Forensic Investigations for the Legal Professional

Forensic Investigation for the Legal Professional is a textbook designed for criminal justice students, attorneys, and investigators. There are many excellent forensic books out there, most of which center on forensic lab analysis. While these textbooks are excellent for the science major, their subject matter focuses on the “ how-to” of forensic analysis.

Forensic Science for the Legal Professional is not just another textbook. It is a practical guide for those who are the end users of forensic analyses. While it does cover the principles of forensic testing and analysis, its main goal is to equip a nonscientist with the knowledge and skills to effectively utilize forensics in an investigation. After all, it is the investigator or attorney who must integrate the forensics into the overall investigation.

Criminalists who work in a lab focus on a narrow portion of crime. The investigator or attorney may have to integrate the opinions of multiple experts in a single case. A murder investigation may have expert reports from a medical examiner, a toxicologist, a shooting reconstruction expert, or many others. The forensics must then be integrated with testimonial evidence from the victim, witnesses, and suspects to determine what occurred and reconstruct the crime.