CRIMINALISTICSAND ITS SIGNIFICANCE IN INVESTIGATIONS

Charlie DC Pascual, RC, PLM-COLLEGE OF LAW, IV Practicum

INTRODUCTION

CRIMINALISTICS may be variedly defined depending on the modes and extent of its usage for each country. At this age, its definition is conveniently a mouse click undertaking. But the best way ever of defining it is to co-relate it with the practical and actual application of whatever it is in the very scene of everyday Filipino lives.

Just how could an ordinary Filipino appreciate this word? It may be a possibility so remote as that trying to toil for one’s full day meal. But just a backgrounder, CRIMINALISTICS finds itself in the loop of everyday police work in general. By layman’s understanding, it is simply a tool how the police pin down a culprit. But inevitably, that concept lies on a thin line bordering the inclusion of some unorthodox police methods of extracting confessions, and the disturbing thing follows, that of possibility of veering the physical evidence in the direction of that confession, so that instead of the physical evidence triggering the confessions, its going to be the other way around. When the case is thrust into the limelight amid the cameras of press conferences, tendency is abound that a recreated scenario of the case has now been drawn in the board to fit the eventual confession extracted from a suspect. The sad thing is, it is not an infrequent happening, that most of those pinned down are not the real culprits.

Internally in the law enforcement organization, the physical evidence is the unwilling corroborative, the confession extracted by unorthodox means being the principal. While in the press world, the, the physical evidence is the principal factor, confession being the result of successful establishment of the physical evidence by a scientific investigation. That is CRIMNALISTICS for everyday Filipino life. That is CRIMINALISTICS as a police work. This development spawns a misguided understanding to the denizens of the investigative tool called CRIMINALISTICS. It is inevitable for them now to associate CRIMINALISTICS to the other unorthodox means of extracting confessions. In the slums of Manila, particularly in Tondo district, street criminals would readily explain to anyone what is meant by “Tinubig”, “Kuryente” and “Plastic”, these are some of the police’ unorthodox means of extracting confessions out of a suspect’s mouth. Just over a month ago, an entire Police Station in said district faced human rights investigation regarding a video of a petty criminal whose naked body cringed in a fetal position lay howling in the floor, while allegedly the police commander was pulling the genitals by rope.

Professionally speaking, the foregoing is neither an honest and accurate portrayal of the broad definition of CRIMINALISTICS. It presents only an objective perspective as it is drawn from the understanding of a common individual.

CRIMINALISTICS, its practical definition and application in Philippine Law Enforcement setting.

In the Philippines setting, CRIMINALISTICS may be defined as the application of the various discipline of science relative to the collection, identification, preservation, evaluation, analysis, interpretation and presentation of physical evidence mainly for the identification of the victim, the culprit and the establishment of the guilt of the accused in court proceedings. It is very imperative that the scientific methods be applied right from the very collection of the physical evidence up to the final disposition of the case concerned, otherwise, however accurate the results would be, if the collection handling and preservation of the subject is put into doubt, the case is removed of its leg to stand.

Physical evidence are articles and materials found at the crime scene relative to the crime. This is further classified into three, namely, the corpus delicti ( the body of the crime); associative evidence ; and , tracing evidence.

Not all articles found in the crime scene must be collected, the investigator must have in mind the rules of admissibility of physical evidence in court. Say for example, in a case of homicide, an investigator can not just carry the antique painting hanging in the wall where no relevant link can be made vis-a-vis the crime of a deranged man barging into the victim’s living room fatally shooting him. The evidence collected should be competent, material and relevant to the case investigated. For this, the rules must be properly observed; (1) the articles gathered must be properly identified ; (2) there must be a continuity of chain of custody (3) the evidence gathered must be competent, material and relevant to the case being investigated.

At this very stage, CRIMNALISTICS, however limited our local means are, comes into play, as the need to identify at the same time collect and preserve the physical evidence sets the investigation into motion. After the identification and the determination of relevancy of the physical evidence, the respective specific fields of CRIMINALISTICS are applied. There are various fields referred to. In Firearms for example, the field of Dactyloscopy or Fingerprint Examination operates for the lifting of any latent prints embed in the firearms surface. Another field follows namely the Forensic Ballistic, this field of CRIMINALISTICS concerns itself with the application of science in the examination of the firearms’ class and individual characteristics, in order that it may be compared vis-a-vis the data bank of the PNP Firearms and Explosives Unit, which is the repository of firearms registered and licensed owners’ information. Still, the method of further obtaining an object evidence from the suspect himself involves another field, the Forensic Paraffin Test. This is a scientific examination to determine whether a suspect has fired a shot using the subject firearm. This is generally done by pouring a paraffin wax

into the suspect’s hands and the cast created lifts any nitrate specks imbedded in the hands foreskin and made visible by iodine solution. This method though, is now being subject to question following its gradual abandonment as reliable method by international forensic community.

In crimes involving documents, the field of principal use is the QUESTIONED DOCUMENTS, or the forensic examination of handwriting, signature and other alterations or fraud related to writing base.

Another significant development unfolded when this jurisdiction in one case (People vs Vallejo) decided in 2002, has officially adopted the Forensic science of DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid ) analysis as applied to identification of criminals though the examination and comparison of chemical substance found in the genes of an individual. Its high rate of reliability and accuracy though the use of forensic science examination has led to a very extensive application that it is now very much identified in the discipline of CRIMINALISTICS.

These are just some of the fields of CRIMINALISTICS commonly used in the Philippines, some are available but have not been so much popularly utilized as the aforementioned. These include the examination of Footprints, which is called Moulage, Tire marks analysis ,fibers , Glass among others.

FRONTLINERS IN CRIMINALISTICS

It used to be that collection of evidence are among the duties of the investigator’s team dispatched in a crime scene. Generally, criminal investigation starts at the crime scene except in cases of embezzlement and forgery. The team is comprised of the Officer-in-charge, Assistant Officer –in-charge, Photographer, Sketcher, Master Note-taker, Evidence man, Measurer, and Technicians depending on the field applicable. Today, the duty devolves in one agency. For general Police cases, it is the Scene of the Crime Operatives (SOCO) that are dispatched to take charge of the evidence gathering, identification, evaluation analysis and interpretation in court proceedings. Of course, the National Bureau of Investigation has its own Criminalistics Section, but unless it is specifically instructed to take primary action, it does not respond to a common crime incident.

ITS SIGNIFICANCE

In a nutshell, CRIMINALISTICS therefore plays an equally significant cog in the Philippines justice wheel. It is simply the application of scientific principles in order to help the court to determined whether a crime has been committed, to identify the perpetrator, the victim and to establish the methods of operations. It affords our courts the facility on which it may faithfully rely to enforce its conclusion in the disposition of cases and the proper administration of justice.

CRIMINALISTICS-

ITS USE IN INVESTIGATIONJIM S. PASCUAL, PLM LAW-IV Practicum

CONCEPT

CRIMINALISTICS is a field of forensic science which concerns itself with the use of different scientific disciplines for the examination of physical evidence gathered in a crime scene in order that the results thereof will aid the law enforcement and prosecution arms of the government in establishing their respective cases and affords the courts of sufficient aid in enforcing its conclusion of a subject case.

UTILIZATION

In Criminal investigation, where I am also professionally involved, what we have in the Philippines may not be readily compared with that of other countries. There were times that our the law enforcement officers of our neighboring Asian countries are dispatched here to undergo trainings under local instructions. Presently, we have a very unique system of criminal investigation considering the unique culture of our nation. However, the system and procedure involved in gathering evidence are usually synonymous, the great disparity lies on the scientific equipment used to examine and analyze such evidence.

We define Criminal investigation as an art which deals with the process of establishing the identity and location of the offender and provides evidence of his guilt in criminal proceedings. Along this line CRIMINALISTICS plays an integral role. The objectives of Criminal investigation are (1) identify the criminal; (2) locate the offender; and, (3) provide evidence of his guilt. The specific tools involved here are the information, interrogation or interview and the last is Instrumentation. CRIINALISTICS is mainly on the tools of instrumentation. While it is entirely involved in the three phases of investigation namely, identification, Tracing and locating the offender and the gathering of evidence.

Mostly, CRIMINALISTICS takes the most important part in the first phase which is identification of the offender. There are several methods applied in our Law enforcement setting, these are (1) confession or admission of the criminal (2)Identification and Testimonies of Eye witnesses (3) Identification based on Circumstantial evidence (4) Identification based on Associative Evidence (5) and , Identification by the methods of operation (Modus Operandi).

It is in this phase that the different fields of CRIMINALISTICS come into play. Forensic Ballistic, which is the examination of firearms and bullets identification; Fingerprint Examination; Chemical Analysis of different

substance, Galss, Fibers, Toolmarks, Tiremarks ; Questioned Documents, which is the examination of handwriting, signatures and document fraud;

It is only imperative that the application of CRIMINALISTICS should conform to the standards under the rules imposed by the courts in order that it does not become an exercise in futility when the court decides to uphold the doubt vis-a-vis the accuracy, integrity and acceptability of the results of the examination.

CRIMINALISTICS has been very helpful in Criminal Investigations. The Philippines though does not have enough and modern facilities to catch up with its neighbors in criminal investigations utilizing the advanced techniques that modern science has to offer. In the meantime, Philippine law enforcement has to make do with the antiquated equipment until some philanthropic countries dump their used Crime Laboratory equipment here.

Compared to more advanced countries, the percentage of conviction of criminals locally through the successful use of CRIMANILISTICS is not too remarkable. There lingers the problem that the courts are not readily convinced with the results of CRIMINALISTICS because along the chain of disposition of the physical evidence, there might be a doubt on its integrity.

Not only are we lacking of updated equipment, we also lack the necessary training for the continuous enhancement of our crime scene operatives. Be that as it may, some few good operatives maximize whatever institutional facilities we have in order to meet the growing demands of confronting the ever increasing rate of criminality.There is equally a need to synchronize the skill enhancement and the facilities updating, for however zealous our private sector are in donating these CRIMINALISTICS equipment if the personnel are trained only to do a ministerial switch on switch off , the equipment are destined to the junk.

There are those tools however that are done traditionally by manual dexterity, and that is how the Philippines Law enforcement confront the sophistications of more advance techniques. In Fingerprint examinations for instance, our system is still on the original Faulds –Galton- Henry generations. Our technicians can do no more than to do a manual matching process vis-a vis a non-updatable Fingerprint data bank of the National Bureau of Investigation. And because of the ever growing population, it may take years to establish a match with those on record of those lifted from the crime scene. In other words, unless the suspects are readily available to provide for the standards, there is a nil opportunity to find a match among those in store and thereafter establish a connection to secure a conviction.

One remarkable development however, is the official recognition of our justice system of the benefits of Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA)

examination. Since 2002, there is a handful of court conviction with the aid of DNA result. The good thing is, the Supreme Court even issued a rule where a convict maybe freed in case a newly discovered evidence based on DNA analysis is obtained giving reasons to reverse the conviction, setting free an innocent.

The importance of CRIMINALISTICS in our justice system can not be overemphasized, it is simply one of the most important factors in order for our justice system to grind its wheels into an ideal administration of justice, where the innocent are set free and the real offenders are held to answer for their crimes.

PERSPECTIVE

Until our government gives its proper attention to modernizing our criminal investigation capabilities, personnel and equipment wise, we will have to make do with the traditional methods of CRIMINALISTICS and so we may have to be content on the quality of our laboratory results. It is not uncommon that our Law enforcement agencies give conflicting findings. Take for example, the signatures involved in the Jose Pidal controversy where the NBI confirmed the signature of the then First Gentlemen while the PNB Crime Lab refuted such findings.

CRIMINALISTICS has evolved into an indispensable tool of modern criminal investigation. Faced with the growing sophistication of criminal elements and the growing subjects of crime, there is no way but to pace in with the same development and appropriate measures should be advanced by the government. CRIMINALISTICS in the future will inevitably involve the forensic examinations of cyber world, and this might be another compelling reason to train the government resources into seeking ways to modernize it criminal investigation tools. Its about time that we must take the full benefit of science.