Forensics 101
This agency operates the largest crime laboratory in the world.
Who is the FBI?
Continuity of possession of evidence.
What is chain of custody?
Evidence that can only be associated with a group, rather than a single course (such as blood type).
What are class characteristics?
A bloodstain pattern created when a bloody object comes into contact with another surface.
What is a transfer pattern?
The broad classification of how death came about (i.e. natural vs. homicide).
What is the manner of death?
The principle that states that material is transferred whenever a person comes into contact with another person of object.
What is Locard's Exchange Principle?
This is the action that takes priority when first responding to a crime scene (i.e. what you do first).
What is providing medical assistance?
The name for the U.S. DNA database (acronym only).
What is CODIS?
The name for the spatter surrounding a main bloodstain, which results from small droplets breaking away upon impact.
What is a satellite stain?
The cooling of the body to match ambient temperature after death.
What is algor mortis?
Who is Francis Galton?
This search pattern involves two people originating at corners and walking perpendicular to each other within well-established bounderies.
What is the grid search pattern?
When a suspect's specimen and a reference specimen are subjected to the same tests in order to determine common origin.
What is a comparison?
A bloodstain pattern created when a blood-covered object flings blood in an arc during motion.
What is cast-off?
The estimated time that has elapsed since death.
What is the postmortem interval (PMI)?
He is considered the father of criminal identification, creating a system of measurements named after himself (like the length of your left foot!).
Who is Alphonse Bertillon?
This type of swab is used to collect known DNA.
What is a buccal swab?
The government agency that maintains NIBIN, the database that stores bullet and cartridge case data.
Who is ATF?
What is a void pattern?
This insect is considered t be the main player in forensic entomology, as it is the first to arrive on a corpse.
What is the blowfly?
This court case that established the legal standard that a scientific method must be "generally accepted."
What is Frye v. United States?
What is oblique lighting?
The constitutional amendment that protects your rights against unreasonable search and seizure.
What is the Fourth Amendment?
The two-dimensional location on a plane from which blood droplets appear to have originated, determined using the string method.
What is the area of convergence?
Putrefaction and autolysis are types of which process?