Law and Software

Analysis of Scientific Evidence

You are an attorney. You have an autopsy, DNA analysis, some other lab report or possible valuable or dangerous piece of scientific evidence.

Until you ask the right questions, the report is just data. It is not evidence. But you can't justify the cost of an expert unless you know that the report might answer some of your questions.

A scientifically literate attorney can tell you that, often in only an hour.

Here's an example from a recent case. The only witness said D put the gun to V's head and fired "execution style." All I know is that someone should have read the autopsy years before I did. It said:

In the right frontal scalp, approximately 0.5cm to the right of the midline there is a [...] circular wound located approximately 5.5 cm posterior to the midline. There is no stippling, tattoing or staining surrounding this wound. Wound 2 is located onthe right forearm, anterior radial side, approximately 6cm. distal to the anticubital fossa. There is no staining... Wound 3 is located on the right forearm, medial-ulnar side approximately 14cm distal to the tip of the elbow. There is a ring of gunpowder residue surrounding wound 3. The course of the projectile [beyond wound 1] is from superior to inferior, anterior to posterior, angling posteriorly off the vertical line approximately 5 degrees and from right to left angling to the left ab estimated 5 degrees.

Let's translate this into English:

The bullet passed through the V's right forearm, into the head. The autopsy report describes how the bullet entered the near the middle of the right forearm, came out close to the elbow, and fatally hit V in the top of the head, near the midline and behind the hairline, and traveling from right to left, coming to rest in the left side off the brain.

Most times when a bullet passes through the right forearm from wrist to elbow, it will be traveling from left to right. This would be the case, for example, if the hand were held protectively in front of the face.

This injury, however, can most simply be explained if V's arm was fully extended and the D fired the gun from the right of V.

V was reaching out to grab the gun. No execution here.