Within the investigation in to the murder of Nicole Brown
and Ronald Goldman it was clear that not only did sloppy forensic evidence collection
occur but the members involved within the investigation were not communicating
enough with each other. Police officers, such as Detective Fuhrman, Detective
Riske and Detective Vannetter did not communicate with each other when handing
over the crime scene. This led to vital evidence such as the bloody
fingerprint, not being collected and therefore this evidence could not aid the
investigation to lead to the suspect. As lead detectives at the murder scene,
as the authority figure should have they should have ensured all practices and
procedure were carried out by Scene of Crime Officers when collecting evidence
to ensure that the reliability and condition of the evidence was not damaged.
As the authority figures they too should have followed the correct procedures
when entering a crime scene and worn PPE to make sure that no evidence from the
crime scene was cross contaminated. As the officers did not this shows little
professionalism and also decreased the value of evidence at the scene. Police officers
at the crime scene should have ensured that the evidence collected from the
crime scene would be transported to the forensic laboratories in the same
condition. As no care was taken for evidence at the crime scene this was shown
with the large amount of evidence that analysts were unable to determine as potential
evidence to aid the investigation.
Also lead detective at the crime scene should have been
keeping track on how sloppy the SOCO’s were working. As the authority figure at
the crime scene they should have kept track of the audit trail, confirming that
all evidence collected was entered in to the chain of custody. Although SOCO’s
will have been trained to collect evidence following specific procedures, Scene
of Crime Officers should have ensured that these procedures were carried out
when collecting evidence from the scene. SOCO’s should have followed the
bagging and tagging procedures when collecting the evidence to ensure that
other members within the investigation team who receive the evidence will have
all the information they need to know about the item. As all these practices
and procedures were not carried out due to the lack of authority and
communication at the crime scene, this meant that a lot of evidence collected
from the crime scene was not useful or reliable mainly due to the lack of
evidence that was not put through the audit trail. This meant that this
evidence that was not entered in to the chain of custody could not be used as
valid evidence to aid the ongoing case surrounding the murder of Nicole Brown
and Ronald Goldman.
Forensic scientists and analysts role was to analyse the
evidence that was collected from the crime scene, this was do efficiently and effectively.
Scientists were able to analyse blood found upon evidence at the crime scene in
order t determine whether the blood was from Nicole Brown, Ronald Goldman or
Orenthal James Simpson. All evidence sent to the forensic laboratories was
analysed by forensic scientists and results from the evidence was reported from
scientists to police officers or lead investigators involved within the case.
Forensic scientists also reported to police officers that evidence was sent to
the laboratory that was not recorded within the audit trial which was carried
out at the crime scene. Scientists reported this to police officers or lead
investigators to inform them that this evidence would be unreliable and they
will not be able to state whether the item of evidence had been tampered with
or cross contaminated had occurred. This was also due to the lack of labelling
from SOCO’s, as Scene of Crime Officers did not label all evidence that was
collected from the scene it was hard for forensic scientists to determine where
the evidence was seized.
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