PART I: OVERVIEW OF THE TOPIC: Introduction to DNA evidence and forensic science -- The law relating to forensic science and DNA evidence -- Chronology -- Biographical listing -- Glossary -- PART II GUIDE TO FURTHER RESEARCH: How to conduct research on forensic science and DNA typing -- Annotated bibliography -- Organizations and agencies -- PART III: APPENDICES: Methods used in Bertillonage (1889) -- Fingerprint patterns -- Frye v. United States, on the admissibility of expert testimony, 1923 -- Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988 -- Polygraph testing, U.S. Military Rules of Evidence, Rule 707 (1991) -- Daubert v. Merrell, on the admissibility of expert testimony, 1993 -- Statutory requirements for DNA testing (1994) -- United States v. Scheffer on the admissibility of polygraph test results, 1998 -- State laws concerned with ballistic fingerprinting (2000) -- Ballistics, Law Assistance, and Safety Technology Act (2002) -- Advancing justice through DNA technology (2003).
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Text of Note
From the Publisher: Each volume of the Facts On File Library in a Book series is carefully designed to be a first-stop research source on important current issues. Written clearly and carefully so that even the most complex aspects of the topic are easily understandable, the books give the reader the essential information to begin work, plus the research tools needed to delve more deeply into the issues. Each book includes a history of the subject, biographical information on important figures in the field, a complete annotated bibliography, and a carefully designed index-everything the researcher needs to get down to work. Recent developments in forensic methods have revolutionized crime scene investigations so that one piece of forensic evidence can often determine an individual's guilt or innocence. Tests involving fingerprinting, polygraphs, ballistics, toxicology, voice analysis, DNA typing, and other techniques can be combined or used independently to provide information about a crime. Some of these methods have been known and used for many centuries; others have been developed only recently. Some procedures create highly valid and reliable results; others generate conclusions that may be uncertain at best or legally useless. DNA Evidence and Forensic Science examines the history and opinions surrounding the issue-from the early use of fingerprinting to identify civil servants to the latest advances in DNA typing in criminal investigations. Documents such as the Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988 and contemporary case studies such as Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals provide multiple perspectives and decisions surrounding the issue while also plotting a course for the future of legislative action pertaining to DNA evidence and forensic science.