballistic Examination
The forensic firearm and ballistic examination process adheres to a meticulous and standardized methodology grounded in the fundamentals of material sciences and firearms design. Administrator (2023) opines that upon submission of the evidence firearm, examiners initiate protocols to document its physical characteristics and manufacture markings comprehensively. Detailed notes and photographic records are made of the make, model, caliber, serial numbers, and operational condition. Particular scrutiny is directed towards the barrel’s rifling specifications, as the sequence of lands and grooves mechanically imparts unique patterns upon any bullets traversing the barrel’s interior surface during firing. According to KKIENERM (2020), test fires are conducted under controlled circumstances utilizing sample ammunition to capture representative samples for subsequent comparison to any retrieved evidence ammunition components from the crime scene.
Exhaustive microscopic analyses are subsequently undertaken of all pertinent evidence items – the test-fired components, firing pin impressions on cartridge case primers, breach face markings transferred during the firearm’s loading cycle, and any bullets or cartridge cases retrieved from the crime scene itself. Basu et al. (2022) posit that the microscopic inspection and comparison concentrate on identifying the specific individual characteristics bestowed upon the components as they were fired from the barrel’s rifling and breached by the firearm’s firing mechanism. Suppose a conclusive match is established between the class and individual microscopic markings on the evidence components and the test-fired samples. In that case, an authoritative source identification is constituted, linking the components to that firearm. Such empirical findings provide definitive legal and investigative significance in reconstructing shooting incidents and attributing firearms to the crimes in which they were utilized as deadly instruments. Frost (2021) also observed that if microscopic uncertainty is present only because of deformities, obliterations, or due to an absence of sufficient marks on parts to the evaluation, then certainty that a potential source firearm can be definitively established or precluded from said certainty.
Blood Splatter Analysis
Bloodstain pattern analysis, or understanding bloodstain patterns, is an interpretation of bloodletting at crime scenes. According to Moza et al. (2023), careful study of blood spatter patterns following a violent act gives very crucial insights to investigators on what happened. Thus, experts are said to cull vital information that could tell something about the nature of the incident from the size, shape, distribution, and directionality of the bloodstains and spatters. Indeed, there are many certified bloodstain pattern analysts who have had formal training in the matter of analyzing such patterns from essentially the combined perspectives of biology, physics, and mathematics. The method they apply involves a system and understanding of the mechanics in the production of sources of the blood, the intrinsic nature of blood itself, the surfaces affected by the stains as well as the physical principles concerning droplet distribution patterns and flight.
The first step is the careful and detailed documentation of the crime scene by word descriptions, sketches, photographs, and videotape to capture volatile blood pattern evidence. The sequence of happening of an event will be reviewed through blood droplets, pools, voids, patterns of cast-off, arterial spurts, and impact patterns by an analyst (Singh et al., 2021). They basically divide all spatter pattern shapes into those caused by some sort of force, usually the forms of blunt trauma or gunshots, and those that are pool under the force of gravity. Angle determinations are then performed on individual spatter trajectories in order to determine the general area(s) of their origin. The resulting angle determinations and the precision in which these are made will further offer insight and support some inferences about the type of mechanisms that are creating the patterns. Sayedul Husan (2022) has recorded that such a class of evidence is collated with other forensic sciences such as DNA, ballistics, and autopsy, all to postulate the position of individuals, type of weapon, and directions traveled as part of major details within the ambit of a given crime.
Fingerprint Analysis
Fingerprint is amongst one of the most important forensic techniques allowing individualization and identification of a person, which depends upon detailed examination of a friction ridge skin pattern on fingers. The friction ridges are formed via complicated patterns of undulations, continuous interlock of tiny ridges with furrows during the development of the fetus at gestation week 13 and remain unchangeable throughout a person’s lifetime. Until this knowledge, no two people, including identical twins, had ever been found to have the same arrangement of these ridge details, which attests to a basic precept pertaining to the science behind the evidential weight or discriminating power of fingerprint evidence. Mia et al. (2023) further explain in more concrete terms that scratches—latent or hidden—left by friction ridge skin at the scene of a crime or on an object are traceable to the people who left them through a comprehensive comparison with the assembled known fingerprint samples using the most proven methodological protocols.
Among these latent print development and progression over the surfaces, or improvement in them on application, there may include visual or chemical enhancement techniques like fluorescent dusting with unique powders and cyanoacrylate or ninhydrin reagents (Eswaran et al., 2021). The latent prints then go through an in-depth side-by-side comparison analysis developed against the collected exemplars and records in the database with a pre-established normal analytical framework. Note that as compared to general pattern types, this discrepancy relates to specific paths, orientations, relationships, as well as other spatial characteristics of individual Level 2 and Level 3 ridge details, which include bifurcations, dots, islands, and other minutia. Further researched on by Abdel Kareem (2020), the minimums of not less than 8-12 corresponded friction ridge details identified between the latent and exemplar prints evidently give basis to the qualified examiner in making a source identification when finally attributing the recovered latent print to a specific human being’s fingerprint. This means there can be no more discriminating evidence that carries such substantial legal weight than a fingerprint.
Conclusion
The three forensic main core disciplines define the underlying challenge and complexity of firearm and ballistic examination, blood splatter analysis, and fingerprint analysis. Firearm analysis has been defined as linking ammunition components to a specific firearm based on microscopic markings. Blood spatter analysis interprets characteristics and patterns of bloodstains to develop reconstructions of violent events. It includes matching one or more fingers of the same individual identified with previous impressions of friction ridge patterns when and where the value of the identification is established or proven to be necessary. The findings that these three techniques harbor clearly when they are combined and synthesized in all respect, and the result is a strong confluence of physical evidence capable of unlocking key investigative leads and shedding detailed information about the crime including the responsibility and title. Practical evidence that results from the careful and scientific approaches of these methods in forensic analysis show that, indeed, solving crimes and identifying those involved are inescapable ingredients in the criminal justice system.
References
Abdel Kareem, Z. A. (2020). Analysis of fingerprint minutiae to form fingerprint identifier. JOIV: International Journal on Informatics Visualization, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.30630/joiv.4.1.332
Administrator. (2023, December 23). Ballistics and Firearms Analysis – Criminal Justice – iResearchNet. Criminal Justice. https://criminal-justice.iresearchnet.com/criminal-justice-process/investigation-and-evidence-gathering/ballistics-and-firearms-analysis/
Basu, N., Bolton-King, R. S., & Geoffrey Stewart Morrison. (2022). Forensic comparison of fired cartridge cases: Feature-extraction methods for feature-based calculation of likelihood ratios. Forensic Science International: Synergy, p. 5, 100272–100272. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fsisyn.2022.100272
Eswaran Prabakaran, & Pillay, K. (2021). Nanomaterials for latent fingerprint detection: a review. Journal of Materials Research and Technology, 12, 1856–1885. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmrt.2021.03.110
Frost, R. E. (2021, May 13). Forensic Pathology of Firearm Wounds: Overview, Modern Small Arms, Epidemiology. Medscape.com; Medscape. https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1975428-overview
KKIENERM. (2020). Firearms Module 8 Key Issues: Firearms as Evidence. Unodc.org. https://www.unodc.org/e4j/en/firearms/module-8/key-issues/firearms-as-evidence.html
Mia, R., Panchal, V., Preeti Dangi, C. K., & Tripathi, A. (2023, April 11). Latent Fingerprint Development by Brick Powder. Austin Journal of Forensic Science and Criminology; Austin Publishing Group. https://austinpublishinggroup.com/forensicscience-criminology/fulltext/ajfsc-v10-id1091.php
Moza, B., Mukherjee, D., & Verma, P. (2023, August). Blood Stain Pattern Analysis: A Comprehensive Review of Methods, Reliability of Computerized Analysis, and. ResearchGate; unknown. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/373512225_Blood_Stain_Pattern_Analysis_A_Comprehensive_Review_of_Methods_Reliability_of_Computerized_Analysis_and_Future_Advancements
Sayedul Husan. (2022, December 5). Role of Forensic Evidence in the Criminal Investigation: A Legal Analysis in Bangladesh Perspective. ResearchGate; unknown. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368356513_Role_of_Forensic_Evidence_in_the_Criminal_Investigation_A_Legal_Analysis_in_Bangladesh_Perspective
Singh, P., Gupta, N., & Rathi, R. (2021). Blood pattern analysis—a review and new findings. Egyptian Journal of Forensic Sciences, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41935-021-00224-8