Journal of Forensic Research

Considerable research reveals that most people, including mental health and law enforcement professionals, are remarkably poor at catching liars, doing no better than chance. Our comparative inability to detect deception poses a profound threat to the reliability of forensic psychological and psychiatric evaluations of criminal defendants intended to assess such things as current mental status and future dangerousness. In forensic evaluations, where one’s personal freedom, even life, can be at stake, some clients, perhaps more than some, will inevitably dissemble. This essay provides a brief and non-technical description of the research my students and we have conducted designed to better understand the reasons for which detecting deception is so difficult. In this regard, and consistent with much previous research, we discovered that in assessing the verbal content of other persons’ statements, it is possible with a good degree of reliability to differentiate between true and deceptive statements of criminal defendants. We also found that the “truth” is itself a multidimensional concept and that truthful versus false statements differ with regard to both the quantity and quality of information contained in a statement. While multiple challenges exist to accurately detect deception, our data strongly suggested that it may be so difficult to catch liars because it requires more cognitive work to identify false rather than true statements. Indeed, the data indicate that determining a statement is true appears to involve a one-step cognitive process while determining a statement is false appears to involve a two-step cognitive process, whereby a false statement is recognized as lacking attributes of truthfulness while simultaneously manifesting attributes of deception. That it would be more difficult to recognize falsehoods and require more cognitive work does not seem surprising considering that the identification of a lie forces us to look below and reject the surface meaning of a statement concluding that the statement is not simply inaccurate but actually intended to deceive or mislead us. On a more positive note, even though deception is ubiquitous in human relationships and a significant number of dangerous liars will be successful, the accuracy of deception detection can be improved by the application of the findings from verbal content analysis identifying those statement attributes characteristic of truthfulness versus deception. It would seem especially important for forensic psychologists and psychiatrists to be aware of research capable of assisting them in assessing the veracity of criminal defendants participating in court-ordered evaluations.

Background Study: Vitreous humor is an inert, transparent, jelly like substance that fills the posterior four fifths of the cavity of the eyeball. It is the choice sample in post-mortem investigation and analysis.

Objective of study: To determine vitreous biochemical parameters suitable for postmortem interval (PMI) extrapolation.

Material and Methods: Vitreous humors were collected from the eyes of 50 dead bodies (28 males and 22 females) at the Federal Medical Center Yenagoa morgue employing Coe method. The vitreous was extracted, centrifuged and the resultant supernatant used for the biochemical analysis. The supernatants were analyzed for glucose, total protein, albumin, globulin, sodium, potassium, chloride, bicarbonate, urea and creatinine using WHO approved methods.

Results: The data were statistically analyzed using SPSS. The results indicated that there was strong correlation (R-0.88) between vitreous potassium and PMI. Other parameter showed either weak or negligible correlation. The staged-three -hourly mean potassium showed a gradual increase using student t-test.

Conclusion: Death within 15 hours can be extrapolated from potassium concentrations.

There is a tendency to regard police-work, implying independence and initiative in the absence of direct presence of authority that places a premium upon leadership, as a ‘drudge’ although ‘daily hassles’ may be converted immediately to “special events”. Despite this aspect, police leadership tends not to differ from other, civil, forms of leadership. A sample of police leaders (n=106) was compared to civil leaders derived from government administration and private enterprise (n=1650). Personal attitudes to and experiences of job relations and characteristics are measured with the JMT three subscales (Inner Drive and Tolerance to stress distress from the main scale Stability together with Enterprise from the main scale Action) all of which provide an indication of the leader’s resourcefulness. Low-level scoring on any of these three attributes is expected to induce negative influences upon subordinates whereas the opposite outcomes may be predicted by high-level scoring. The results indicated that: (i) All-level police chiefs differed markedly from executive leaders in public administration and private enterprise; the former expressed the lowest levels of tolerance to stress, enterprise and Inner drive. (ii) Correlational analyses indicated that there were clear-cut, positive and strong relationships between the three variables, tolerance to stress, enterprise and Inner drive. (iii) there was a marked difference between public and private executive leaders with regard to enterprise and Inner drive to the advantage of the private executive leaders. The present results are discussed in relation to police leadership inadequacy and efforts to overcome the situation.

Forensic Palynology is an important tool to resolve the place and sometimes the season of the year of a fact. The palynomorphs may be in different objects (clothes, shoes, ropes). Pollen morphology is sometimes exclusive for a plant species and some of them grow in specific areas besides plants produce pollen at certain times of the year. The study was based on field work and monitoring seasonal wild communities near Punta Lara reserve. This paper describes the pollen morphology of the representative species which grow in this zone of wetlands from Buenos Aires, Argentina and can be representative of the landscape of the region.

An extensive amount of social science research has been conducted on issues related to the criminal justice system. From the moment a crime is witnessed until a verdict and sentence have been rendered there exists opportunity for the human cognitive system to distort and misinterpret data about a crime, about the suspect, and about the process itself. The research presented here describes, in easy to understand terms, some of the empirical research that points out disadvantages minorities face within the system, differences in the way in which trial information is received and evaluated, and provides a framework that may potentially lend itself to methods for mitigating these disadvantages and individual differences.

The present study deals with the effects of variation in temperature and humidity on the different life cycle stages of Calliphoridae fly Chrysomya saffranea. In India for first time, Chrysomya saffranea was recorded apart from Australia as a native place of this fly.

In this study different life cycle stages of Chrysomya saffranea in different seasons were observed. In summer season when the average temperature ranged between 30.5°C and 33.2°C and the average humidity ranged between 12% to 19%, life cycle duration was completed in 220 h (9.17 days) from the depositing of eggs up to the eclosion of adults. But in rainy season when the average temperature ranged between 25.6°C and 28.9°C, and the average humidity ranged between 50% to 65%, life cycle duration was completed in 259 h (10.79 days), while in winter season when the average temperature ranged between 17.8°C and 24.4°C, and the average humidity ranged between 17% to 28%, life cycle duration was completed in 341 h (14.21 days) from eggs up to emergence of the adults.

The temperature and humidity are the most important factors playing role in the larval development, decay and degradation of the cadavers. Therefore, the climatic fluctuations and environmental changes play an important role in the life cycle of Chrysomya saffranea. All these factors must be considered in the Post Mortem Interval determination.

Epidural anesthesia is often used form in Chinese primary hospitals and lidocaine is the most favorite anesthetic. Fatalities due to epidural anesthesia accident and lidocaine overdose are often happened, but there still have not obvious evidence to indicate the real reason of death according to the concentration of lidocaine in postmortem blood because the postmortem redistribution (PMR). An animal models using dogs has been developed, whereby the dogs received an intravenous, subarachnoid, and epidural injection of lidocaine (75 mg/kg body weight). The dogs were placed at room temperature after sacrifice. The cardiac blood, inferior vena cava blood, liver and cerebrum samples were collected at 0 h, 1 h, 4 h, 8 h, 24 h, 48 h and 72 h postmortem with the same animal’s corpse. The lidocaine is easier diffusion from canalisvertebralis to cardiac blood in subarachnoid administration. The level commonly has a great change from 48 h after death in cardiac blood, from 35.7 mg/L to 1421.9 mg/L, and then decreasing 50% at 72 h. The inferior vena cava blood concentration was stabilized in postmortem time. The cerebrum concentration of subarachnoid administration decreased by 50% and was observed at 72 h after death. The changes were observed in cardiac blood in intravenous and epidural administration groups, but no changes were observed in cerebrum. Lidocaine concentrations did not change significantly in the liver in any of the three groups. This study can assist toxicologists to determine which specimens should be the most appropriately during the interpretation of lidocaine concentrations in epidural accidents.

The official position of the United States Government is Marine Corps Colonel James E. Sabow committed suicide. He allegedly died by an intraoral shotgun discharge in the backyard of his quarters on the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, Orange County, California, USA in 1991. However, questions have persisted since the Colonel’s death whether he died by homicide. The two scenarios on the manner of death, suicide and homicide, were evaluated as to the gunshot residue (GSR) and back spatter residue (BSR) on the Colonel’s clothing, the bloodstains on and off the body and the position of the body at the death scene. The shotgun, when test fired, was shown to leak GSR from its breech and trigger housing. Samples from the Colonel’s clothing were analysed by scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive X-ray analysis show there are no concentrations of GSR or BSR on the clothing that should be present if the Colonel committed suicide. Bloodstains on and away from the body and the position of the body do not support the suicide scenario, The Colonel’s body was staged to appear he committed suicide. There is no evidence of suicide. The Colonel’s death was a homicide.

Sexual addiction has become the catch-all for infidelity, cheating, and promiscuity. The problem is that the experts in the field of sexual addiction have promulgated these misperceptions and misdiagnoses. The wealthy and famous appear to have mental health field in their pocket to use as a get-out-of-jail-free card, to have an excuse for having engaged in affairs or promiscuity or the use of prostitutes. Sexual addiction was defined similarly to how the DSM-5 has defined substance use disorders. Following those diagnostic criteria, as well as how Carnes et al. defined sexual addiction, it appears that the rich and famous do not meet the diagnostic criteria for sexual addiction. They do appear however to meet the criteria for infidelity, cheating, sense of entitlement, and promiscuity. And what about sexual offenders who claim to be sexual addicts? They may or may not have a sexual addition however they are also sexual offenders.