FSC100H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Medical Examiner, Livor Mortis, Putrefaction
Document Summary
Winter 2018: representation of certainty (identification, establishes possibility that certain tissue/fluid/substance present, generally cheap, quick, and easy to use, use on large area, surface, careful of false positives, confirmatory test. Identify a substance with greater confidence: more costly and equipment dependant, representation of certainty (comparison, class characteristics, evidence associated only with a group. Individual characteristics: evidence that can be associated to a common source with an extremely high degree of probability. "failure to exclude samples as being from common origin: examples: fingerprints, marks present on a roll of black garbage bags. But rather becasue context bias may lead investigators to inadvertently reach conclusions. When they know the expected outcome: confidentiality, discretion and awareness. New slide: death investigations: common confusion, coroner, forensic pathologist. Sudden death: deaths that appear to be result of accident, suicide, or homicide, deaths in custody, deaths in other specified circumstances, coroner has exclusive authority over the body.
