Preliminary Investigation

The preliminary investigation occurs during each investigation surrounding a crime that has occurred. The preliminary investigation is the process which occurs immediately after a crime has been committed. This stage's purpose and main outcome is to find a suspect who can be linked to the crime, the investigation team also needs to decide whether there is sufficient enough evidence to initiate an action against that suspect. An action that would be taken would be taken in for questioning or arrested. The first officer to attend the scene is usually the people who carry out the investigation (FAO). The FAO needs to assess whether there has been an actual crime which has been committed. The first step is to assess the situation or resolve the situation that is in progress and if needed the crime scene needs to be cornered off. An area from where the FAO feels the crime began to the area where the crime ended will be cornered of, this occurs when there has been a murder, sexual assault, kidnapping etc. The reason for cornering a scene off is to ensure no evidence is contaminated by the general public or removed by any potential suspects. During the next step the FAO will assess whether additional services need to be involved for example medical staff (Ambulance). If there is explosives/guns involved within the crime other additional services would need to be involved within the scene, it is crucial that the FAO informs the additional services this is due to lives may possibly be at risk and there main focus would be to avoid as many deaths and injuries as possible. After ensuring the crime scene has been secured by cornering it off and any additional services have been informed the next stage is to identify any suspects, witnesses to the crime and any victims. Once officers have identified these they will request that they make a statement.

The Preliminary Investigation is the part of the investigation where any evidence is collected from the scene. The evidence is collected by scene of crime officers (SOCO's). Once evidence has been found within the scene Forensic Photographers will photograph each piece of evidence with a scale and a document stating what the piece of evidence is and with its crime scene number and who took the picture. The photography should occur before any evidence is touched or taken. Forensic Photographers also have the important role of photographing the room before anyone is allowed to enter it. Within the stage of collecting the evidence, evidence will be collected and placed into the appropriate containers. It is vital that each piece of evidence is placed in the correct container as this could affect the analysis of the evidence producing false positives or loosing DNA. Each container is individually labelled with the appropriate information this allows for no misplacement of evidence, each piece of evidence is logged with an individual certain number and placed into a report with the scientist’s findings.

Preliminary Investigation within the OJ Simpson Case...

Within the murder case of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman a great deal of these procedures were not followed. Due to the vital procedures not being followed this led to OJ Simpson being acquitted to the murders within court.

Robert Riske was the first attending officer to be called to the scene. After Riske had seen the bodies he called for additional police officers to attend the scene, he then proceeded to cordon off the scene. However Riske only cordoned off from the end of Nicole's pathway this means that any evidence that was beyond that point would have been contaminated by the public and missed by the law enforcement. As Riske called for additional back up officers entered the crime scene without any specialist clothing due to this mistake Riske could have potentially allowed evidence to be contaminated by officers. As the Police arrived to the scene of the crime the media also attended, with the influence and the pressure the media put the officers under both bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were covered by a blanket which was found from within Nicole's house. This blanket allowed for both bodies to be contaminated with the fibres and any substances that were located upon the blanket. Not only did the blanket contaminate the bodies but any other evidence which was surrounding both bodies. Due to this contamination any evidence found upon the bodies or surrounding them could not be used within court.

Robert Riske

Within the process of collecting the evidence, vital pieces of evidence were photographed without any scales and most being photographed without any documentation of what it was or where it was found. This made it virtually impossible for the investigation team to link evidence to an area within the crime scene. Throughout the poor collection of evidence performed by the authorities, items where collected and placed within the same container as a number of other different items. By containing several different pieces of evidence together cross contamination may occur which means that the result in which the scientists find when analysing the evidence will not be an accurate finding. Evidence that was wet was placed into containers without drying this will cause vital biological and chemical change to the evidence.

One of the key implications within this double murder case was the lack of knowledge surrounding Forensic Science. This knowledge is critical when analysing the evidence and the team was particularly lacking in the understanding of DNA. Due to the lack of knowledge and understanding surrounding the DNA evidence expert witnesses were unable to give comprehensible statements meaning that the jury could not understand what they had fund within their findings. The judge (Lance Ito) ruled the DNA evidence out due to this complication.