Greetings!

As you know from previous newsletters we had a vendor booth at the IAI Conference in Rhode Island this year. While the attendance was not as good as previous years out booth was well attended. Most that stopped at the booth were not even aware we existed so it was a success for us in just getting the word out. Even Dr. Henry Lee stopped at the booth and we visited for a while. I have known him for over 20 years and taught with him in the past. He took some of our flyers to pass out in his classes and symposiums.  It was an expensive trip but one we felt was required to help promote ICSIA.

Our CSI Conference in May 2014 is shaping up well. We are getting a lot of inquiries and hits on the conference web pages from a variety of states and countries. We even received a Conference Registration form from Liberia, Africa!  This should be an interesting CSI conference with an opportunity to network directly with CSI from all over the world!  But we are limited in space so if you intended to attend the conference I would not wait too long to register.

We are still accepting presentation and workshop proposals so if you have one or know of someone that should be here please let us know.  Our Conference agenda will not be formalized until later but the tentative topics are posted on the web site at: http://www.icsia.org/conference/agenda.html   Those listed with a presenter have been confirmed.
In the last issue of the Examiner I had a short article on lighting of a footwear pattern. We received a concern from a member that the image was not properly photographed by the standards we use to certify.  In other words it was a poor image to be displayed. While we do attempt to deliver the best we sometimes have to work with what we have. The images that were posted were taken by me over 30 years ago and the “standards” were different then. A 6 inch ruler was common practice to use as a scale. The reason why it was common practice then was that we were still in the film days and the person making the enlargement from the 4 X 5 negative would simply lay the 6 inch ruler on the paper and match the size. The images are also cropped from the original images which I did not make note of in the article.  It was an unusual lighting condition that caused the two images to look so different that I felt the information needed to be shared.  Sorry if this has caused anyone to think otherwise but we will always do the best we can to share information with the members.

If any of you have photographs to show things such as this or a new technique or an old one or one of your CS vehicle, patches or crime scene that you want to share with us please do not hesitate to send Daryl the information to be shared with others.  We need the members to be active.
 
Stay safe!
Hayden B. Baldwin, Executive Director

If you take a look at Dick Warrington's article in the side column, you'll see that he talks about decision making when you approach latent processing at a scene. In it he talks about how not printing certain items can leave you open to questions at trial, which is certainly true. However, just because we don't powder an object, or bring it back and superglue it does that mean it wasn't processed?

 

It is important to remember that the reason that we refer to the search for latent fingerprints as "Processing" is because there is a process involved. Some people approach fingerprint development with the attitude that they are simply going to apply powder to the surface and see if anything shows up. There are, or should be, several steps involved in determining which (if any) technique will be applied in a particular search for fingerprints.

Read More

More details coming soon- Keep checking our Conference Page for the latest.

---

Axial Lighting