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Jan 1, 1247
Hsi Duan Yu
The book Hsi Duan Yu (The Washing Away of Wrongs) was published and is considered to be the first known guide to pathology. The work describes, among other things, how to determine whether a victim drowned or was strangled as a cause of death. It also detailed how the criminal investigator identified the type of blade used in a murder by examining the corpse and how to determine whether a death was accidental or murder. -
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Eugene Franois Vidocq
Eugene Vidocq was a former criminal that became the founder and first director of the crime detection Sûreté Nationale as wekk as the head of the first known private detective agency. He is also regarded as the first private detective. He also made the first plaster cast impressions of shoe prints. -
John Toms Case
Lancaster, England: John Toms was convicted of murder on the basis of the torn edge of wad of newspaper in a pistol matching a remaining piece in his pocket. This was one of the first documented uses of physical matching -
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Mathieu Orfila
Mathieu Orfila is the founder of the science of toxicology. -
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John Evangeist Purkinje
In 1823, he published a thesis that recognised 9 principal configuration groups of fingerprints. -
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Sir Francis Galton
Sir Francis Galton devised a method for classifying fingerprints. -
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Sir William Herschel
Sir William Herschel was a British officer in India who used fingerprints for identification on contracts. He recognized that fingerprints were unique and permantent and was the first person to use them in a practical manner. -
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Henry Faulds
Henry Faulds is noted for the developement of fingerprinting. -
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Hans Gross
Hans Gross is known as the father of Criminal Investigation. His work conmbined many fields that had not been previously integrated such as psycology and science. -
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Edward Richard Henry
Edward Henry introduced police dogs to the London police force as well as used an accurate method of fingerprinting to identify criminals. -
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Alphonse Bertillon
Created a system that idenifies repeat offenders by documenting unique and unchanging physical characteristics. -
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Albert S. Osborn
Albert Osborn is considered the father of the science of questioned document examination in North America. He founded the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners (ASQDE) -
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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the Sherlock Holmes series, one of the most famous detective series of all time. -
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Karl Landsteiner
Karl Landsteiner is noted for having first distinguished the main blood groups. -
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August Vollmer
August Vollmer created the first centralized police records system, designed to streamline and organize criminal investigations. -
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Edmond Locard
Dr. Edmond Locard was a pioneer in forensic science who became known as the "Sherlock Holmes of France". He formulated the basic principle of forensic science: "Every contact leaves a trace". This became known as Locard's exchange principle. -
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Leone Lattes
Leone Lattes devised a way to type dried blood. -
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Calvin Goddard
Calvin Goddard was a pioneer in the field of forensic ballistics. -
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Paul L. Kirk
Paul Kirk is most known for using blood stain pattern analysis for the first time to aquit a suspected murderer. -
Creation of FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investication was formed on July 26, 1908. -
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R. F. Borkenstein
Robert Frank Borkenstein invented the breathalyzer. -
Los Angeles Forensic Crime Lab Creation
The first crime laboratory in the United States was opened in 1923. -
Frye v. United States
This court case established that expert opinion based on a scientific technique is admissible only where the technique is generally accepted as reliable in the relevant scientific community. -
Saburo Sirai
Saburo Sirai found that blood was not required to determine blood type: some people secrete blood-type specific antigens into other body fluids. -
FBI Crime Lab Established
The FBI Crime Lab was established on November 24, 1932. -
Walter Specht
Walter Specht made extensive studies of luminol's application to the detection of blood at crime scenes. -
Murray Hill
Murray Hill initiated the study voiceprint identification. -
De Saram
De Saram published a detailed book on his findings that created the basis of how to determine time of death using the cooling of a dead body. -
Coppolino v. State of Florida
This florida case that exemplifies the flexibility and wide discretion that the trial judge has in matters of scientific inquiry -
Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence
In 1975, more than a half-century after Frye was decided; the Federal Rules of Evidence were promulgated to guide criminal and civil litigation in federal courts. The first version of Federal Rule of Evidence 702 provided that:
If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify in form of an opinion -
Dr. Bill Bass Body Farm
The first body farm in which researchers can study human decomposition in a variety of settings was opened in the end of 1981. -
Colin Pitchfork Case
Colin Pitchfork was convicted of muder and rape. He was the prist person convicted of a crime based on DNA fingerprinting evidence and the first to be caught as a result of mass DNA screening. -
AFIS First Used
The Automated Fingerpring Identification System was first implemented by the Missouri State Highway Patrol in 1989. -
Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals
The Federal Rules of Evidence govern the admission of scientific evidence in a trial held in federal court. They require the trial judge to act as a gatekeeper before admitting the evidence, determining that the evidence is scientifically valid and relevant to the case at hand. -
IBIS Implementation
The Automated Biometric Identification System was implemented on a trial basis in 1994 and put into wide use by 1998. -
Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael
Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael is a United States Supreme Court case that applied the Daubert standard to expert testimony from non-scientists. -
IAFIS Launched
The Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System was launched on July 28, 1999.