It is devoted to a study of the judicial response to uses of forensic science in the investigation, prosecution, and defense of a crime. This book is not intended to be a close study of forensic science, nor was it ever conceived as becoming one. William Wills: An Essay on the Principles of Circumstantial Evidence (1838) Forensic Evidence: Science and the Criminal Law (Second Edition), is intended to serve as an introduction and guide to the appreciation and understanding of the significant historic, contemporary, and future relationship between the world of the forensic sciences and the criminal justice system. In the subjects of moral science, the want of appropriate words, and the occasional application of the same word to denote different things, have given occasion to much obscurity and confusion both of idea and expression of which a remarkable exemplification is presented in the words probability and certainty. In investigations of every kind it is essential that a correct estimate be made, of the kind and degree of assurance of which the subject admits. This book is dedicated to the loving memory of my mother, Elizabeth Wolfe, and my step-father, John Wolfe.
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