The past 50 years has seen a heightened awareness of abusive injury patterns and increased concern for the plight of children victimized by their caregivers. Murder of the young, however, has been embedded in society since the beginning of recorded time. Indeed, nature provides abundant examples of infanticide in lower animals, raising the question of whether exploitation, apathy, and violence toward children are on some level evolutionarily conserved. In human antiquity, selective killing of females, the illegitimate, and the malformed, killing by ritualistic sacrifice or to conserve resources was carried out with impunity. The middle ages and later saw a decline in these practices albeit limited. One hundred years into the industrial revolution, with harsh child labor in public view, legal remedies were sought to protect children but with little effect. The domestic abuse of children was not addressed until a pivotal 19^th-century case, in which the rights of animals were invoked to intervene on behalf of a child. In the 20^th century, physicians began to look closely at anatomical findings; patterns due to trauma, especially inflicted trauma, began to emerge. “Battered child syndrome” was followed by “shaken baby syndrome,” the latter prompted by the recurrent findings of subdural hematoma, retinal hemorrhages, and brain injury with the absence of impact injuries and no plausible accidental or natural disease explanation. In the 21^st century, high-quality studies and an emphasis on evidenced-based medicine substantiated the existence of injury patterns resulting from homicidal violence. However, progress has been uneven. A case of child abuse that reached the US Supreme Court resulted in an ill-cited dissent that seems to have amplified an already toxic medicolegal environment, perhaps unjustifiably. The difficulties in balancing the welfare of society with that of caregivers in the aftermath of homicidal abuse will no doubt continue.

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Friction ridge comparison testimony in the United States has long been characterized by speaking in absolutes: fingerprints are unique, the Analysis, Comparison, Evaluation, and Verification methodology has a zero-error rate, and the testimony presented by the expert should be regarded as an incontrovertible fact. Once the National Research Council released their watershed report in 2009, questioning and criticizing these clear overstatements of the strength of the evidence, many commentators and professional organizations recommended that the friction ridge community rethink the way their evidence was presented in reports and in court. Yet, change has been slow to come. While some agencies have begun a shift in the way they present their findings, many others still testify the same way they always have. This paper presents the historical context of where American friction ridge testimony has been, lays out the arguments for why it needs to change, describes some recent efforts to improve, and highlights some likely directions for the future of friction ridge reporting and testimony in the United States.

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It is extremely difficult to develop fingerprints from the surface of currency. There are studies reporting that the high vacuum metal deposition (VMD) method can be used to detect fingerprints on certain types of currency notes. Both VMD and 1,2-indandione/ninhydrin techniques are employed to visualize latent fingermarks on porous surfaces, such as paper. The current study explores whether the VMD method or 1,2-indandione/ninhydrin reagent method is more effective in the development of fingerprints on renminbi (RMB). Uncirculated, circulated, and water-exposed RMB was utilized in this study, along with five donors who ranged in their age and potential to leave fingermarks. Samples were aged for a determined period (for uncirculated and circulated RMB, times were 1, 3, 5, 10, and 35 days; for water-exposed RMB, exposure time was 1 day) and then treated with VMD and 1,2-indandione/ninhydrin. The results suggested that the 1,2-indandione/ninhydrin reagent yielded a better effect for both circulated and uncirculated RMB. For the RMB exposed to water, VMD performed better and gave limited results in terms of fingerprint development, which could serve as a reference for actual forensic cases.

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Fingerprint evidence played an important role in investigation, prosecution, and trial process due to the belief of its uniqueness and unchanged characteristics. However, in recent years, the science behind the process of fingerprint comparisons has been questioned. Main research questions have been focusing on the opaqueness within the comparison processes, subjective judgments, lack of universal standards, no error rate expression on final conclusions, and poor scientific fundamental research data. Facing the above-mentioned questions, this paper aims to suggest a quality control system (QCS) for fingerprint comparison processes. This QCS is based on the use of software (PiAnoS) and its technological features, being able to provide a data management model to increase the transparency and quality of fingerprint comparison processes.

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As the first individualization-information processing equipment put into practical service worldwide, Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) has always been regarded as the first choice in individualization of criminal suspects or those who died in mass disasters. By integrating data within the existing regional large-scale AFIS database, many countries are constructing an ultra large state-of-the-art AFIS (or Imperial Scale AFIS) system. Therefore, it is very important to develop a series of ten-print data quality controlling process for this system of this type, which would insure a substantial matching efficiency, as the pouring data come into this imperial scale being. As the image quality of ten-print data is closely relevant to AFIS matching proficiency, a lot of police departments have allocated huge amount of human and financial resources over this issue by carrying out manual verification works for years. Unfortunately, quality control method above is always proved to be inadequate because it is an astronomical task involved, in which it has always been problematic and less affiant for potential errors. Hence, we will implement quality control in the above procedure with supplementary-acquisition effect caused by the delay of feedback instructions sent from the human verification teams. In this article, a series of fingerprint image quality supervising techniques has been put forward, which makes it possible for computer programs to supervise the ten-print image quality in real-time and more accurate manner as substitute for traditional manual verifications. Besides its prominent advantages in the human and financial expenditures, it has also been proved to obviously improve the image quality of the AFIS ten-print database, which leads up to a dramatic improvement in the AFIS-matching accuracy as well.

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Since the past half century, expert testimony has played an increasingly important role in Chinese litigation. As the amount of expert testimony has grown, the issues about its admissibility and scientific foundation related to evidence are becoming to be questioned commonly. Since eighteenth central committee (China) adopted the decision of the Central Committee of China on several important issues in promoting the legal system, the evidence was redefined to become the predominance in the whole proceeding. This article reviews the expert knowledge implicit in the opinions. It argues that the expert opinions ask judges to be aware of the role of communicationg between participants. Expert opinion is not only gained from laboratory, but also socially constructed in the rational expression and communication, which requir us think logically in terms of legal perceptions of science and expert knowledge in the empirical world.

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This thesis aims to seek the relationship between photosensitive drum cyclical trace distance of two pages (shorted for L') and continuity printing of laser printers. Characteristics quantification, statistics are chosen to evaluate the data and results. It is indicated that the regularity is existed between L' and continuity printing, and regular performance between different models of HP and Canon printers are consistent. According to the data, L' of continuous printing are summed up, the probability of replacing the front page and the middle page which can meet the continuity regularity are analyzed. The numerical interval is given of noncontinuous printing. The study can enhance the scientificity of printing document examination and have innovation and practical significance in civil disputes, criminal cases, and social community.

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In this paper, the authors presented a study on the discrimination of handlebar grip samples, to provide effective forensic science service for hit and run traffic cases. 50 bicycle handlebar grip samples, 49 electric bike handlebar grip samples, and 96 motorcycle handlebar grip samples have been randomly collected by the local police in Beijing (China). Fourier transform infrared microspectroscopy (FTIR) was utilized as analytical technology. Then, target absorption selection, data pretreatment, and discrimination of linked samples and unlinked samples were chosen as three steps to improve the discrimination of FTIR spectrums collected from different handlebar grip samples. Principal component analysis and receiver operating characteristic curve were utilized to evaluate different data selection methods and different data pretreatment methods, respectively. It is possible to explore the evidential value of handlebar grip residue evidence through instrumental analysis and statistical treatments. It will provide a universal discrimination method for other forensic science samples as well.

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In China's criminal procedure system, forensic advice is one of the key types of evidence. These advices play an important part in discovering the facts of a case, convictions, and sentencing, and they cannot be ignored in assessments of guilt and the death penalty. However, due to broad and flexible criminal laws, in actual litigation, the nonappearance of forensic examiner or mere provision of documentation of advice read in court has become the norm. This has led to the existence in name only of cross-examination rights, which directly damages the legitimate rights and interests of the parties and the objective and impartial rulings of referees. At present, there is no legal clarity in criminal proceedings that examiner should or should not be examined in court. In my opinion, the entire court system should require an appearance in court, which must be a clear mandatory appearance with specific exceptions. The system should guarantee the forensic examiner' mandatory appearances, which would inevitably improve the rules of evidence.

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