J-1 “Digging” Legal History: Using Exhumation and Innovative Forensic Science Techniques to Verify Historical Legal Events

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Tuesday, July 28 - 2:30pm - 3:15pm
Location: 
WCC-Room 145 AB
Target Audience: 
Legal historians, special collections librarians, reference librarians, other professionals who are interested in applying forensic science techniques to historical legal issues
Learning Outcomes: 
1) Participants will be able to explain how exhumation and modern forensic science techniques are used to revisit historical legal cases to confirm or correct existing records of the events.
2) Participants will be able to discuss the forensic science techniques applied to the reinvestigation of several celebrated cases.

Forensic science, the application of science to the law, is a vital tool for determining the likely scenario of a past event. Physical evidence, such as bones, hair or body fluids, obtained during exhumation, can provide the forensic scientist with adequate proof to postulate with a high degree of accuracy the sequence of occurrences associated with a past event, such as an unusual death or suspected murder. Professor James Starrs, a leading expert on the use of forensics in the courtroom, will examine how modern forensic science techniques, unavailable or unutilized at the time of the events in question, can alter or confirm recorded legal history. Starrs will illustrate his presentation with examples from some of the many re-investigations of cases he has handled
involving exhumation of historical figures, including Louisiana Senator Huey Long’s alleged assassin, Dr. Carl Weiss, and CIA scientist Frank Olson, whose mysterious 1953 death was characterized by the U.S. government as a suicide.

Speaker(s): 
Jennie C. Meade, Coordinator and Moderator, George Washington University, Jacob Burns Law Library
James E. Starrs, George Washington University Law School