LIsa Black
Cape Coral, FL
Female, 49
I spent the five happiest years of my life in a morgue. As a forensic scientist in the Cleveland coroner’s office I analyzed gunshot residue on hands and clothing, hairs, fibers, paint, glass, DNA, blood and many other forms of trace evidence, as well as crime scenes. Now I'm a certified latent print examiner and CSI for a police department in Florida. I also write a series of forensic suspense novels, turning the day job into fiction. My books have been translated into six languages.
Any science major is a good thing. The requirements for each lab vary, so if you have a particular location in which you wish to work, you might call all your potential employers and ask what the job requirements are. Then you can decide whether a science degree, a forensic science degree, a masters or a PhD would be best. Also check salaries and decide whether they are sufficient, and be prepared for a lot of competition.
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I don't know, but I would guess that it would be similar to any other profession--if you suffer because of their bias or incompetence or even over-eagerness, then you can ask for damages. The way I understand it--and I am not a lawyer--if your doctor says you have a cold and you actually have bronchitis and he gives you antibiotics and you get better, you don't have much of a case. If you tell him you're allergic to penicillin and he gives it to you anyway and you go into a coma, then you do.
So if an investigator doesn't like you and focuses the investigation on you while the real killer gets away, they may get a bad evaluation at work but it's doubtful that anyone could say they would absolutely have caught the real killer if they hadn't been distracted by you. So I doubt the family of the victim could bring civil charges. If your life has been affected,you lost your job, your spouse, neighbors egged your house, then you could probably sue the department for harassment. Every type of investigator has someone they answer to--a boss, a review board, a licensing board, an appeals court. A conviction could be overturned or vacated altogether.
If they focused on you but you really did do it, then you probably don't have a case, even if they only found you because they don't like you.
I'm guessing--and again this is an only-slightly-educated guess--that the deciding factor is how much their bias affected anything that occurred, overall.
And if by 'examiners' you meant medical examiners, specifically, then I would think the opportunity to affect the ultimate outcome would be even more dilute. An autopsy is photographed and witnessed by assistants and often (in homicides) law enforcement. Everything they put in their report can usually be double-checked after the fact. The extent to which they could skew results would be very limited. This is not to say medical examiner's can't be biased--supposedly Dr. Gerber (along with the local paper) biased the Cleveland jury pool against Dr. Sam Sheppard, but that didn't change anything about his testimony or the results of the autopsy. It did get the suspect a new trial, and did bring changes in the laws regarding pre-trial publicity.
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Not necessarily. I've never been a cop and neither have most of my co-workers. It completely depends on the agency you apply to--some require their CSIs to be sworn officers and some don't.
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Yes. We would probably use ninhydrin or DFO to treat the wrapping.
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As far as I know, 1) possibly and 2) yes. Since the area hasn't been specifically and thoroughly cleaned, yes it could still be picked up. And the DNA results should either be reliable or you wouldn't get any results at all. You wouldn't get results that look like someone else's DNA.
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I'm sure DNA analysts could determine male from female if we wished. Y-STR testing is used often when there's a mixture of male and female cells, because of course only male would have a Y chromosome. But I really couldn't give you details; I haven't done DNA testing in about 17 years. The two outside labs my agency has used in the past are: http://www.dnacenter.com and http://dnalabsinternational.com. Hope that helps!
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The A and B's are antigens on the surface of the blood cells. There are other antigens (like Rh) but the A & B's are the most important. Why, I couldn't tell you.
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