Isotopes in forensic science
Forensic scientist face a lot of difficulties while trying to voice what our bodies say about our death. One of the difficulties that they face is that often doctors and pathologists say ‘I’ve seen this before. The person died … years/month/weeks ago’. If this happens then the whole crime investigation can go the wrong way because knowing when the person died is a key information the investigator should know because if the investigator interrogate a suspect and the suspect has an alibi for the time that the doctors and pathologists think the victim was murdered then that can cause injustice for the victim or a wrong person is found guilty.
Nowadays when someone gets murdered and the victim cannot be identified …show more content…
Then the Number of Carbon 14 atoms are compared with the number of Carbon12 atoms. This tells the Forensic scientist how long the person has been dead for (How the Accelerator Mass Spectrometer Works).
Figure 1 ("Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) Measurement.")
Another method to carbon date human remains is:
Figure 2 (P7 Dragon of Eden: Introduction )
Using isotopes to find out when the victim was killed leads to more accurate results than to the results when doctors and pathologists say they have seen something like that before and guess the time. Using Isotopes solves the issue because less innocent people get convicted into jail. This is because the investigators have an accurate time when the victim died and so the investigators can check if the suspects have alibis at that certain time.
How successful is carbon …show more content…
An example of a case where carbon dating could not be used is the Jersey case because the bones cannot be fragile and cannot be small. (Rincon, Paul.)
The problem with Carbon dating is that it is mostly meant for older bones and cannot help much with bones that are only a few days old. Science solves the issue to ¾ because human remains can be dated but newer human remains cannot.
Political is one factor which links with the issue I have chosen because the FBI and other investigation agencies are mostly run by the government. A benefit that the government runs the FBI and other agencies is that they pay for the things they need for example they would pay for an Accelerator Mass Spectrometer. Which is good because if they have good equipment which is reliable then they can complete cases quicker and there is less chance that they convict innocent people. One negative is that if the government doesn’t agree with the FBI that they need new or better equipment or they do not want to pay for the equipment then there will be none and the cases that they have could turn into cold cases or the agents could end up convicting innocent people to jail because the machines are too old to give out the correct
Forensic scientist face a lot of difficulties while trying to voice what our bodies say about our death. One of the difficulties that they face is that often doctors and pathologists say ‘I’ve seen this before. The person died … years/month/weeks ago’. If this happens then the whole crime investigation can go the wrong way because knowing when the person died is a key information the investigator should know because if the investigator interrogate a suspect and the suspect has an alibi for the time that the doctors and pathologists think the victim was murdered then that can cause injustice for the victim or a wrong person is found guilty.
Nowadays when someone gets murdered and the victim cannot be identified …show more content…
Then the Number of Carbon 14 atoms are compared with the number of Carbon12 atoms. This tells the Forensic scientist how long the person has been dead for (How the Accelerator Mass Spectrometer Works).
Figure 1 ("Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) Measurement.")
Another method to carbon date human remains is:
Figure 2 (P7 Dragon of Eden: Introduction )
Using isotopes to find out when the victim was killed leads to more accurate results than to the results when doctors and pathologists say they have seen something like that before and guess the time. Using Isotopes solves the issue because less innocent people get convicted into jail. This is because the investigators have an accurate time when the victim died and so the investigators can check if the suspects have alibis at that certain time.
How successful is carbon …show more content…
An example of a case where carbon dating could not be used is the Jersey case because the bones cannot be fragile and cannot be small. (Rincon, Paul.)
The problem with Carbon dating is that it is mostly meant for older bones and cannot help much with bones that are only a few days old. Science solves the issue to ¾ because human remains can be dated but newer human remains cannot.
Political is one factor which links with the issue I have chosen because the FBI and other investigation agencies are mostly run by the government. A benefit that the government runs the FBI and other agencies is that they pay for the things they need for example they would pay for an Accelerator Mass Spectrometer. Which is good because if they have good equipment which is reliable then they can complete cases quicker and there is less chance that they convict innocent people. One negative is that if the government doesn’t agree with the FBI that they need new or better equipment or they do not want to pay for the equipment then there will be none and the cases that they have could turn into cold cases or the agents could end up convicting innocent people to jail because the machines are too old to give out the correct