Ballistic Fingerprinting In The Criminal Justice System

The Beltway Sniper case included two men John Muhammad, and Lee Malvo whom carried out attacks killing 10 people and wounding several other people. All of these attacks were carried out by using a high powered .223 caliber rifle. The ballistics processing was especially important because the use of firearm was the weapon that killed 10 innocent people, and wounded several others. This case was cracked because one of the suspects called police and mentioned they were responsible for a murder that took place in Montgomery Alabama outside a liquor store. The investigators that were working on that case found a magazine left at the crime scene, and they compared the fingerprints left on it to fingerprints of Malvo’s immigration record.

A taxi driver was killed during a night robbery in Columbia, South Carolina. Out of this rather ordinary crime, it had been boxed up for nearly four decade until 1997, when the sheriff department created a cold case squad. In 1961, John Orner was shot three times in the head because the suspect tried to remove any money from Orner’s taxi. Following morning, the bloodstained taxi was found abandoned within the streets of Columbia. Through ballistics evidence found in John Orner’s head, police suspected that a person named Edward Freiburger was involved. From forensics examination of those three bullets indicated that the bullets were fired from a .32 caliber Harrington and Richardson (H&R) revolver. Police did manage to catch

Francois Demelle of France published the first treatise on systematic document in 1609. One of the first documented events of physical matching used in a court case was in Lancaster, England when John Toms was found guilty of murder just by using a torn edge of newspaper in the murder weapon (a pistol) that matched newspaper in his pocket in 1784. Over time in the 1800’s the field of forensic science saw substantial progress. In 1832 chemist James Marsh was asked to test coffee for the poison arsenic by the prosecutor in order to prove the defendant, John Bodle had killed his grandfather using this method. Even though after trial the defendant later confessed, the jury wasn’t convinced of the accuracy of the test at the time so they acquitted him. This angered and infuriated James so much he was determined to come up with a better way to test for arsenic. He successfully came up the Marsh Test which actually made arsenic poisoning murder rarer because the fear of being caught was more likely to happen. In 1880 William James Herschel and Henry Faulds published a paper in the British scientific journal Nature describing the uniqueness of each person’s

With the popular culture providing positive images of guns, the United States has a gun prevalence that is very rare in the modern world. While many people appreciate the “gun culture”, guns are heavily involved in violence in the United States. According to U.S. Department of Justice, since 1960, more than 750,000 Americans have died under firearms, including homicides, suicides, and unintentional injuries. The figure 1 provides a comprehensive survey of U.S. violent crimes for the period from 1993 to 2011.This figure illustrates that from 1993 to 2011, about 60% to 70% of homicides were associated with a firearm. Over the same period, between 6% and 9% of all nonfatal violence, with about 20% to 30% of robberies and 22% to 32% of aggravated assaults involving a firearm.

“Forensic science has become in the early 21st century what the space race was in the 1960s- an accessible and inspiring (Gaensslen) into the world of science” (Gaensslen ix). This may be true but forensic has not always existed forever. Many people began hearing about forensic science during the 1990s when many of crime shows became popular. In actuality forensic science goes as far back as ancient China. Sculptors used fingerprints to identify their artwork from that of others. This may not be what forensics has evolved into but it had to begin somewhere. The first text reference of forensics first showed up in Hsi Duan Yu, which was published in about 700 CE (Hunter 18). It noted that many bodies have various characteristics that make them different. Many of the early forensic advances took place in the 1700 and 1800s. In 1784 the physical matching of evidence began. It was first used in the case of John Toms to link him and a piece of pistol wadding to a murder (Lotter). From then on forensics began to grow exponentially. “A major landmark in forensic science, the discovery that

When looking at all of the important issues of today’s society, one of the most neglected issues revolves around guns. Guns serve two different purposes: to defend and to kill. Even though I’ve been on this Earth for only 21 years, I’ve become keen and have taken an interest in the study of guns and how they pose more problems in society than any other issue. My interest all started around the time of the Columbine shooting in Colorado and how society has taken steps since that point in history. Going back to the two different purposes, both have been used to help explain the differences in the distinctions of different gun related events that continue to occur, such as mass shootings. Problem analysis, as stated, will help to explain how

Why do you think it is so important that all evidence be identified (such as marking the bullets and tagging firearms)? What consequences might result if these procedures were not followed?

It is important for a forensic scientist to determine the distance from a gun to a shooter because in some cases a

Police’s lack of evidence made the investigation harder and the hints received did not contributed in accelerating the process. The only evidence at first was a “death card”. Also, people started to give misleading statements that they saw the murderer escaped in a white van. A guy was arrested for giving false information to the police by saying that he saw the sniper escaped in a white van with one tail light broken. Going back to the phone call, the sniper mentioned an unsolvable murder committed in Alabama. It was a liquor store robbery and it was the place where investigators found the first major evidence to show the murderer’s identity; a fingerprint of Lee Boyd Malvo, which later led to his guardian, John Allen

When evidence is gathered, different equipment and processes are used to determinate what it means. In 2011, the Federal Bureau of Investigation estimated that 8,583 murder victims, in the United States, died because of a firearm. Forensic scientist can use equipment, such as the Integrated Ballistic Identification System, to find what firearm was used (Bureau). "They used a shotgun loaded with double-O buckshot. Inside the casing for each shot are nine

Nowhere in the nation, has police been able to recall a time where gun registration helped them solve a crime. The idea behind records is to use the gun from the scene to trace it back to its owner therefore tracking down the criminal. Sadly, criminals are too smart to register the firearms under their name. Whenever guns were actually left at the crime scene, was because criminals were killed or injured during the attack. Canada for instance, keeps a very detailed record of their crimes. For example, an identified weapon recollected made less than third of the country’s thousands of firearm crimes from 2003 to 2009. With only about twenty-five percent identified, these guns turned out to be under someone else’ name other than the criminals’.

Ever since the days of the pioneers, firearms have been an element of the American tradition as defense and a means of hunting or activity. As we progress through the 21st century the use of guns has changed significantly. The reason that the use of the gun is changing is fast and steady increase in crime and the battle for the right to have possession of a hand gun, the introduction of legislation for gun control, to try to decrease the felony in the United States, has been a brutal debated issue in recent years.

Advances in DNA technology has expanded greatly in the world of forensic science. In the past a vast number of crime scene evidence was not considered for analysis is now being tested. Trace DNA is more effective in this century when convicting a criminal than it was 20-30 years ago. Due to the consist improvement of DNA technology forensic scientist are able to put away criminals the correct way.

“A component of ammunition (casing and/or projectile) from the crime scene can be identified to the firearm that fired it to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty” Hernandez, G. (n.d.). At any given time that a weapon is fired, there is that natural tendency that a unique print is left on the fired weapon. This print appears in the form of unique impressions or striations also called tool marks. The Evidence of Casing or projectile from any crime scene would be traced to a firearm in the possession of a potential suspect, and would represent as an evidence against that suspect.

A segment of the Forensic Science in the Criminal equity organization that the vast majority acquainted with these days, however, few individuals know how this particular science came to be. Overall, legal science is intended to utilize experimental standards to clarify obscure parts of a wrongdoing. Through the utilization of uncommon tests and lab gear that permits researchers to recognize decisively different parts of a bit of confirmation in an illegal behavior. On the off chance that you occupied with finding out about how this procedure came to fruition, you have to peruse the recorded data underneath. Here is a brief history