New Forensic Analysis Shoots Holes in the JFK Assassination Report

The article I read was called “New Forensic Analysis Shoots Holes in the JFK Assassination Report”. It discussed how a team at Texas A&M University discovered a fatal flaw in the forensic report for the JFK assassination. In the original testimony, FBI agent Dr. Vincent P. Guinn said, “there is no evidence for three bullets, four bullets, or anything more than two, but there is clear evidence that there are two.” His problem is that when looking at the bullets found on the crime scene, he only looked at the chemical make up. Clifford Spiegelman, one of the lead authors of the study and his team, used the same technique that would have been used by the 1979 FBI officer called neutron activation analysis. It is used to find the elements contained in a material, and is the only process Guinn used when he claimed that the bullets were chemically unique. Back in the day, FBI agents would say that if bullets had the same chemical makeup then they most likely came from the same source, i.e. the same box. However today it has been proven that this assumption is incorrect and very unlikely to happen. This is because they believed that bullets had the same chemical make up from being made to being fired, which is not true. They could have tested this but decided not to, which is how the testimony has been proven to be flawed. Spiegelman is not saying that there is a second shooter, and he is not saying that there is not a second shooter. He’s just saying that the idea can’t be ruled out completely on chemical analysis alone.

This article is relevant because this moment was very important to American history, and to think that there are pieces missing is astounding considering we thought we've had the whole story for over 50 years. If there really was a second shooter, we don’t really have the resources to find out anymore. In addition, this supposed second shooter could be long dead.

What I liked about this article was that they were able to thoroughly explain why the original testimony was false. They were able to go into detail about the process and show how even if they were to use the technology available in 1979 then they could still have come to this conclusion. It makes the FBI almost seem lazy and desperate to find a suspect. I wish they would have gone into more detail about the idea of a second shooter and theories of maybe who they could be. Also I would have liked hearing the perspective of other people who worked on this rather than just Mr. Spiegelman.

Allocca, Sean. "New Forensic Analysis Shoots Holes in the JFK Assassination Report." Forensic Magazine. N.p., 26 Jan. 2016. Web. 31 Jan. 2016.

http://www.forensicmag.com/articles/2016/01/new-forensic-analysis-shoots-holes-jfk-assassination-report

Vietnam Begins Huge Effort to Identify War Dead

Eric Dunn
Forensics
Blog Post

Vietnam Begins Huge Effort to Identify War Dead

An effort has begun in order to identify the remains of the Vietnam War. New smart DNA 

technologies are being used in order to hopefully identify some of the over half million 

missing Vietnamese soldiers and civilians. It is estimated to be the largest identification 

project that has ever been taken on. “When I was a 21-year-old in the medical corps there, I 

never imagined that such a project could ever become possible,” says Vietnam veteran 

and genomics pioneer Craig Venter, head of the J. Craig Venter Institute in La Jolla, 

California. “We thought of body counts as statistics — now, decades later, it may be 

possible to put names to them.” The United States had identified most of its dead, but 

Vietnam, stuck using outdated techniques has only identified a few hundred. They plan 

on identifying the remains that can be found in the countryside of Vietnam. The leader of 

the  project is Wolfgang Hoppner, the Chief Executive of Bioglobe. He is the one who 

proposed the project for Vietnam.

http://www.nature.com/news/vietnam-begins-huge-effort-to-identify-war-dead-1.19147?

The Rise of the Neurobiological Defense with Nita Farahany

Danny von Albade

1-31-16

Current Event 12

http://www.forensicmag.com/articles/2016/01/rise-neurobiological-defense-nita-farahany

Augenstein, Seth. "The Rise of the Neurobiological Defense with Nita Farahany." Forensic Magazine. Forensic Magazine, 29 Jan. 2016. Web. 31 Jan. 2016.

The insanity or “mental infirmity” plea is not a new creation, but since 2005 there has been a massive spike in mental illness pleas in criminal trials. As neuroscience continues to progress, more and more cases are discovered to involve serious head trauma, addictions, and developmental disabilities. While not all of these cases are genuine, the progress that has been reached on our understanding of the brain has helped to better understand criminal motivations and rehabilitation. One such example given was in regards to the serial killer Brian Dugan of Illinois. After being convicted of three murders and seven rapes, Dugan was sent to death row where he remained until the death penalty was banned in Illinois. Dugan said that he felt remorse for his actions but did not believe that he could control his psychotic impulses outside of prison. This determined that he was in fact mentally ill in need of treatment. This trend of increased mental infirmity cases is believed to continue and it represents progress in criminal trials.

There are many forms of violent crime that do often result from being mentally disturbed. The progress of neuroscience is helping to better elucidate criminal motivations. It calls into question how many people have been killed on death row that were severely disturbed. It’s a step in the right direction toward providing care to the mentally ill which is a tremendous problem in our society today.

This was a very interesting article to read. It had some minor formatting errors, and it also could have included a bit more information on the Duke University study findings. It seems obvious that serial violent criminals have something wrong with them mentally in many cases. No sound minded person would intentionally harm anyone let alone many people. The article did do a good job of citing its evidence and providing solid backup to support its points. I enjoyed reading the article overall.

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