The show CSI first appeared in the early 2000s and gained major popularity. Over time the show increased the expectations of viewers. The biggest expectations were the abilities of the crime scene investigators to always provide proof of evidence, as well as their methods used in gaining results from that evidence. Legal specialists anticipated the effects the show would have on the views of the legal system and how it would affect the juror process. This development is now referred to as the “CSI Effect” (Shelton, 2007). This effect explains that jurors were making decisions based off of what they saw on TV. This paper will analyze a specific episode of the show CSI: Miami. To be analyzed are the realistic and non-realistic actions taken …show more content…
by the actors. The non-realistic practices will be discussed and will be given explanation as to what could have been done in reality. The unrealistic actions taken in this show come off so real, it would explain why someone who does not know the reality of forensics would believe it to be real. Synopsis of Episode In the episode titled “Cheating Death”, on CSI: Miami, a man is found murdered in a pool of his own blood, handcuffed to the hotel bed. Hotel management made the discovery after complaints of loud noises were made by other guests. The woman discovered lying next to the man wakes up with no memory of what happened. The woman is then sent to the hospital, where a rape kit and toxicology tests are done, and it discovered that she has GHB in her system. Evidence is collected and pictures of the man’s body is taken, then the body is removed to be examined. Evidence taken from underneath the nails of the man reveals DNA from another woman. The woman is found and questioned and it is discovered that the man was just her tanning butler and that is how he ended up with her DNA under his nails. She also reveals that the woman that was discovered in the bed was a housewife turned escort and that maybe another client saw her with the tanning butler, got jealous and killed him Now with the motive hanging in the air of the possibility that another client may have killed the man, a CSI decides to run the results from the rape kit in CODIS, which reveals results of man who was arrested on charges of assault with a deadly weapon. The man is found and questioned and it is revealed that he is the husband of the woman found in the bed. When questioned about his whereabouts during the time of the murder, he claims he was at his son’s soccer game. Back at the lab two of the CSIs decided to play on a joke on the new pathologist, by moving the body of the man and putting a dummy body there to scare her. The medical examiner has to then recreate the positon of the body, based off the pictures taken at the crime scene, in order to get impressions of the wounds to identify the murder weapon. The examinations of the wounds revealed the murder weapon as a military issued hunting knife. Knowing the identity of the weapon, they turn back to the husband and he reveals he was in the military and confessed that he had suspicions his wife was cheating, so he found out where she was and decided to confront her.
When he got to the hotel room he found his wife knocked out in the bed and the man handcuffed to the bed. He admitted to bringing a weapon but did not use it, he just scared him, and left it there. In another lab the shards of glass found in the hotel room are being examined. Fingerprints found, on what is revealed to be a vial, are matched to another woman. The woman is found and questioned and it turns out that she too had a sexual encounter with the man, where he also drugged her and robbed her. Her whereabouts at the time of the murder are questioned and she claims she was at a personal shopping trip and provided a receipt as …show more content…
evidence. The CSIs then realized the man was drugging and robbing women and that they could be the potential killers.
The episode ends with the discovery that the woman, whose fingerprints were found on the vial, turned out to be the killer. It was revealed that the receipt provided at the time of her questioning was a fake, to cover up her alibi. She is tracked down and they search her vehicle. In the vehicle they find the bloody knife in the trunk of her car. She admitted she saw the man and the woman downstairs at the hotel bar and decided to follow them. She enters the room in an attempt to get the ring back that was stolen from her. She states that after he ridiculed her for what she had done, she flipped out and picked up the knife that was left behind and began to stab
him. Forensic Analysis of the Episode This episode showed some realistic actions and some non-realistic actions done by the CSIs. Some of the realistic actions done by the CSIs were wearing gloves while processing evidence, putting evidence markers by the evidence, taking pictures of the crime scene, collecting the evidence and putting it in the proper containers to transport. One realistic action that stood out the most was the lifting of the latent prints from the glass evidence. The method used was the cyanoacrylate method often called “the super glue method” (Fieldhouse, 2011). This method is highly used due to the results produced on non-porous surfaces, such as glass. The glue works with the proteins left in latent fingerprints and the moisture in the air of the container. The glue is boiled, creating a gas form and once combined with the moisture will develop a visible, sticky white material along the ridges of the print (Connaster, et al., 2010). The print can also be photographed to enhance its visibility. Among the realistic actions taken place there were two non-realistic actions that stood out. Those actions were evidence integrity and the casting of the stab wounds. Analyzing the evidence integrity points to the movement of the body. In the show two CSIs decided to play a joke on the medical examiner, by moving the body and replacing it with a dummy body to scare her. In real life, playing around or let alone moving the body without proper authorization compromises any results, which could endanger the investigation. Why would the body be left unwatched? Why did the CSIs have admission to the examination room? In real life forensic labs have codes set in place to prevent access into evidence not in their authority. Also in real life lab technicians would know not to cross contaminate evidence, due to the sensitive nature of threatening the outcome of their investigation. The second non-realistic action was the casting of the wounds. In the show the medical examiner repositions the body, after it has been moved, to determine the identity of the murder weapon. Once the body was back in its original position she then injected a silicon solution into the wounds and allowed it to set. Once it was dry she pulled it out and had several different shapes that determine the length and shape of the weapon. To begin with in real life some factors contribute to inaccurate results, when determining the dimensions of a knife wound. These factors include: the elasticity of the skin and the movement of the knife in the wound. Unless the victim is unconscious there would be movement. This movement may distort the wound and cause the weapon to make different impressions each time (Cox, 2011 ). In real life considering these factors, injecting a silicon solution into wounds would not make a perfect mold as it did in the show. This technique would prove not to work because the solution would leak through tissue and around the wound. Although, impressions left on the surface of the skin would give a better determination what type of weapon was used. Different types of weapons can be tested by stabbing modeling clay. These impressions left can then be analyzed and could provide a clue as to what type of weapon, but not the actual weapon. Conclusion The development of the show has brought numerous effects on the legal system. It has increased expectations of viewers, who will eventually end up as a juror. As an outcome, those who become influenced will expect the investigators and legal system to follow the characters of the show. While the show normally provides non-realistic examples concerning the process of forensics, there are some realistic examples that give a peek into reality.
They have a heated conversation about the women he killed and she sides with Redding. Dean says something bad about her son Christopher and he snaps, grabs Cassie of the couch, but before he could cause any harm Dean had him pinned up against the was choking him till he let go of her. A young college student Named Curt was found dead after the death of Christopher’s mother tracing Dna back to him the skin found under her fingernails. Someone didn't like how they went to visit Mrs. Simmons so after them leaving not an hour later she was found dead so she couldn't give out any information. But someone had killed Curt the same way Curt had killed Mrs. Simmons like Redding (cut them,bind them, hang them). So that meaning there must have been two accomplices is Es. One was Curt a disorganized killer. It the other was very organized left no evidence ever. But Kurt had. No communication with Mrs Simmons so why would he kill her… Unless the other accomplices wanted her dead, so they switched and killed each others victims. Curt was dead, so whoever killed Curt must have been the one who wanted Mrs Simmons dead. Who would want her dead, though the only person who ever had a problem with her was… Huh her living flesh and blood Christopher. He knew he wanted her dead, so he told Kurt but Kurt wasn't good enough and left behind evidenced so he must kill him before the FBI finds him and hurts him till he talks. So the other accomplice indubitably was Christopher. They had to stop him before it's too late and he kills
They tell her that they have found him but only a part of him. His jaw bone. This make Olivia trave back to her home town Medford. Terry’s family are having his funural so on her way there she decied to stop by her grandmothers old house. In the car she also decied that it would be a good idea to not tell any about who she really was.Olivia happens to meet a woman named Nora that lives next door and she is told that Nora was her grandmothers best friend. At this point Nora tells Olivia lots of information about her family and ends up asking her to take her to Terry’s feneral. This is a preferct cover for her. With being aroud family member that she doesn’t know or have been around makes it even harder to keep her past a sercret. After seeing and hearing lots of things from many different people Olivia wants to solve her perents murders. Along the way after she moves into her grandmother old house she picks up an frien named Duncan and the grow closer and
Since the airing of the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and the other televised series that followed have led jurors to compare fiction with reality. The shows have changed the view on the real world of forensic science as the series have a world of forensic science of their own. For this paper the televised series titled Bones by forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs will be used as an example for comparison. In the series Bones Dr. Temperance Brenan arrives at the scene of the crime to examine the skeletal remains found in the scene of the crime equipped with one or more forensic kits. Upon momentarily examining the skeletal remains Dr. Brenan is able to determine the gender, ethnicity, and age. When this type of scenario is compared to nonfictional
Kassin, Saul, and Lawrence Wrightsman (Eds.). The Psychology of Evidence and Trial Procedure. Chapter 3. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1985. Print.
He entered the home of Evelyn Miroth. She was babysitting her infant nephew, David, and her son, Jason. Also in the home was Dan Meredith who was watching the children while Evelyn took a bath. On his way inside, he shot and killed Dan and proceeded to steal his wallet and car keys. He then followed Jason under his mother’s bed to shoot and kill him as well. He also shot and killed David on his way to kill Jason. He then found Evelyn in the bathtub and shot her in the head. He drug her body onto a bed and raped the corpse while drinking blood from cuts he placed on her neck. He then ejaculated an unusual amount of times on her and then stabbed her anus several times. All of her blood was drained into a bucket and he drank all of it. A girl knocked on the door, supposedly on a play date with Jason, and startled Richard. He fled the scene in Dan’s car and left trails of shoe and hand prints to his home. He even took Dan’s body with him to consume later.
CBS’s CSI: Crime Scene Investigation exploded into popularity when it aired in 2000, opening doors for the creation of other similar criminal investigative television shows involving forensic evidence such as Cold Case, Criminal Minds, and Bones. Many of these CSI-type shows present a murder or crime solved within an hour-long episode using forensic evidence conceived by glamorized CSI personnel and sometimes fabricated methodologies and technologies that only exist on television. Despite just being shows, one wonders whether these popular shows have skewered public perceptions about forensic evidence in real court cases and have impacted the outcome of court verdicts. The CSI Effect, explained by Kim, et all, was named after the television show
Tyler, Tom R. “Viewing CSI and the Threshold of Guilt: Managing truth and Justice in Reality
...the public opinion of government trustworthiness. Studies have not been able to clearly define if the CSI effect has had an actual influence on the outcome of trials. However surveys indicate many possible jurors believe they are more knowledgeable about criminology after watching the shows. CSI viewers may become more knowledgeable about forensic science and investigation processes but that knowledge does not affect the outcome of the criminal justice process.
At trial, your life is in the palms of strangers who decide your fate to walk free or be sentenced and charged with a crime. Juries and judges are the main components of trials and differ at both the state and federal level. A respectable citizen selected for jury duty can determine whether the evidence presented was doubtfully valid enough to convict someone without full knowledge of the criminal justice system or the elements of a trial. In this paper, juries and their powers will be analyzed, relevant cases pertaining to jury nullification will be expanded and evaluated, the media’s part on juries discretion, and finally the instructions judges give or may not include for juries in the court. Introduction Juries are a vital object to the legal system and are prioritized as the most democratic element in our society, aside from voting, in our society today.
In a well-known study conducted by Judge Donald Shelton, jurors were asked various questions to see if there was a significant difference in the rate of acquittals between those who watched shows such as CSI and those who do not. Attorneys, judges, and journalists have claimed that watching television programs like CSI have caused jurors to wrongfully acquit guilty defendants when no scientific evidence has been presented. To test this, 1,027 jurors were randomly selected and given a questionnaire to fill out. Questions about their demographics were listed and the jurors were asked what kind of TV shows they watched, how often, and how real they believed these shows were. The survey asked questons about seven ty...
Pennington, N., & Hastie, R. (1992). Explaining the evidence: tests of the story model for juror decision making. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62 (2), 189-206.
There are two witnesses of the crime. At the junction of the robbery Mavis came to the post office to send a parcel, once she has seen the crime she fainted and collapsed in the doorway. Charlie after seen Mavis made the second shoot in the crime scene to the window. When Bert was trying to drag Mavis aside he cuts his hand on some of the glass on the floor. Johne saw the incident and tried to stop them and Ali hit John on the head with the butt of the gun and fired in his leg.
Fairchild, H. & Cowan, G (1997). Journal of Social Issues. The O.J. Simpson Trial: Challenges to Science and Society.
Stark's office, his partner Jean had come in to finish the paperwork for Dr. Stark while he broke the bad news to the family. As Jean opened the medical closet where Dr. Stark kept all of the files, Moira Díaz’s dead body fell on top of him. Jean was confused why the body in the closet and why there were very distinct stab marks in her chest near her heart. That’s when it all came to him, Dr. Stark murdered her. Jean knew he must call the police right away before Dr. Stark came back. It was to late, as soon as he pulled out his phone and was about to dial the number Dr. Stark Stabbed him in the back multiple times to conceal his secret. Since Jean and his wife Marie Divorced it was easy to ly to the owner of the hospital and said “Jean told me he had some mental health problems, so he is vacationing for an indefinite amount of time. Until then, could I have a new
...mmitted, now they have to deal with figuring out who Mr. Owen is. After the tape finished, everyone started freaking out. Mrs. Rogers faints and they take her up to bed. The guests decided to figure out the situation. They all brought the letter that they received inviting them to the island to see if there is a clue. Most of the guests explained the murder cases they were accused of and denied all accusations.