BEV BUTULA: It’s a crime not to try this forensic database

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The National Clearinghouse for Science, Technology and the Law at Stetson University College of Law maintains an interesting database that may be quite beneficial to some.

Its forensic database is an extensive collection of bibliographic records that provides the researcher with information “related to the nexus of science, technology and the law.” The database does not always contain links to full text documents, however the abstract furnished will provide the researcher (or a helpful librarian) with enough information to track the item down.

Researchers first select a topic. Some of the topics incorporated within the database include accident investigation, blood pattern analysis, cybercrime, DNA, digital image enhancement, explosive, fingerprints, forensic engineering, forensic linguistics, questioned documents, trace evidence, and voice analysis. Details about each topic are available via their “Database Topics Defined” document.

The next step is to choose the type of resources desired such as books, cases, Internet articles, legislation, law reviews, scientific journals, or radio/television shows. The result list produced is a collection of abstracts that include a hyperlink the document/case or a citation.

One nice feature when searching for case law is their Case description. The case’s abstract not only includes the basic caption and citation information but a detailed summary of the facts.