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Georg Popp pioneered the use of botanical identification in forensic work.
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Luke May, one of the first American criminalists, pioneered striation analysis in tool mark comparison, including an attempt at statistical validation. In 1930 he published The identification of knives, tools and instruments, a positive science, in The American Journal of Police Science.
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Calvin Goddard, with Charles Waite, Phillip O. Gravelle, and John H Fisher, perfected the comparison microscope for use in bullet comparison.
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John Larson and Leonard Keeler designed the portable polygraph.
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In Frye v. United States, polygraph test results were ruled inadmissible. The federal ruling introduced the concept of
general acceptance and stated that polygraph testing did not meet that criterion. -
Vittorio Siracusa, working at the Institute of Legal Medicine of the R. University of Messina, Italy, developed the absorbtion-elution test for ABO blood typing of stains. Along with his mentor, Lattes also performed significant work on the absorbtion-inhibition technique.
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August Vollmer, as chief of police in Los Angeles, California, implemented the first U.S. police crime laboratory.
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Saburo Sirai, a Japanese scientist, is credited with the first recognition of secretion of group-specific antigens into body fluids other than blood.
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The case of Sacco and Vanzetti, which took place in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, was responsible for popularizing the use of the comparison microscope for bullet comparison. Calvin Goddard’s conclusions were upheld when the evidence was reexamined in 1961.
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Landsteiner and Levine first detected the M, N, and P blood factors leading to development of the MNSs and P
typing systems. -
Meüller was the first medico-legal investigator to suggest the identification of salivary amlyase as a presumptive test for salivary stains.
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Calvin Goddard’s work on the St. Valentine’s day massacre led to the founding of the Scientific Crime Detection
Laboratory on the campus of Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. -
K. I. Yosida, a Japanese scientist, conducted the first comprehensive investigation establishing the existence of serological isoantibodies in body fluids other than blood.
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American Journal of Police Science was founded and published by staff of Goddard’s Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory in Chicago. In 1932, it was absorbed by Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, becoming the Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology and police science.
