Ethics in Forensic Science

This one-day (eight-hour) course focuses on the practical application of forensic science ethics codes to ethical dilemmas encountered in forensic science. It also offers insight into the enforcement and background of ethics codes. The course provides tools to readily access the content of over three dozen forensic science ethics documents from around the world. Students apply that content to realistic scenarios encountered in forensic science and discuss their results with the class. Lecture materials offer insight into the role of morals, purposes of ethics documents, character traits that could factor into unethical conduct, historical background, enforcement policies, encountering unethical conduct, filing an ethics complaint, being the subject of an ethics allegation, the role of ethics in cognitive bias, lawyer’s ethics, and discovery rules. The target audience is individuals who work with evidence in traditional crime laboratory disciplines or who teach in a forensic science program (e.g., criminalists, latent print examiners, questioned document examiners, evidence technicians, and forensic science educators). Class size is limited to fifteen students.