Observation Skills
Forensic investigators must rely on the ability to observe, interpret, and report observations clearly.
What are observation skills?
Deriving consequences from facts using a series of logical steps.
What is deductive reasoning?
A person who has seen someone, or something, related to a crime and can communicate their observations.
What is an eyewitness?
This was created in 1992 to reexamine post-conviction cases and exonerate those who are wrongfully convicted.
What is the Innocence Project?
This type of individual is typically measured in their thoughts.
What is a good witness?
If you get cold EVERY TIME you go in the bank, then you may believe that all banks are cold.
What is a perception?
The stage in the scientific method when coming up with a testable opinion.
When an eyewitness testifies in court about a crime
What is an eyewitness testimony?
The main type of evidence used to provide conclusive proof of guilt and/or innocence.
What is DNA?
This describes a person's individual recollection of a unique event.
What is episodic memory?
This is where information that is typically not transferred gets lost within the first 20 seconds.
What is short-term memory?
The dangerous action many people take in scenarios that lead to major consequences.
What is jumping to conclusions?
The single greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide.
What is eyewitness misidentification?
These men are responsible for creating the Innocence Project to help reexamine post-conviction cases.
Who are Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld?
This case led to the conviction and execution of many young women because of lack of knowledge and misperceived eyewitness testimonies.
What are the Salem Witch Trials of 1692?
This part of the brain is associated with movement and orientation.
What is the parietal lobe?
Name one method to improve observation skills.
What is notetaking, photographing, or making connections to observations?
These are people who are responsible for interviewing witnesses or victims of a crime to recreate an image of perpetrators of a crime.
Who are forensic sketch artists?
The recorded statistic of wrongful convictions overturned under the Innocence Project.
What is 87%?
Things that cannot be controlled by the criminal justice system, such as lighting and distance.
What are estimator variables?
When you cannot recall all the details of an event and you decide to piece small fragments of information together from situational encounters.
This is a statement or evidence that a person was somewhere else when a crime occurred.
What is an alibi?
This is a factor that often affects eyewitness accounts when people cannot give an accurate description because of their voluntary involvement in a crime scene investigation.
What is level of interest?
DNA testing exonerated a total of 35 people from this type of punishment.
What is death row or capital punishment?
This landmark case taught Ronald Cotton about DNA and ultimately contributed to his exoneration after an 11-year imprisonment.
What is the OJ Simpson case?