ABSTRACT
A. Evidence and the Law........................................................................... 101 B. The Crime, the Crime Event, and the Crime Scene........................... 102 C. What is Evidence? ................................................................................. 103
1. The Search for Evidence ............................................................... 105 2. The State of the Evidence ............................................................. 108
D. Evidence and Reference ........................................................................ 109 E. Summary ............................................................................................... 110 References ...................................................................................................... 111
The most difficult challenge in the investigative process is the recognition of
relevant
physical evidence. Prior to any laboratory analysis, an item must be recognized as evidence in a crime or it will never be examined, much less interpreted. Ideally, the crime defines the relevant evidence. In this chapter we will explore the attributes and circumstances that combine to make something evidence and, in particular, physical evidence. We will also discuss the seemingly obvious, but sometimes complex relationship between evidence and reference. We leave a detailed discussion of the crime scene itself to Chapter 8.
