The forensic report is a forensic experts full report of their work on a case for court.  It includes everything the forensic expert did while examining the evidence along with their findings throughout the investigation.  In this post, we will briefly talk with Chicago trial attorney Shawn Warner about the importance of the forensic report and what makes a great forensic report. The examples I will use today are about combining forensic sciences and forensic clues to help develop and process a case for trial.

Analyzing all information and determining what process to use are typical for most forensic investigations.  Building the forensic report is key in preparing for trial.  The forensic report contains all of the work that was put into your investigation and covers all of the facts for the case.  This ensures that nothing is left out of an expert witness’s deposition or testimony.

I use audio and video forensics in combination quite often. The publicized shooting of a firefighter on his wedding night by an off duty Kansas City Police Officer is an example where I combined forensic sciences in order to bring out the facts of the shooting. I was given a cell phone video recorded by a witness.  The video included much of the confrontation but not the entire confrontation.  I could hear the dialogue between the two men in the cell phone audio. One of the first things I did after I loaded this cell phone video into Adobe Premiere Pro CS 6 was develop and process the audio portion of the video to better hear the words spoken. Next I loaded a second video I was given which was from a nearby CCTV camera across the street in a parking garage.  Then I synced the two videos together so the viewer could see and hear all the events as they occurred in both recordings.

In this weeks podcast, listen in with Audio & Video Forensic Expert Ed Primeau as he talks about the importance of a forensic report and its importance in a case.