v5n4.book Page 407 Friday, June 28, 2002 9:19 PM
More Woeful Delights Forensic Science at the Cinema, The Sequel James E. Starrs
icking up where we left oÖ, see Woeful space and on earth, even under the pressure of Delights, 4 Green Bag 2d 409 (2001), at gravity. Gravity, or the lack of it, has no eÖect Pthe end of Category 2: Hollywood Just on the geometric shape of liquid droplets. Frolics With Science … With or without gravity such droplets are round balls, not tear-shaped, a vitally impor- Category 3: Hollywood Hits tant recognition in crime scene reconstruc- the Scientific Mark tions from the interpretation of blood spattering. Sometimes, but only rarely, Hollywood gives Two true-to-forensic science movies are forensic science the beneÕt of the doubt and Call Northside 777 with Jimmy Stewart and Lee presents it in a credible fashion. Arguably J. Cobb and Allegheny Uprising with John Hollywood can produce Õlms with forensic Wayne and Claire Trevor. Unfortunately for science depicted accurately without sacriÕcing today’s movie-goers both of these Õlms are the interest of the viewer in the unfolding dated, the Õrst having hit the silver screen in drama. 1948 and the latter even earlier, in 1939. In Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), for example, two assassins board a space Call Northside 777 (1948) – vehicle, disabled in zero gravity conditions, Photography and send blood Ôying as they shoot up every- Jimmy Stewart, playing a Chicago reporter, one in sight. The shape of the blood drops is needed considerable convincing to believe that spherical in nature as it should be both in Frank Wiecek, acted by Richard Conte, was
James E. Starrs is a Professor of Law as well as a Professor of Forensic Sciences at The George Washingon University, Washington, DC. He is co-author of A.A. Moenssens, J.E. Starrs, C. Henderson F.E. Inbau, ScientiÕc Evidence in Civil and Criminal Cases (4th ed., Foundation Press, NY: 1995). This text is recommended reading for those who would expand their learning in their forensic sciences beyond that seen in Hollywood’s movies. Copyright 2002 James E. Starrs.
407 v5n4.book Page 408 Friday, June 28, 2002 9:19 PM
James E. Starrs
innocent of the killing of a police oÓcer in this allegedly used by Wayne to commit the suspenseful murder mystery. Wiecek, having unprovoked murder for which he was on trial. served eleven years of a life sentence, had a In the courtroom experiment John Wayne’s mother who never gave up hope in her son’s black powder muzzle-loading riÔe is used vindication. when, in fact, Brian Donleavy, who was really Her newspaper advertisement, oÖering a the killer, employed his own distinctive gun to $5000 reward for information about the true do the dastardly deed. This is a diÖerence killer, came to the attention of an at Õrst skep- Hollywood does not take into account, nor tical newspaperman, Jimmy Stewart. But, as does it take due note of, nor seek to explain, his open-minded investigation progressed, the lack of the victim’s back-spattered blood fueled by the free hand his editor, Lee J. Cobb, on his jacket front at the site of the entrance gave him, he became a fervent believer in wound. Wiecek’s innocence. However, in fairness to Hollywood, blood The proof of Wiecek’s innocence came from does not have to back-spatter from an entrance a photograph in which a newspaper appeared wound, especially where clothing covers the inconspicuously. Enlarging the area of the impact site and if back-spatter does occur it photograph showing the newspaper enabled would be projected away from the garment, not Stewart to demonstrate the date of its publica- onto it.1 Passive bleeding (bleeding after the tion, proving that the state’s chief witness at heart has stopped pumping) could, of course, Wiecek’s trial had given false testimony. cause blood to soak into the area surrounding With today’s satellite photography it is the wound but this would not be interpreted as hard to conceive of a 1948 vintage photograph back-spatter by one experienced in bloodstain providing the tell-tale clue to solve a murder. pattern interpretation. These are nuances of Yet the same magniÕcation of a small segment forensic science signiÕcance which are alien to in a photograph taken today would be the Hollywood’s more slap-dash way of handling method of choice in enlarging a photograph such matters. piecemeal, except that contemporary digital photographing would permit enhancement Category 4: Just Plain Wrong unrecognized in 1948. Science
Allegheny Uprising (1939) – Firearms: Three Days of the Condor (1975) – Muzzle to Target Distance Testing Firearms: Gunshot Residues John Wayne and Claire Trevor join in this pre- Revolutionary War drama demonstrating how In this “B” movie peopled by prominent a courtroom Õrearms experiment, properly Hollywooders, Robert Redford plays a cia constructed at a murder trial, can prove that an clerk caught up unwittingly in a cia massacre eye witness to a killing is lying. The muzzle to of its own people. At the movie’s beginning, target distance determination, visually before the massacre, the conversation in the illustrated by the courtroom demonstration, is cia’s safe house is all about a killing in which scientiÕcally valid except for the lack of proof the bullet hole in the body is said to be “charac- that the propellant charge in the courtroom teristic” of a .38 caliber bullet. But the caliber of Ôintlock riÔe was similar to that of the riÔe a bullet cannot be determined so exactly from
1 V.J.M. DiMaio, Gunshot Wounds: Practical Aspects of Firearms, Ballistics, and Forensic Techniques (CRC Press, Inc., Boca Raton, FL: 1993), p.209.
408 5 Green Bag 2d 407 v5n4.book Page 409 Friday, June 28, 2002 9:19 PM
More Woeful Delights
the size of the wound in Ôesh. The Ôexibility of her portrayal in this movie of a washed up Ôesh during and after sustaining a penetrating actress, boozing and sleeping around non- wound from a bullet prevents any certain stop. One morning after an alcohol drenched assessment of the size of the entering bullet.2 all night aÖair, she Õnds herself in bed with a Redford escapes the massacre only to porno king, lying supine and quite dead with a become a fugitive wanted by a cia hit man, knife imbedded in his left chest. played by Ma x Von Sydow. Von Sydow Fonda runs from the scene in much distress catches up with Redford just as Redford cor- but returns hours later to tidy up, being then ners the “Big Cheese”, learning from him that much more composed. She cleans up Õnger- the plot and the killings were Middle-East-oil prints and blood, pulls the knife out of the generated. deceased’s chest evoking an audible sucking Von Sydow shoots the cia higher up whom sound (why?) and turns him over to a prone Redford has Ôushed out. The killing is by a position (why?). The deceased’s legs show the bullet to the right temporal region from near- onset of rigor mortis but his posterior does not contact range in an execution-style fashion. reÔect, as it should, the purplish discoloration Von Sydow then seeks to palm oÖ the murder characteristic of the post-mortem pooling of as a suicide by wiping the adjacent desktop blood to the dependent portions of the body, area clean of latent Õngerprints and by placing an indication of death termed livor mortis.3 the gun in the victim’s right hand. But what if All becomes well when JeÖ Bridges arrives the deceased was not right-handed? It is at the scene to save Fonda from her wayward known that about 85% of the population is ways, to keep her from the law’s clutches and dextral and it is also known that right-handed to convince her to dump the evil-minded Raul suicides typically hold a gun in their dominant Julia, playing the role of her husband. hand, not ipsi laterally. Chances are, therefore, that the fatal bullet wound and the gun being Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) – found in the right hand would not generate Fingerprints: Superglue law enforcement suspicions of foul play. More Eddie Murphy, the Detroit cop on leave in importantly, there would not be any primer L.A., is out to solve the “Alphabet Crimes”, a residues on the back of the victim’s Õring hand. skein of violent robberies in Beverly Hills. In The absence of such residues would alert the his investigations (more properly, shenani- police to the idea that the death is not a sui- gans), he discovers a box of intact matches cide (felo de se). Of course, this assumes the inside the burnt out inferno of a car (what, the police were smarter than Hollywood and matches survived the conÔagration?) and tests would swab the victim’s hands for traces of the matches for Õngerprints using super glue gunshot residues. in a terrarium. He visualizes the prints but he does so much The Morning After (1986) – too quickly, without the terrarium’s clouding Pathology: Livor Mortis up from the fumes emitted from the heating of Jane Fonda got a Best Actress nomination for the superglue and with the print showing up in
2Id. 3 Livor mortis, also called post-mortem hypostasis, is caused by the accumulation of blood in the small vessels of the dependant area of the body. The location of such an accumulation can be changed if the body’s position is altered prior to the lividity’s being Õxed at about eight hours after death. D.J. DiMaio V.J.M. DiMaio, Forensic Pathology (CRC Press, Inc., Boca Raton, FL: 1993), pp.21-26.
Green Bag • Summer 2002 409 v5n4.book Page 410 Friday, June 28, 2002 9:19 PM
James E. Starrs
black instead of white as it should after being from the phone was too quick acting for either exposed to superglue fumes. Also he explains chloroform or ether to have been the active superglue as attracted to bodily acids, rather ingredient. than oils, and reacting to them. Further, he uses Reviewers tend to call the substance used superglue inappropriately on a paper match- by Bridges chloroform but the Õre in the car in box, a porous substratum, rather than as it is which Bridges traps the girl is so instanta- intended to visualize latent prints on non- neous and explosive as to make it appear to be porous surfaces.4 Otherwise the movie is a ether that Bridges was using.5 But the plot is (painful) scream. aÔame with too many incongruities to call the toxic substance either chloroform or ether The Vanishing (1993) – with any degree of certainty. Toxicology: Chloroform or Ether JeÖ Bridges plays the role of a psycho chemistry Die Hard 2 (1990) – professor á la Ted Bundy (he wraps his arm in Pathology; Fingerprints; Firearms a sling to gain sympathy from unsuspecting Another Bruce Willis bloody, action-Õlled victims) who is out to anesthetize and kidnap extravaganza set at Dulles Airport in the sub- his victims and then bury them alive. The urban Virginia countryside. Willis is awaiting movie is a remake, and a banal imitation at that, the airplane arrival of his wife, Holly, who of a 1988 Dutch Õlm entitled Spoorloos. plans to spend Christmas with her family in Kiefer Sutherland, no extroverted You ng the Virginia suburbs. The telephone at this Guns predator here, becomes one of Bridges’s airport used by Willis to call his wife on the victims as he seeks to learn the fate of his incoming airplane (can you do this?) clearly girlfriend who had been done away with by says PaciÕc Bell (not Bell Atlantic as it should Bridges some three years before. After Suther- be). The captain of the airport security forces land is buried alive by Bridges, Sutherland’s castigates Willis for violating D.C. regulations new love smokes out Bridges and confronts at the airport even though D.C. has no juris- him in his lakeside cottage. But she almost diction over Dulles Airport. Only Virginia or collapses from the fumes in a poison-soaked the Feds do. But these gaÖes only jump start rag hidden in a telephone at the cottage when this abundantly miscued Õlm. she attempts to make a call for help. (Why Willis tells the airport’s security chief that Bridges put it there is not explained since he terrorists are using a Glock 7, but there is no did not suspect he was being shadowed.) such weapon. He might have had in mind a The plastic phone should have melted away Glock model 17, which Willis says is made of since, whether chloroform or ether was hidden porcelain, thus being able to avoid metal in it, they are both powerful enough to liquefy detectors. Wrong. The gun must be partly the plastic of the phone. Also, the smell of plastic with detectable metal parts, since there either would have been a dead give away that are no commercially available wholly plastic or something was amiss. The vertiginous reac- porcelain weapons. To make these gun mis- tion of Sutherland’s girlfriend to the fumes haps worse, the gun in question is said to be
4 F.G. Kendall B.W. Rehn, “Rapid Method of Super Glue Fuming Application for the Development of Latent Fingerprints,” J For Sci 1983, 28(777); R. Saferstein, Criminalistics, An Introduction to Forensic Science (5th ed.: 1995), p.428. 5 D. Elley, editor, Variety Movie Guide–’96 (Reed Consumers Books Ltd., London: 1995), p.778. In general, see L.J. Casarett J. Doull, Toxicology: The Basic Science of Poisons (MacMillan Publishing Co., NY: 1975).
410 5 Green Bag 2d 407 v5n4.book Page 411 Friday, June 28, 2002 9:19 PM
More Woeful Delights
made in Germany, but Glocks are made in blonde. That sets the stage for this visceral Austria. murder mystery. At the crime scene policeman Still more errors, in the applications of Michael Douglas listens to a pathologist with a forensic science, await the viewer. Willis rolls thermometer in hand giving his estimate of the the Õngerprints of a terrorist he has killed in a time of death after reading 92 degrees on his subterranean shoot-out at the airport. The thermometer. According to the pathologist’s Õngerprinting occurs just moments after the wild speculation the death occurred six and a killing but rigor mortis is already seen to be half hours (plus or minus) before the ther- becoming Õxed on the dead body. The onset of mometer reading. There was no showing of rigor mortis, generally occurring six to eight what part of the body the temperature reading hours post-mortem, must have been instanta- was taken from. There was no demonstration neous, which is scientiÕcally implausible, that the ambient temperature was measured or unless the body suÖers a cadaveric spasm that the decline in body temperature over time (instant rigor mortis), a very rare happening at was measured and contrasted to the ambient the time of death.6 temperature.7 Moreover, the Õngerprinting is done by The neglect of Hollywood’s medico to Willis with a borrowed stamp pad and without consider the air temperature at the place where making any eÖort to roll the Õngers so as to the murder victim was found was another obtain the entire digit’s friction ridges, as failure to take into account one of Newton’s would be the normal course in obtaining laws. It bears recollecting that, under Newton’s Õngerprint exemplars. Following this bungled law of cooling, the rate at which a body loses Õngerprinting, Willis faxes the prints back to heat to its surroundings is proportional to the California for a computer check of their temperature diÖerence between the body and identity. The quality of the minutiae of the its surroundings. friction ridges after stamp pad rolling and Douglas sees a suspicious substance at the faxing would most assuredly have been inade- scene of the crime and, mirabile dictu, immedi- quate for an identiÕcation of the prints, but one ately identiÕes it as cocaine. (Was it cocaine in was forthcoming nonetheless. The forensic the crystalline form or crack?) How Douglas science hokum in this movie is on a par with its performed this scientiÕc feat macroscopically plot-twisted daÓness. is left to the viewer’s imagination, which would require discounting his reliance on reagent Basic Instinct (1992) – testing at the scene or chemical analysis Drugs; Pathology; Polygraph; Firearms through laboratory testing. His judgment call At the outset of this erotically charged brew, a deserved less of a hearing than an inoperative wealthy politico is seen to be knifed to death smoke-detector. during sexual intercourse with an unidentiÕed Stone is arrested, interrogated, polygraphed
6 W.H. Spitz, editor, Spitz and Fisher’s Medico Legal Investigation of Death (3rd ed., Charles C. Thomas, SpringÕeld, IL: 1993). This volume explains cadaveric spasm as “in rare instances, a forceful agonal contraction or seizure is converted almost immediately into tight rigor without preceding primary Ôaccidity.” The triggering mechanism is generally extreme fright or tension. See also L. Adelson, The Pathology of Homicide (Charles C. Thomas, SpringÕeld, IL: 1974), pp.166-167, where cadaveric spasm is referred to as “instantaneous rigor” and “cataleptic rigidity.” 7 The subject of algor moris (the cooling of the body after death) is addressed at page 734 in A.A. Moenssens, J.E. Starrs, C. Henderson F.E. Inbau, ScientiÕc Evidence in Civil and Criminal Cases (4th ed., Foundation Press, NY: 1995).
Green Bag • Summer 2002 411 v5n4.book Page 412 Friday, June 28, 2002 9:19 PM
James E. Starrs
and passes the polygraph. But she is apartment and secreted away by Rusty’s police polygraphed inappropriately with her legs buddy. crossed (cutting oÖ circulation in her body but The incriminating glass never Õnds its way bringing it to a boil in her viewers). Only one into evidence at the trial. Much is made of the polygraph run is conducted, which is well importance of the Õngerprint-laden glass. But below the norm for legitimate testing. No time the glass need not have been associated with is taken to evaluate the run by the polygraphist, the time of the killings since Rusty might have which falls afoul of the usual procedure, nor is placed his Õngerprints on it at some earlier the polygraph chart re-evaluated by a second time when he was visiting the murder victim. polygraphist. Stone smokes in the polygraph Forensic science currently has no known room, which is patently a no-no, and lets method to time date when Õngerprints were herself loose of all controls. All of these actions placed on an object.8 So what’s all the fuss in constitute extreme departures from the ord- the movie about the glass and the Õngerprints? inary procedures in polygraph testing. The plot unravels and all is disclosed when Four more homicides follow, the Õrst one of Rusty returns home to Õnd a hammer in his the four being a fellow oÓcer. Douglas’ police tool box with blood on the action end. The side-kick says the shot to the deceased oÓcer’s blood is bright hemoglobin red, as if it were head was caused by a .37 caliber revolver and fresh, when it should have discolored to brown demands to be handed Douglas’ gun, Douglas over the lengthy time period since it was used having become a suspect. The gun is smelled in the murder. The rug in the victim’s apart- by the oÓcer to see if it bears the odor traces ment is also bright red, it too showing no signs indicative of a recent Õring. But whereas the of having been discolored by aging. murder weapon was said to be a revolver, Of course the movie is dated by not having Douglas hands over for inspection a semi- recourse to dna-testing to solve the whodunit. automatic. There is a major diÖerence But dna would have made short work of the between a revolver and a semi-automatic but mystery puzzle in the same way as Õngerprint hush, don’t tell Hollywood’s Õlm makers, that matching. Neither one can prove Rusty’s guilt, might destroy this viewer’s lambasting fun. only that he was at some undetermined point in time present at the murder scene. Presumed Innocent (1990) – Serology This movie is Hollywood’s version of Scott Jagged Edge (1985) – Turow’s 1987 murder mystery of the same Typewriter IdentiÕcation name. In it, Harrison Ford, as D.A. Rusty In this hard-boiled murder mystery, Glenn Sabich, narrowly avoids a conviction for the Close, playing a defense attorney, successfully murder of a fellow prosecutor with whom he defends JeÖ Bridges for the killing of his wife. has been having a meretricious aÖair. The Bridges’ alibi is proved to be air-tight when victim is found dead, her head having been Close quite inexplicably Õnds a typed note next bludgeoned with a blunt instrument. Semen is to her telephone in her oÓce which enables her found in her vagina but the sperm are said to be to save Bridges. After Bridges’ acquittal Close dead. The a-b-o blood type of the semen is the and he engage in passionate sex as the precur- same as Rusty’s. A drinking glass, with his sor to a long romantic relationship. The morn- Õngerprints on it, is taken from the victim’s ing following their big celebratory night
8 J.E. Starrs, “Judicial Control Over ScientiÕc Supermen: Fingerprint Experts and Others Who Exceed the Bounds,” Crim L Bull 1999, 35(3), pp.234-276.
412 5 Green Bag 2d 407 v5n4.book Page 413 Friday, June 28, 2002 9:19 PM
More Woeful Delights
together, while Close is still in the afterglow of watching a movie while slipping further and her new found love life, she discovers a type- further down in their seats. The movie exploits writer on the top shelf of Bridges’ bedroom the uses of recombinant dna and dna cloning closet, hidden behind some linens. It is a beyond their limits, both presently and in the Corona portable. foreseeable future. The dna of a dinosaur is Close, remembering the critical typed note, found in a fossilized mosquito preserved in which got Bridges oÖ at his murder trial, takes amber. The dna is extracted and used to create the typewriter down and types out the key living dinosaurs of many diÖerent varieties. words from the note in which it is said “he is (There is no showing that the dna of many innocent.” The “t” in the word innocent hits fossilized mosquitoes had been discovered.) high just as the “t” in the note did. That con- The process by which this cloning was vinces Close that Bridges is guilty even though accomplished is explained in a short cartoon- many Coronas could show the same defect like tutorial which is replete with bogus or from use and wear resulting in loosening the unprovable scientiÕc assertions. It is said that “t” bar. For her to be convinced of Bridge’s there are three billion base pairs in a dinosaur’s guilt on this slim evidence and for her to dna, for example. But how is this to be known throw over her new-found love just for that so deÕnitely without having obtained known reason does not ring true. exemplar dna from a dinosaur against which Feeling herself duped, Close sets up a con- to compare the amber-imbedded, mosquito- frontation in which the masked killer breaks trapped dna in this fantastical tale? It is one into her house, and approaches her with a thing for scientists to duplicate the dead, but knife as she lies in bed. But she is prepared intact dna of a dinosaur. It is wholly another with a gun under the bedcovers. She shoots to infuse the life force into the duplicated dna. and kills her attacker. Upon the unmasking, The movie fails to explain the method by she is proved to have been right. It was Bridges which that was done. If living dinosaurs can be after all. crafted from dead dna molecules, then what is At the end of the movie, the knife’s jagged to stop the reincarnation of multiple Jesus edge is shown with the knife’s position in Christs from the Shroud of Turin, assuming it Bridges’ hand having been reversed from the possesses the dna of Jesus Christ. position in which he held it upon entering Close’s bedroom. Did Hollywood need a better Judge Dredd (1995) – photographic eÖect? Rather it needed DNA Surveillance Photography something more than the “t” on the Corona Sylvester Stallone presides over a futuristic typewriter for Bridge’s guilt to have been plot, Õrst appearing years ago in the British satisfactorily demonstrated. The movie, in this comic magazine 2000 A.D. Stallone, as Judge regard, was not credibility-friendly. Dredd, whose despotism parallels that of the fabled Judge Roy Bean, is out to stop the Jurassic Park (1993) – DNA criminal element which is running rampant in Steven Spielberg orchestrated a cinematic tour the metropolis of Mega-City One. But his de force in the 1975 movie Jaws. Jurassic Park can nemesis, Rico, escapes from prison and justly be called a repeat performance. In it commits two murders which are then pinned Michael Crichton’s bestselling book is adapted on Stallone. by Spielberg and Crichton to oÖer the Stallone is tried and convicted even though maximum spine-cracking tension and blood- the surveillance video of the crime is excluded curdling shock for those who champion as insuÓciently clear to pinpoint him as the
Green Bag • Summer 2002 413 v5n4.book Page 414 Friday, June 28, 2002 9:19 PM
James E. Starrs
murderer. (You would think that a futuristic as infuriatingly mad-cap as are the scientiÕc society would have learned how to digitize a underpinnings of this movie. surveillance Õlm suÓciently to augment its It would be some meager solace to say, as the clarity to the point of near perfection.) Warner Brothers cartoons do, “That’s All Notwithstanding the videotape’s being Folks!” but the above listing just dusts the kept out of evidence Judge Dredd is surface of Hollywood’s movies which are so convicted because his dna is found on the scientiÕcally Ôawed that they can rightly be bullets which killed the victims. (The expert denominated Hollyweirds. on the video is in court but testiÕes through the medium of an aÓdavit. The expert and Afterword his aÓdavit are unnecessary since the jury can see for itself from the Õlm that it is The Patriot (2000) with Mel Gibson in the lead unable to identify the perpetrator with any role as Captain Benjamin Martin is degree of precision.). Hollywood’s recent breast-thumper and The process of getting Dredd’s dna and cinematic crowd-pleaser. Before the action impregnating it in a ring around the bullet as really commences, Gibson visits the grave of the cartridge is chambered, is explained with a his wife located on his farm in rural South graphic illustration. The dna on the Õred Carolina near Charles Town. She apparently bullet is then compared to his dna which had died during childbirth three years earlier in been data-banked. 1773. Her gravestone reÔects the bare facts of No explanation is oÖered on how Stallone’s her life and death. dna was unique to him and no one else The problem, for the viewer who is without any statistical work-up. Was direct persnickety about his science, arises from the sequencing the means of associating him? positioning of the grave. The grave’s location is Also, his dna is said to have been marked by a gravestone, which is therefore not obtained from the grip of the gun as each a cenotaph, and which is placed cheek-by-jowl round was chambered but why not impreg- beside a tree of considerable maturity. The nate his dna into all the bullets ordinanced root structure of such a tree would have made to him in advance? This would follow the it a formidable and forbidding task to dig a pattern of the dna personalized ink that is grave right next to the massive trunk, starting to hit the market for persons willing especially when there was abundant open to be exploited. Nothing is said about the space beyond the spreading branches of the improbably impregnable qualities attributed tree. Yet one can appreciate the picturesque to dna, giving it the ability to withstand the scene the movie’s cameraman sought to shock and the percussion of being Õred from capture, requiring Hollywood to bend reality a high powered gun and striking the body, to achieve such a compellingly dramatic visual possibly the bone as well, of a victim. eÖect, setting a quiet and somber stage for the All is not lost, however, by the trumped- fury of death and destruction that was soon to up conviction of Stallone. He manages to follow. Sometimes, even this reviewer will escape from prison and takes on a one-man admit, the mundanity of the scientiÕc way crusade to put a stop to the evil doings of the should give way to the rightful demands for mad and maddening Rico, but nowhere near movie-going entertainment. B
414 5 Green Bag 2d 407