Chain Of Forensic Evidence

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“Forensic science is a group of scientific disciplines concerned with the application of their particular scientific area of expertise to law enforcement, criminal, civil, legal, and judicial matters.” Law means evidences and evidences needs proper preservation, maintenance and presentation in court. In addition forensic expert requires giving his expert opinion regarding found evidences in court. Thus, two main wings of good prosecution are: 1. Chain of custody and 2. Expert opinion. Chain of custody: Maintaining the proper ‘chain of custody’ of evidence is one of the main concepts that are important to all forensic sciences. ‘Chain of custody’ involves producing and maintaining written documentation which accompanies the evidence and provides an uninterrupted timeline showing the secure location of the evidence from the time it was discovered until the presentation time. Maintaining this chain helps to ensure that the evidence has not been compromised in any way. Breaking of the chain may provide a potential reason for such evidence to be inadmissible in court. There are many ways that evidence may be altered between the time it is originally acquired from a source and the time of its final report. The concept of ‘chain of custody’ describes these intermediate processing steps. A chain of …show more content…

One vital question concerns the authenticity of the evidence. A crucial step in answering such questions involves having knowledge about the chain of custody though which the evidence has passed en route to the authority that is charged with assessing its relevance, credibility, and weight. Thus, establishing a chain of custody basically involves identifying the persons and devices involved in acquisition, processing, examination, interpretation, and transfer of evidence between the time the evidence is acquired and the time it is provided to the legal

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