Sala Grande - 19th IAFS World Meeting - 9th WPMO Triennial Meeting

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19 th IAFS WORLD MEETING
9 th WPMO TRIENNIAL MEETING
5 th MAFS MEETING
THE EFFECT OF USING CRIME SCENE RECONSTRUCTION TECHNOLOGIES TO THE
UNDERSTANDING OF A CRITICAL CRIMINAL CASE: PRELIMINARY STUDY
Author(s): Yilmaz R 1 ; Yakupoglu A 1 ; Demircan T 1 ; Yukseloglu H 1 ; Yorulmaz C 2
Institution(s): 1 ISTANBUL UNIVERSITY, INSTITUTE OF FORENSIC SCIENCE; 2 ISTANBUL UNIVERSITY, CERRAHPASA FACULTY OF MEDICINE
Abstract: According to Turkish Criminal Procedure Code (CMK) came in to force in 2005, when a special or technical knowledge is
required, it may be decided to obtain the vote and opinion of an expert, by the court’s own demand, by the demand of the public
prosecutor, or by demand of the intervening party; of his representative, of the suspect or the accused or his defense counsel. Crime
reconstruction requires the ability to put together a puzzle using pieces of unknown dimensions without a guiding picture. At the courts,
there is a fundamental shift from oral to visual mediation and this modern evidence presentation technology needs to be analyzed.
According to the Turkish Criminal Procedure Law mentioned above, this modern evidence presentation can be requested by the lawyer,
prosecutor or the court. Thus, the objective of the study is to analysis the effect of using crime scene reconstruction technologies at a
criminal case. In this study 20 lawyers who are actively working, has been homogeneously selected and the evidence of a criminal case is
presented to those lawyers. Firstly, participants are divided into two groups, named A and B with 10 lawyers in one group. Then Group A
participants just studied the case from original court file. They haven’t participated any modern evidence presentations. Group B
participants first studied the case from file. Then they were able to attend the modern evidence presentations in order of mockup, video
animation and real time reconstruction. After the presentations, a descriptive and exploratory survey is performed to all participants.
The questions of the survey were like "How many gunshot were fired?, How many bullets were penetrated to victim? Which one was
fatal? Are the statements of witnesses compatible with the blood patterns? Is the location of witnesses proper to see the crime scene
clearly?" After the response of all participants, the level of understanding the case is evaluated. Results show that most of the
participants in Group B reported better understanding when it is compared with Group A. It is clear that, by the new regulations about
expert witnessing in Criminal Procedure Code (CMK), it is easier than before to understand and recognize the criminal cases.
Keywords: Crime; Crime Scene; Reconstruction; Evidence Presentation; Forensic Animation; Forensic Science