Regional crime scene

Assignment Details

You have worked in a regional crime scene unit for four years. The team recently hired three graduates from a Professional Certification Organization for Crime Scene Investigators. The three graduates’ specialties are firearms identification, blood spatter pattern analysis, and fingerprint comparison. You have been working under their respective specialty supervisors for several years and have been involved in research and live case work.

They have never testified on their own as expert witnesses and they have come to you asking what the credentials are to become an expert witness in a case and who makes the decision that they are an expert witness for that trial.

They also want to know, once they are found to be an expert witness in a trial, does it mean they are automatically considered to be an expert for the same subject in the next trial that they must testify in?

Address their concerns by answering the following:

Requirements: 300 or more words

here is the course textbook for reference – Garland, N. (2019). Criminal Evidence (8th Edition). McGraw-Hill Higher Education (US).

Answer preview
Expert witnesses perform two major functions. The first one is the scientific function, which entails gathering, testing, assessing evidence, and coming up with an opinion of the analyzed evidence (Garland, 2019). The second one is the forensic function, which revolves around communicating the opinion formed courtesy of the scientific function to a judge and jury (Garland, 2019). As a rule of evidence, witnesses can only testify about what they encountered or observed via their 5 senses (Garland, 2019). Numerous expert witness opportunities exist in the country, especially for people with advanced expertise in any field. Furthermore, an individual’s role as an expert witness during the trial will not solely rely on their qualifications and credentials within a particular discipline but also on the nature of the case.
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Regional crime scene