"Oh what a tangled
web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."
Sir Walter Scott
Winter 2005
Volume II,
issue 3
|
"Oh what a tangled
web we weave, when first we practice to deceive." | Winter 2005 |
E. Roland Menzel is Paul Whitfield Horn Professor of Physics, Engineering Physics, and Chemistry at Texas Tech University. He has served as the Director of the Center for Forensic Studies since its inception in 1982. Direct correspondence to E. Roland Menzel or to Editor. |
Forensic Science at Texas Tech University:
Forensic Science Minor;
The Center for Forensic Studies;
Research; Workshops; and Casework
Forensic Science Minor
In the formal academic sense, forensic science at Texas Tech University consists only of a recently established undergraduate minor which began operation in the fall of 2003. Its offerings are broad, however. They include courses in physics that focus on trace evidence analysis (fingerprints, documents, explosives, nerve agents, etc.), chemistry (mostly in analytical techniques), biology, anthropology, sociology, and psychology. The minor also includes courses in toxicology, offered by the Institute of Environmental and Human Health; laboratory work in the all-important DNA typing, offered by Allied Health; and a course dealing with sexual assault and child abuse, offered by the Nursing School.
Graduate students have opportunities in forensic science as well by performing thesis research in that field, even though their formal academic degree is in a mainstream discipline such as chemistry perhaps. This can be a worthwhile option because some law enforcement agencies prefer the rigorous mainstream training over a forensic science degree they consider dilute. The student additionally has two job markets to tap into. A number of MS and PhD degrees of this kind have been awarded by TTU since the mid-1980s.
Texas Tech University is well-endowed with support structure for forensic science. The TTU Health Sciences Center includes the medical school, university hospital, and the medical examiner's office. Serving a very large area in west Texas, the medical examiner's office is in the process of establishing a toxicology laboratory as well. The TTU Health Sciences Center effort in forensic sciences falls under the auspices of the Texas Tech Institute of Forensic Sciences (www.ttuhsc.edu/hcs/ttifs/). Lubbock has a regional crime laboratory operated by the state's Department of Public Safety. Students may find internship opportunity there.
This is, far and away, the oldest forensic science entity at TTU. The Center for Forensic Studies was established in 1982 with a three-fold mission:.
I shall shortly take these missions up in turn.
The Center for Forensic Studies is a small operation, consisting of one faculty member (its director) and typically two research assistants, who may be undergraduate or graduate students. Occasionally, other faculty members and their students collaborate with the center on specific projects. The center is not supported by TTU. Rather, it derives its funding from extramural grants and contracts and fees generated from workshops and case work. The center's web site is www.phys.ttu.edu/cfs.
The Center for Forensic Studies is not connected with the Texas Tech Institute of Forensic Sciences.
Research
For many years, the forte of the center was the detection of fingerprints by photoluminescence (fluorescence) techniques. The pioneering work in this area was actually done, starting in 1976, in my laboratory at the Xerox Research Centre of Canada before I joined TTU in 1979. A number of critical techniques were then developed at TTU to bring the fledgling methodology to maturity.
In the early days, the methodology was referred to as fingerprint detection with lasers, and I shall in the remainder of this article retain this terminology. The photoluminescence detection of fingerprints (and other trace evidence as well) is today in world-wide use. Indeed, fingerprint detection with lasers has been designated a milestone of 20th century Canadian chemistry. This should be placed in perspective by noting that chemistry is a far larger discipline than forensic science and includes many areas of forensic science as a sub-specialty.
The Center for Forensic Studies has been active in other trace evidence detection areas as well as document examination.
Most recently, the focus has shifted toward field methods for detection of traces of explosives and of nerve agents, in keeping with contemporary terrorism concerns. Open access articles on these two endeavors can be found in the on-line journal TheScientificWorldJOURNAL (www.thescientificworld.com).
The center periodically hosts visiting forensic scientists, typically from abroad, for extended periods of time.
Workshops
These have to date dealt primarily with fingerprint detection. Over 30 of them have been conducted at TTU (carrying three hours of college credit) and well over a dozen elsewhere in the US and abroad. They are being phased out because the methodology has become world-wide, routine by now in many aspects. As needed, they may be replaced by workshops on explosives and nerve agents.
Casework
In the early days, I became rather loaded with case work because law enforcement then had neither the instrumentation nor the know-how to conduct laser fingerprint detection. Today, I conduct case work only rarely, given the successful technology transfer to the market place. Nonetheless, it is perhaps interesting to speak to a few noteworthy cases.
The first of these, done in my laboratory, then at Xerox, in 1977 represents the first successful laser fingerprint detection (and identification). It was a drug case with the evidence item the sticky side of black electrical tape, then not amenable to processing by other means.
Another case involved my testimony in a serial murder trial. Here, the admissibility of laser fingerprint detection was challenged by the defense a la Frye (the notorious polygraph case). In terms of laser methodology, it was a landmark case. The evidence (not processed by myself) was admitted and conviction ensued.
Success by law enforcement, as demanded by the market place, brings to mind two notable cases.
One, conducted by the FBI in the early 1980s, concerned a Nazi war criminal suspect, then an Archbishop of the Romanian Orthodox Church of the US. The fingerprint, 41 years old, represents, to my knowledge, the oldest detected and identified fingerprint in criminal case work. The suspect was convicted and deported. The oldest fingerprint (not crime-related) which I have detected dates back to the Civil War.
The other case, dealt with by California law enforcement, is the infamous Polly Klaas case, the original of subsequent similar cases that today are known in terms of the Amber Alert. The notable feature here is that the successful laser detection followed failed crime scene examination by conventional means.
Copyright 2005 by E. Roland Menzel
"Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."
Sir Walter Scott