Richland Co. crime lab finds a world of evidence

The State South Carolina
It’s a series of drab rooms jammed with uncommon devices that have become a place unlike any other in South Carolina’s local police circles.

Judges growing critical of ‘CSI’ evidence

USA Today
The CSI: Crime Scene Investigation series makes it look easy, but forensic science doesn’t always do so well in the courtroom with judges. And a pair of upcoming studies in the Journal of Forensic Science suggests some judges’ suspicions are growing about the shakier types of scientific evidence.

California Ups Funding for Controversial ‘Genetic Sleuthing’

The Atlantic
Crime families, beware: A new technique for identifying criminals is on the rise, the L.A. Times reports, and the method relies on testing for familial DNA. When police find DNA at a crime scene but can’t match it to a potential suspect in their databases, some of the nation’s forensics experts have been conducting what they call “familial searches,” designed to see whether the person’s DNA has any relatives in the criminal database. Identifying family members can, these scientists argue, make it far easier to track down suspects from the crime scene. The first tests began in 2008.