Forensic Ethics

2-6-2021
Legal Responsibilities of Forensic Science
• Follow procedures
• Obey the rules of evidence
• Maintain impartiality
• Stay within the legal, scientific boundaries
• Forensic scientists have to report whatever they observe
and whatever they find, no matter what they believe.
Character of Forensic Scientists
• Unprejudiced and impartial
• Objective
• Have sufficient education and training
• Forensic scientists are inclined toward the view that their function is to
employ scientific procedures to unearth factual information about the
physical evidence in a case, regardless of which side the evidence supports.
• Most forensic scientists think of themselves as unprejudiced and make
every effort to ensure that their work is objective.
• They think of their results as a way of providing information to the court,
rather than to one side or the other.
Key Terms
• Ethics – the branch of philosophy dealing with values relating to human
conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions, and to
the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions.

• Expert Witness – the Forensic Scientist and or Crime Scene Technician

presenting the findings of a crime investigation in a court of law

• Components of Ethics
a. Provide written rules of professional conduct
b. Specify an ethical violation
c. Decide consequences of that violation.
Comparison of Legal, Ethical, Moral Standards
• Legal Standard Laws and regulations a social member must abide by
Legal Requirement
• Moral Standard Generally accepted customs of conduct in a given
society Personal Choice
• Ethical Standard high standard of honesty honorable conduct with
methods of reinforcement Professional Requirement
Ethical Guidelines for Analyzing Physical
Evidence
• Adequate examination
• Interpret and/or evaluate findings
• No excessive testing to falsely enhance results
• Use valid, reliable standards of comparison
• Use accurate, reliable equipment
• Precise
• Reproducible
• Make adequate examination and analysis of evidence
• Do not use excessive testing to needlessly enhance results
• Use only methodology currently accepted in the field(s) of expertise at the time of the analysis
• Use only valid, reliable, standard materials for comparison
• Use accurate, reliable equipment demonstrating precision and reproducibility
Ethical Guidelines for Analyzing Physical
Evidence
• Don’t confuse scientific facts with opinion
• Don’t state conclusions and opinions beyond the area(s) of personal
expertise
• Do not confuse scientific facts with opinion in reports and testimony
• Qualify and explain opinions and conclusions appropriately, especially
in gray areas (where the results are less than positive or negative)
• Do not extend conclusions and opinions beyond the area(s) of personal
expertise; don’t claim any false qualifications
• Assign the proper weight and certainty to opinions and conclusions
Ethical Guidelines for Analyzing Physical
Evidence
• Personal interest or gain should not bias or distort a report or testimony
• Never claim results and/or accomplishments not your own
• Avoid misleading or ambiguous language and terms easily misconstrued
• Never allow personal interest or gain to bias or distort a report or
testimony
• Never claim results and/or accomplishments not your own
• Limit reports and/or testimony to the opinions and conclusions that can
be properly drawn from the examinations and analyses
Common Ethical Issues
1.Misrepresenting qualifications or credentials
2.Pressured testimony (adrenaline factor)
3.Omitting unfavorable information
4.Lying about the knowledge of the evidence planted
5.Falsifying the data or notes
6.Biased examination
Case of Violation of Forensic Ethics
An example of a forensic scientist indulging in misrepresentation and
fraudulent activities is that of Fred Salem Zain. ‘He was a police forensic
expert in West Virginia and Texas for more than a decade. With a flair
for being convincing beyond measure, he falsely testified in hundreds of
criminal cases and won favours with juries, judges, and prosecutors who
never questioned him. He slowly rose up the ladder while testifying
about tests he’d never even conducted. Eventually, his work in West
Virginia was discredited leading to dismissal of charges and overturning
of verdicts in multiple cases. He was charged for perjury and fraud, but
died in 2002 before he could be convicted. The above example shows
just how much of an impact a forensic scientist’s testimony can have on
a case and how it can ruin the lives of those involved. The phenomenon
of making up data in a scientific inquiry as opposed to obtaining it via
observation and experimentation is known as dry labbing.’