Talk:Forensic entomology and the law

Hey everyone, my group has decided to merge our articles into other sections and after much thought Adrienne and I have decided the CSI effect in "forensic entomology and society" is best suited for the "forensic entomology and the law". For now I will add it towards the bottom but if you want it merged into another section message me and I'll try to reword it so it flows in an existing section. Thanks!Quatrevingtsix (talk) 23:42, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

This is a well written article. The case studies made this article stand out and catch the readers eye. Overall it was a great article and was not dragged on by lengthy paragraphs.Aggie turtle21 (talk) 18:21, 15 April 2008 (UTC)aggieturtle21

Testing ... Kayla foster (talk) 18:07, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

You might want to edit your references its a little crazy —Preceding unsigned comment added by Amandamartinez06 (talk • contribs) 07:11, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Feedback

Dr. Robert Hall has reviewed your work and gave the following feedback:

Your students' project updating the Wikipedia section on forensic entomology generally looks fine to me. They should be complimented on a good job.

Some quick comments follow.

· The “Daubert Test” is a federal creature; most states employ some form of the Frye standard. Most criminal cases are tried in state court, so the Frye test is the one most commonly encountered by expert witnesses in criminal matters.

· On p. 3 of 9, I am not sure I understand the statement that “a judge will not grant admissibility to evidence that proves guilt or innocence without a doubt” (this is the sort of real or testamentary evidence that every trial attorney is looking for). This statement is attributed to Greenberg and Kunich’s book (my copy is not in my office and so I cannot cross check right now), but I suspect that what they’re getting at is expert testimony pertaining to the “ultimate issue.” Generally, scientific experts won’t be asked whether they believe defendant did the crime or not—they will be asked their opinion regarding scientific evidence that is admitted in order to permit the trier-of-fact to make a more informed decision about the ultimate issue of guilt or innocence. Trivially, “counsel” is misspelled as “council.”

· Under “Federal Rules of Evidence 702 and 703,” recall that these rules govern in federal court (and are verbatim the same in military courts martial), but states variously codify their own rules of evidence, so you need to know what jurisdiction you’re operating in.

· Under “Local weather records,” it would be useful to explain the final sentence that says “ambient temperatures should be taken for several days after the corpse is removed….” The important point here is that remote temperature recordings from the past are almost always employed in developing insect-derived estimates of postmortem interval. The further away the temperature recording station (usually a NWS station at a major airport) is from the body-recovery scene, the more tenuous the potential relationship is. Therefore, it’s good practice to measure temperature at the body scene for some period of time during the same season of the year when the body was in place, and then to compare those temperatures with temperatures recorded at the NWS site during that same period of time. This will permit any needed correction of the historical temperatures used in the case analysis.

· Under Expert Witness, the “Case Study Final Report” itself is seldom admitted into evidence. It is the expert witness whose opinion is admitted. Importantly, the comments on “speculation” should be reviewed. The statement that “speculation should not exist when it comes to the evidence, but rather in the interpretation of that evidence” is a slippery slope. Speculation is simply guesswork, and guesswork has no place in scientific testimony. Much entomological expert testimony has been skewed by “experts” willing to “speculate” and guess at their interpretation. Example: corpse found near a creek; defense needs a somewhat longer PMI to coincide with alibi; temperatures from remote NWS reflect a bit too much warmth to accomplish this; defense “expert” then testifies that the “Great Lakes effect” had the effect of lowering the temperatures near the creek; result is that defense’s analysis of the insect data supports defendant’s alibi. This is pure guesswork—there are no data to substantiate that a small body of water might have the same effect as one of the Great Lakes in producing a cooling effect—but it sounds good and will affect the outcome at trial unless opposing counsel recognizes it as pure guesswork and objects. The way to support this sort of “speculation” is to do a short temperature study as outlined above (and if that’s done, then any associated testimony isn’t “speculation” anymore).

· Under Case Studies, “Army” should be capitalized if the service member in question actually was in the U.S. Army.

- Rob

Good job all!ABrundage, Texas A&M University (talk) 22:10, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I really like how well-organized the article is as a whole. It provides a wide range of information to the reader. My only thing is to agree with the first comment, you should probably condense your references so they are listed once. Laylou11 (talk) 16:39, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

This is a great article. It is very interesting and your use of the case studies made this article really come to life. I don't have any critiques because you did a wonderful job. Everytime I thought I had found something that could be described in more detail... I would found details!Ento431ke (talk) 18:38, 11 April 2008 (UTC)ento431ke

This is a very well written article. I thought the Famous Cases were very interesting. What are The Federal Rules of Evidence 702 and 703 exactly? I thought it was very interesting how the article not only covers the topic but it branches out to others as well but still stays on topic. Pns2010 (talk) 04:07, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Hello, your article was very educational, especially for people that don't know to much about forensic entomology. I love it that you linked things to other articles. It is really helpful, especially when you want to know more about that specific information.Sabm05mval05 (talk) 02:25, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

need help with referencing..

I know what you mean about the references being a little "funny". I looked over a couple of Wiki pages with referencing and citation guidelines, but, honestly, I'm a little lost.

Could you maybe help us out and point us in the right direction with making the appropriate edits? I don't really know how to condense them... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cvela (talk • contribs) 23:10, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

• Ok, here's some hints for referencing-

You format the references like so-

The sun is big.<ref>[Book about the sun]</ref>

Which looks like this-

The sun is big.

And the references are shown in the 'footnotes' or 'references' section by typing this-

{{reflist}}

And you can change the number of columns the references are shown in (I like two columns when I have more than about 8 refs) like this-

{{reflist|# of columns}}

So, for example-

{{reflist|2}}

The references can be formatted nicely by using the citation templates. Simply copy them over like this (to take an example from my latest article)-

Mama Quilla was known as "Mother Moon", and was goddess of the moon.<ref name="D'A">{{cite book |title= The Incas|last= D'Altroy|first= Terence N.|year= 2002|publisher= [[Blackwell Publishing]]|location= [[Oxford]]|isbn= 9780631176770|pages= 148}}</ref>

See the 'ref name'? After using that, I could simply type-

<ref name="D'A"/>

Which would cite two facts to the same footnote.

Does that answer your questions? J Milburn (talk) 00:08, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, another point, it should be formatted-

[fact][punctuation][ref1][ref2]

No spaces, no puntuation after the references. J Milburn (talk) 00:11, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Hey guys, I'm from Group #20 (Forensic Entomology & Society), and we're splitting up the different subjects of our article and merging it with others. I really felt that my section 'Famous Cases' would be best with your article. I went ahead and added it. Please feel free to edit it, move it around, and I really appreciate it! Great job on your article, by the way. --Gdespejo (talk) 21:43, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Very informative and easy to read article. This is a great example of a very dense subject that is organized well enough for anyone to follow. Perhaps something else to mention when you talk about the PMI (unless I somehow missed it) is the two schools of thought. Some Forensic Entomologists say they determine an approximate PMI, while others suggest they're only able to determine a time of colonization, since it's unknown if the body was wrapped, frozen, etc. Just a thought. Noromaru (talk) 03:38, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Move

I moved the article to its current location, uncapitalising "entomology" and "law" per wikipedia's naming convention. I also removed the reference to US law. The North American-centricism should be fixed by adding info on forensic entomology laws/practices of other countries. In the meantime, the article should make it clear that it is currently written based mainly on US laws. Or you could just add Template:Globalize to the article.--Dodo bird (talk) 00:23, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

You guys did a great job. I like that way it was put together, you did a great job siting resources, and the content was very informative. I would suggest elaborating(towards the end) about career paths, job oppurtunities, requirements, rewards...ect. for someone interested in becoming a forensic entomologist. Mdurrum09 (talk) 21:14, 15 April 2008 (UTC)