CSI Tips
Lab Requests
- Clearly describe the location of the evidence
- Lab processing can continue through the interview phase
- Search warrants
- DNA comparisons
- Fingerprint comparisons
- Handwriting
DNA
- Swab the object, send the swab to the lab, not the object
- If there is blood on the clothes then remove to look at more closely during processing
- When the lab results state there are not DNA matches remember to ask for a comparison to the victim, and if that doesn't match then ask suspects for samples, get a search warrant if they refuse. (Must have probable cause)
- Check to see if DNA that doesn't have a match on file is a match to other DNA found at the scene.
Autopsy Report
- Only information that will be provided is the time and cause of death
- Need to make specific requests to get more information
Hair samples
- Root will be needed for analysis of DNA comparison
Ballistics
- Students can ask for trajectory
Information about the victim
- Basic information about the victim can be asked during the processing phase
Interviewing
- Keep an open mind about what happened, don't get tunnel vision
- Practice knowing when to Mirandize and make sure that the suspect understands his/her rights
- Remember to ask for basic information: Date of birth, age, height, SS#
- Ask for an alibi, then verify that it checks
- Determine what to charge the suspect with
- Maintain a timeline of events, and how the suspects' stories fits to the timeline
- Ask suspect if they were at the scene of the crime and if they committed the crime