The Collection Of Evidence

When collecting evidence it is important that scenes of crime officers wear personal protective equipment such are gloves, this is to ensure that nothing is transferred to the evidence causing potential contamination, which would then lead to any analysis of the evidence to be concluded as not valid and useless in court. It is also important that the evidence is collected in the correct manner using the correct equipment. For example bodily fluids, such as blood would be collected using a cotton swab, hair and fibres would be collected using tweezers and any suspected drug substances would be collected using sterilised spoons and spatulas. The reason that specific pieces of evidence are collected using specific equipment is to prevent the evidence being damaged or contaminated during the collection, therefore preserving the integrity of the evidence. Before evidence is collected it should also be photographed using scales so that the size of evidence can be gauged from looking at the photographs.

If a crime scene has specific evidence which is needed to be analysed by a specialist at the scene the scenes of crime officers and the police should ensure that this evidence is not interfered with as much as possible and that potential evidence is protected. This could include things such as a body that has to be examined at the crime scene by a pathologist or doctor, trained to look for specific evidence and evidence relating to a fire which would need to be examined by a specially trained forensic fire investigator.

In relation to the procedure of collecting evidence at the scene of the murders of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman it can be said that the procedure was not carried out correctly. The first example of the breach of this procedure was that photographs were not taken of the evidence using scales, nor were they taken showing the area within the crime scene that the evidence was recovered from. This therefore meant that when pictures were consulted later on in the investigation and when they were used in court, the measurements of the evidence in the scales could not be identified so the sizes of evidence was unknown. Also as pictures were not taken in relation to where in the scene the evidence was recovered, officers could not pinpoint exactly where evidence came from and this therefore led to confusion regarding the layout of the scene and where in the scene the evidence was found. Another example of a an error in the procedure of the collection of evidence is that the body of Nicole brown was contaminated before it was examined and before SOCO’s had an opportunity to collect evidence from the body. The body became contaminated as Detective Lange placed a blanket from within the house onto the body to prevent the growing crowds on onlookers and the media from being able to take pictures. This contaminated the body with hairs, fibres and DNA that was transferred from the blanket to the body and meant that no matter how carefully the evidence was collected or the measures put in place to prevent contamination at this point, all the evidence collected from the body was thrown out of court, as it was not reliable or valid any longer – due to the contamination which occurred from the blanket being placed over the body. A Final example of an issue within the procedure of the collection of evidence was that the Scenes of crime officers at the scene used the same gloves and tweezers whilst collecting different pieces of blood evidence and other types of evidence. This therefore was a problem as contamination of evidence would have occurred, between the collection of each of the pieces of evidence.