Ethical Consideration in Forensics Essay

Ethical Consideration
C.J. 210-05
Prof. Fred Bittner
February 10, 2013

Ethical means pertaining to be dealing with morals, the principals of morality pertaining to right and wrong in conduct being in accordance with the rules or standard for right conduct or practice, especially the standards of a profession. Anyone who chooses to up hold the law and ethics must keep their emotions and feelings of anger and betrayal towards all suspects in balance. Consideration that needs to be addressed when investigating a homicide, is the investigator must be extremely compassion and sympatric to family of the victim. To avoid the degradation or contamination of the evidence must be very careful, and while transporting it to the lab. Failure to follow any protocol could result in a mistrial. The investigator must be non-biased Other ethical issues that happen during a homicide investigation are investigators planting evidence. Investigators will plant evidence in order to get criminals off the streets. Falsifying testimony officers will be called to court, and they won’t tell the whole truth, to get the comeback they fell the suspect should get. Retribution, officers sometimes will seek retribution if someone they knew or if another police officer was killed. Osterburg, Ward, (2010) the corpus delicti is the collection of basic facts establishing that a crime has been committed, and that some person is responsible. Regardless of the classification of an unlawful homicide, the investigator must marshal evidence for each element of the corpus delicti in order for the prosecutor to obtain an indictment or for the judge to hand the case over to a jury. The elements for unlawful homicide are: 1. The death was not the result of suicide, natural causes, or accident, thus establishing that it was a homicide. (This is the province of the forensic pathologist.)

2. Some person was responsible for the unlawful death. (Establishing the identity of
The person is the province of the investigator, evidence technicians and criminalists) Some specific ethical issues that don’t happen in homicide investigation are coercion, beating or striking, or getting a confession by force, refusing the suspect an attorney after they have requested for one, bulling, forcing, bribing, or intimidating the suspect into a confession.
Terrorism is another crime that the investigators must follow ethics. The investigator should be familiar with legal powers and limitations associated with terrorism investigations.
Zalman (2013) there are different types of terrorism. It has been defined by lawmakers, security professionals, and scholars. Types differ according to what kind of attack agents an attacker uses (biological for example) or by what they are trying to defend (as in ecoterrorism) researchers in the United States began to distinguish different types of terrorism in the 1970s. Following a decade in which both domestic and international groups had began to use techniques, such as hijacking, bombing, diplomatic kidnapping, and assassinate to assert their demands.
Dyson (2008) a retired FBI supervisor notes that: Investigators should be well prepared when they testify in courts. They should not be surprised if they are asked about aspects of the Constitution or about their oath in office. They should also not be taken back if they are asked if they committed any illegal activities during the course of the investigations … If an officer has functioned in an undercover capacity during the case, he will probley be questioned in detailed about entrapment issues.
Dyson states in his book that “the success of such investigation depends largely on intelligence and analysis” The investigator must take copious notes and detailed records. This may prove crucial not only in making a case, but also in developing a successful prosecution. The point at which an arrest is made May well depend on circumstantial evidence, which will no doubt

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