While there are several texts that focus on forensic science techniques and applications, there are few to no quality books that adequately address the judicial interpretation of forensic legal and scientific principles. The field of forensic science and law has long been in need of a historic casebook. Forensic Law Casebook: Judicial Reasoning and the Application of Forensic Science in Criminal Cases fills the current void by reviewing actual case law and translating the practical application of science to the courtroom. Each chapter represents a unique forensic discipline, providing a short introduction to the subject matter, the relevant case law and court cases that pertain to that subject area and posing a variety of questions and issues to the student. All cases provided contain a sufficient portion of the legal decision - and its implications to the evidence and analytical practices of that discipline - in order to then pose critical and analytical questions to the student, once they have fully read the case material and the decision and considered its implications. Each chapter ends its theoretical examination with real-world experience encountered by those laboring in the investigative and collection processes - as well as problems or challenges encountered by those employed in the office of the prosecutor, public defender, medical examiner or other aligned office. This last section of each chapter gives true meaning and impact as to how forensic law decision-making impacts forensic practitioners, and a true understanding of the responsibility placed on law enforcement, investigators and scientists tasked with collecting, preserving and analyzing the evidence. Forensic Law Casebook provides the reader with an array of legal cases and decisions that lay out the parameters of forensic law and its evidentiary value. In the end, what emerges from this are the bedrock principles that guide current forensic evidence and the admissibility of various practices common to the field applications of forensic science. Practitioners, law students, undergraduate and graduate students in compatible majors - as well as law and university libraries - will benefit from this essential reference and adjunct to anyone studying forensic science, criminalistics and the law.

Students today expect learning to be both efficient and interesting. They use online materials and study aids to supplement class-assigned materials and to "hack" the law. This textbook cuts out the middle person by integrating challenging principal cases that are aggressively edited into an engaging overview of the black letter law. The explanatory sections describe the law through lively language and colorful examples that students can readily grasp and remember. Providing students with a clear doctrinal overview permits the selection of cases that drill down deeper into fundamental or cutting-edge issues. Many of the principal cases put the old wine of the criminal law into new bottles that students will find meaningful and interesting. In addition to homicide, rape, assault, traditional property crimes and drug offenses, the cases selected include environmental and white collar crime, obstruction of justice, criminal copyright infringement, hate crimes, sex trafficking, online threats, revenge porn and computer crimes. Short discussion questions follow each case that stimulate understanding of the holding and the deeper issues at stake. Additional materials raise important critical perspectives dealing with issues of race, class and gender. Practice problems and links to online video clips allow students to apply what they are learning, and the appendix contains numerous materials for engaging lawyering exercises.

Forensic mental health assessment (FMHA) continues to develop and expand as a specialization. Since the publication of the First Edition of Forensic Mental Health Assessment: A Casebook over a decade ago, there have been a number of significant changes in the applicable law, ethics, science, and practice that have shaped the conceptual and empirical underpinnings of FMHA. The Second Edition of Forensic Mental Health Assessment is thoroughly updated in light of the developments and changes in the field, while still keeping the unique structure of presenting cases, detailed reports, and specific teaching points on a wide range of topics. Unlike anything else in the literature, it provides genuine (although disguised) case material, so trainees as well as legal and mental health professionals can review how high-quality forensic evaluation reports are written; it features contributions from leading experts in forensic psychology and psychiatry, providing samples of work in their particular areas of specialization; and it discusses case material in the larger context of broad foundational principles and specific teaching points, making it a valuable resource for teaching, training, and continuing education. Now featuring 50 real-world cases, this new edition covers topics including criminal responsibility, sexual offending risk evaluation, federal sentencing, capital sentencing, capacity to consent to treatment, personal injury, harassment and discrimination, guardianship, juvenile commitment, transfer and decertification, response style, expert testimony, evaluations in a military context, and many more. It will be invaluable for anyone involved in assessments for the courts, including psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and attorneys, as well as for FMHA courses.

This book aims to demonstrate how forensic psychology contributes to police investigations, providing practical information about the type of reports provided by psychologists and behavioural advisors, and set within a broader theoretical context. It asks the question 'What do practitioners actually do when they provide advice for the police and the courts and how do they do it?' The contributors to the book are all experts in the field of offender profiling and behavioural investigative advice. The chapters provide valuable insights into particular case details, the ethical and legal consequences of advice, coverage of the relevant theoretical context, explanations for conclusions drawn, practical difficulties in preparing reports, potential pitfalls, and an account of how cases are resolved.

THE ULTIMATE READERS’ GUIDE TO THE ART OF FORENSICS! An intrepid investigator crawls through miles of air conditioning ducts to capture the implicating fibers of a suspect’s wool jacket . . . A forensic entomologist discovers insects in the grill of a car and nails down a drug dealer’s precise geographical path . . . A gluttonous criminal’s fingerprints are lifted from a chocolate truffle. . . . Filled with these and many other intriguing true stories, and packed with black and white illustrations and photographs, The Forensic Casebook draws on interviews with police personnel and forensic scientists—including animal examiners, botanists, zoologists, firearms specialists, and autoposists—to uncover the vast and detailed underworkings of criminal investigation. Encyclopedic in scope, this riveting, authoritative book leaves no aspect of forensic science untouched, covering such fascinating topics as: • Securing a crime scene • Identifying blood splatter patterns • Collecting fingerprints—and feet, lip, and ear prints • Interpreting the stages of a body’s decay • Examining hair and fiber evidence • Trace evidence from firearms and explosives • “Lifting” DNA prints • Computer crime and forensic photography • Career paths in criminal science Lucidly written and spiked with real crime stories, The Forensic Casebook exposes the nitty gritty that other books only touch upon. Here is a reference book as addictive as a page-turning novel of suspense.

Few resources exist for those interested in developing their professional competence vis-à-vis ethics in forensic psychology, with the most recent text being published more than a decade ago. However, forensic psychology is changing quickly and there is a need for a current guide on ethics within the field. The Ethical Practice of Forensic Psychology highlights the ethical standards and guidelines set forth by the American Psychological Association's (APA) Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (EPPCC) and the Specialty Guidelines for Forensic Psychology (SGFP). This Casebook provides readers with a practical review of these ethical standards and professional guidelines in the context of forensic case vignettes with corresponding commentary by leaders in the field. Concepts are presented using a best-practices model that encourages and promotes engaging in empirically supported decision-making. This volume is distinct from all others published in this area, given its inclusion and integration of a review of the ethical standards and guidelines contained in the EPPCC and SGFP, in addition to numerous types of ethical dilemmas encountered in forensic practice, a review of the relevant empirical literature and case law/legal statutes, and commentary by experts in forensic psychology. This unique Casebook will prove useful for a broad audience including academics in forensic psychology, psychology graduate and post-doctoral students and trainees, practitioners, mental health counselors, social workers, and legal professionals.

Ubelaker, curator of anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian, is one of America's very top 'bone-men', often called upon by the FBI to investigate and help to identify the corpses and body parts of possible victims of foul play. Upon the dozens and dozens of true stories in this book, there are accounts of homicide, cannibalism, ritual sacrifice and other horrific crimes, solved and unsolved, from Ubelaker's own personal casebooks and those of the Smithsonian. Illustrated with over seventy-five photographs and drawings, reconstructions, computer sketches, and photographic super-impositions, this book fascinatingly reveals the indelible stories that bones have to tell.