SURVEY OF THE CONCLUSIONS DRAWN OF SIMILAR FOOTWEAR CASES IN VARIOUS CRIME LABORATORIES

This study focuses on the reporting of shoeprint cases concerning the possibility of various laboratories drawing different conclusions from similar cases. For this purpose, six sets of photographs - six fictit ious crime cases - were prepared. The six cases were distributed to th e 34 crime laboratories having registered for the European Meeting for Shoeprint and Toolmark Examiners. The examiners in different laborato ries were asked to examine the cases and to draw their conclusions fro m each of them based on pattern, shape, size and the accidental charac teristics marked on the photos. The expressions for the conclusions we re selected as degrees of probability. The examiners were asked to fol low the expressions given, even if they were not using the same wordin g in their own reports. Based on the survey, there seem to be remarkab le variations in the conclusions of shoeprint reports drawn from ident ical cases in different crime laboratories.