History of Forensic Science

1. History of Forensic Science Part 3

2. History of Forensic Science In 1930 May published The identification of knives, tools and instruments, a positive science, in The American Journal of Police Science.

3. History of Forensic Science • (1920s) Calvin Goddard perfected the comparison microscope for use in bullet comparison.

4. History of Forensic Science • 1921 John Larson and Leonard Keeler designed the portable polygraph.

5. History of Forensic Science • 1923 In Frye v. United States, polygraph test results were ruled inadmissible. • The federal ruling introduced the concept of general acceptance and stated that polygraph testing did not meet that criterion.

6. History of Forensic Science • 1924 August Vollmer, as chief of police in Los Angeles, California, implemented the first U.S. police crime laboratory.

7. History of Forensic Science • 1926 The case of Sacco and Vanzetti, which took place in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, was responsible for popularizing the use of the comparison microscope for bullet comparison. • Calvin Goddard’s conclusions were upheld when the evidence was reexamined in 1961.

8. History of Forensic Science • 1929 Calvin Goddard’s work on the St. Valentine’s day massacre led to the founding of the Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory on the campus of Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.

9. History of Forensic Science • 1930 American Journal of Police Science was founded and published by the staff of Goddard’s Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory in Chicago. • In 1932, it was absorbed by Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, becoming the Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology and police science.

10. History of Forensic Science • 1932 The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) crime laboratory was created.

11. History of Forensic Science • 1935 Frits Zernike, a Dutch physicist, invented the first interference contrast microscope, a phase contrast microscope, an achievement for which he won the Nobel prize in 1953.

12. History of Forensic Science • 1937 Walter Specht, at the University Institute for Legal Medicine and Scientific Criminalistics in Jena, Germany, developed the chemiluminescent reagent luminol as a presumptive test for blood.

13. History of Forensic Science • 1937 Paul Kirk assumed leadership of the criminology program at the University of California at Berkeley. In 1945, he formalized a major in technical criminology.

14. History of Forensic Science • 1941 Murray Hill of Bell Labs initiated the study voiceprint identification. The technique was refined by L.G. Kersta.

15. History of Forensic Science • 1950 August Vollmer, chief of police of Berkeley, California, established the school of criminology at the University of California at Berkeley.

16. History of Forensic Science • 1950 Max Frei-Sulzer, founder of the first Swiss criminalistics laboratory, developed the tape lift method of collecting trace evidence.

17. History of Forensic Science • 1954 R. F. Borkenstein, captain of the Indiana State Police, invented the Breathalyzer for field sobriety testing.

18. History of Forensic Science • 1974 The detection of gunshot residue (GSR) using scanning electron microscopy with electron dispersive X-rays (SEMEDX) technology was developed.

19. History of Forensic Science • 1975 The Federal Rules of Evidence, originally promulgated by the U.S. Supreme Court, were enacted as a congressional statute. • They are based on the relevancy standard in which scientific evidence that is deemed more prejudicial than probative may not be admitted.

20. History of Forensic Science • 1977 Fuseo Matsumur, a trace evidence examiner from Japan, notices his own fingerprints developing on microscope slides while mounting hairs from a murder case. • He relates the information to co-worker Masato Soba, a latent print examiner. Soba would later that year be the first to develop latent prints intentionally by “Superglue®” fuming.

21. History of Forensic Science • 1977 The FBI introduced the beginnings of its Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) with the first computerized scans of fingerprints.

22. History of Forensic Science • 1984 Sir Alec Jeffreys developed the first DNA profiling test. • He published his findings in 1985.

23. History of Forensic Science • 1986 In the first use of DNA to solve a crime, Jeffreys used DNA profiling to identify Colin Pitchfork as the murderer of two young girls in the English Midlands. • Significantly, in the course of the investigation, DNA was first used to exonerate an innocent suspect.

24. History of Forensic Science • 1986 In People v. Pestinikas, Edward Blake first used PCR-based DNA testing, to confirm different autopsy samples to be from the same person. • The evidence was accepted by a civil court. This was also the first use of any kind of DNA testing in the United States

25. History of Forensic Science • 1987 DNA profiling was introduced for the first time in a U.S. criminal court. Based on DNA analysis Tommy Lee Andrews was convicted of a series of sexual assaults in Orlando, Florida.

26. History of Forensic Science • 1987 New York v. Castro was the first case in which the admissibility of DNA was seriously challenged. • It set in motion a string of events that culminated in a call for certification, accreditation, standardization, and quality control guidelines for both DNA laboratories and the general forensic community.

27. History of Forensic Science • 1991 Walsh Automation Inc., in Montreal, launched development of an automated imaging system called the Integrated Ballistics Identification System, or IBIS, for comparison of the marks left on fired bullets, cartridge cases, and shell casings. • This system was subsequently developed for the U.S. market in collaboration with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF).

28. History of Forensic Science • 1992 The FBI contracted with Mnemonic Systems to develop Drugfire, an automated imaging system to compare marks left on cartridge cases and shell casings. • The ability to compare fired bullets was subsequently added.

29. History of Forensic Science • 1993 In Daubert et al. v. Merrell Dow, a U.S. federal court relaxed the Frye standard for admission of scientific evidence and conferred on the judge a “gatekeeping” role.

30. History of Forensic Science • 1996 The FBI introduced computerized searches of the AFIS fingerprint database. • Live scan and card scan devices allowed interdepartmental submissions

31. History of Forensic Science • 1998 An FBI DNA database, NIDIS, enabling interstate cooperation in linking crimes, was put into practice.

32. History of Forensic Science • 1999 The FBI upgraded its computerized fingerprint database and implemented the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS), allowing paperless submission, storage, and search capabilities directly to the national database maintained at the FBI.

33. History of Forensic Science • 2006 A new technology developed by a University of Sheffield team of researchers which allows fingerprint images to be compressed and transmitted via mobile phones is approved for use in British police forces.

34. Detection in the 21st Century • As research advances, it enables the production of smaller, less expensive, more accurate, more sensitive, portable, more robust, fast sensors for detecting even trace forensic samples. 

35. Detection in the 21st Century • It will also allow analytical data to be extracted, analyzed remotely and matches obtained in databases from scenes of crime more quickly than has ever been possible before.