8127/frame/fm

 
Figure 10.1
 
Evidence room. 
This represents job security. With too many cases
and too much evidence, it is tempting to cut corners or stop thinking. One
obligation of the professional is to maintain the integrity of the evidence, the
analysis, and the results, in the process safeguarding the overall integrity of the
profession.
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Principles and Practice of Criminalistics
b.
Explainable Differences.......................................................... 265
c.
Inference of Source vs. Inference of Contact....................... 265
i. Inference of Source .......................................................... 265
ii. Inference of Contact ........................................................ 268
d.
A Statement of Conclusion ................................................... 268
C.
Summary ............................................................................................... 269
References ...................................................................................................... 271
It does not matter if you’re looking through a bucket of barf, or at a questioned 
document, the examination is the same
 
—David Crown
 
AAFS meeting, San Diego, 1977, at a joint session of the criminalistics and
documents sections
We have finally arrived at the point in a case investigation that criminalists
are most familiar with — the laboratory analysis or comparison. For a com-
plex analysis, a good analyst may spend more time thinking about it than
analyzing it. Failure to do so may result in an incorrect or suboptimal analysis,
rendering useless all the good work that may have preceded it. The events
and decisions surrounding the physical act of analysis share equal importance
with sample processing and data collection. In this chapter we will discuss
the decision-making process that occurs between the time the evidence is
collected and the time the analysis is performed.