The Crime Scene - rawr PDF

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Review Questions 1. What is physical evidence? Provide at least three examples in your answer. Physical evidence can be defined as the real evidence or material that plays a major role in the matter that gave rise to the litigation, which can be introduced in the court as evidence in the judicial proceedings. It can be any object or material which was present at the time of the incident. Example: A knife, table, footwear, chair, box, et cetera. It is strong support to favor the argument or to reject the argument in the courtroom.

2. Describe three ways that a crime scene can be recorded. What is a benefit of each? The crime scene can be recorded by photography, videography, and notes. Photography records of a crime scene show the entries and exits from the scene as well as where the evidence is found. The recording of the crime scene with videography lets you utilize the visual elements as well as audio notes. The recording of the crime scene with notes includes the location of the different pieces of evidence a description of the crime scene and how the evidence was found.

3. What is a chain of custody? Why is it important? A chain of custody is a documented list of all individuals who had custody of the evidence during the investigation of the crime. This chain of custody is crucial to avoid questions of evidence tampering.

4. What three types of photographs are taken at crime scenes? Describe each type. The three types of photos taken during crime scenes are overview, mid-range, and close-ups. Overviews are used to include images of all rooms, taken from overhead and from each corner, and also the spectators at the crime scene for later help of finding suspects. Midrange photos are taken to determine the distance of an object from other surrounding objects.

5. Why is it important to record the crime scene? It is important to record the crime scene because it is useful during the subsequent investigation recordings is also presented at trial to give the condition of the scene and the location of physical evidence.

Critical Thinking Questions 1. Why is it important to secure the crime scene? What do you think would be the most difficult part of doing this? It is important to secure the crime scene because anyone that isn't a trained professional can possibly contaminate or even destroy the evidence. Also, isolating the scene keeps unauthorized individuals from entering.

2. What type of recording do you think would be the most useful to crime investigators? Why? Videography because I believe it provides a lot more footage to view. Say, for instance, you forgot to take a picture from a certain angle, but if you were recording, there's a chance it slipped into the video anyway. Since videos are just a large compilation of fast-moving images, it provides a lot more angles and different frames, (single images) to view.

3. What do you think would be the best method of submitting evidence

to a crime lab? Why? The type of recording that is the best and most useful method of submitting evidence to a crime lab is videography. The videography is the type of evidence that pretty much contains everything that can get from a recording because it has both the visual aspects and the audio aspects of the crime scene. It can be said that the videography represents the ultimate type of notes.

4. What type of evidence do you think would be most difficult to collect? Why? It usually depends on what is at the crime scene, but usually, the evidence that is most difficult to collect would be fibers, hair, or specs of dirt. The reason is that they are really tiny and easy to miss, not to mention they are harder to analyze than DNA samples, blood, and other crime evidence.

5. What does the Fourth Amendment protect against? Do you agree with these restrictions on collecting evidence? Why or why not? The fourth amendment protects against an unreasonable search, meaning someone can't search your house or belongings for evidence without having a warrant....