North Carolina Office of Indigent Defense Services
// by Sarah Olson
By Maher Noureddine, Ph.D. and Sarah Rackley The field of forensic investigation continues to reap tremendous benefits from advancements made in various scientific disciplines including physics, chemistry, biology and others. The detection and analysis of biological molecules have been at the forefront of this advancement, even to the level of revolutionizing forensics as we know …
Bodily Fluids and Forensics: Introduction to the SeriesRead More
// by Sarah Olson
By Daniel Shatz, Assistant Appellate Defender For those of you who just cannot get enough Duke Lacrosse news, the Court of Appeals issued an opinion on August 2, 2011 in a civil case involving a lawsuit filed by the DNA tester, Brian Meehan, against his former company, which had fired him “for cause.” Not surprisingly, the …
COA addresses bad lab reports in Duke Lacrosse caseRead More
// by Sarah Olson
The NC Attorney General’s Office has released the Report of the Ombudsman, completed by Judge Vince Rozier, Jr. prior to leaving that position. The Ombudsman’s report is preceded by a memo from the Acting North Carolina State Crime Lab Director Joseph R. John, Sr. responding to the report’s recommendations. A few of the recommendations that …
// by Sarah Olson
A Texas appeals court affirmed the exclusion of evidence that a dog identified a defendant’s scent in a “scent-lineup” in State v. Dominguez. The trial court found that human scent identification by a canine is not sufficiently reliable to be admitted in evidence in a criminal trial, based on the defendant’s motion to suppress and …
Texas court upholds exclusion of unreliable scent-lineup evidenceRead More
// by Sarah Olson
AmStat News, the monthly newsletter of the American Statistical Association, published an editorial, “Putting the Science in Forensic Science: Helping Congress and the administration do what is possible” on August 1, 2011. The editorial, written by Clifford Spiegelman, Adina Schwartz, and Kate Philpott, presents recommendations of how to implement forensic science reform proposals that have …
“Putting the Science in Forensic Science” EditorialRead More
// by Sarah Olson
New research by Canadian pathologist Evan Matshes challenges the opinion that death from shaking is due to brain trauma characterized by the “traditional triad” of injuries: subdural bleeding, retinal bleeding and brain swelling. His research, published in the July 2011 edition of the journal of American Forensic Pathology (available here: Shaken infants die of neck …
// by Sarah Olson
Posted by Sarah Rackley Edited by Dr. Maher Noureddine, forensic DNA expert The SBI lab started analyzing “touch DNA” around 2006. Now that the lab is capable of analyzing this type of evidence, investigators are collecting it more often, and I am hearing about it coming up in more cases. So, what is touch DNA …
// by Sarah Olson
Welcome to the Forensic Science in North Carolina blog. This blog will serve as a forum to provide information about issues of forensic science in North Carolina. It is administered by Sarah Rackley, Forensic Resource Counsel of Indigent Defense Services in Durham, NC.