Eric and Glenn sit down for an interview with Sandy Siegel and are also joined by a crew of Texas examiners (and one from San Diego). Sandy talks about her start in the field, her time in Austin, and then her new position with the Houston Forensic Science Center. The HFSC is a public/private entity that is separate from the police department and may be a new example for how to structure crime labs in many other jurisdictions.

Glenn Langenburg and Eric Ray follow some good advice from Niki Osborne and interview Dr. Theresa Stotesbury from Trent University in Ontario. Theresa has developed a synthetic blood substitute using sol-gel for use in bloodstain pattern analysis training. We learned a lot and can't wait to find out more.

Glenn Langenburg and Eric Ray read through a new paper from Amy Jeanguenat and Itiel Dror on how workplace stress can affect forensic decision making. The paper makes several great points about how forensic scientists deal with many stresses unique to their careers, including facing outside criticism and working in a culture with zero tolerance for errors.

Eric Ray and Glenn Langenburg delve deep into the data from the White Box and Black Box studies regarding the exclusion decision. Ulery, Hicklin, Roberts, and Buscaglia publish on their exclusion data revealing a strong correlation between exclusion accuracy and the presence of a core or delta in both impressions. Glenn and Eric also look at how minutiae count and latent quality affect exclusion accuracy and then discuss the utility of the exclusion decision itself. Interesting stuff.

Glenn Langenburg and Eric Ray share exciting and groundbreaking news! The FBI latent print unit has officially moved beyond Approach 1. Their examiners may now utilize the inconclusive decision even when better exemplars are not needed. Hopefully, many other Approach 1 agencies start looking to adapt their procedures and move in this same direction.

Glenn Langenburg sits down and interviews Niki Osborne about her work in New Zealand and at the University of California - Irvine in examining how contextual information can influence forensic opinions, especially in the fields of bloodstain pattern analysis and questioned document / handwriting.

Glenn Langenburg and Eric Ray interview Caroline Gibb about her experiences coming up in the latent print field in Australia. LEARN about a woman's obsession with fingerprints from an early age! THRILL to hear about latent print training - Australian style! CRINGE at more bad dad jokes!

Eric Ray and Glenn Langenburg get back into the swing of things with big news in the spring of 2017. The Defense Forensic Science Center (Army Crime Lab) just released a statement saying that their reports would now include a likelihood with each latent print identification. Also, the National Commission on Forensic Science was not renewed by the new Department of Justice.

Eric Ray and Glenn Langenburg review an article in Forensic Magazine that discusses the presentation that Jay Kadane gave at the American Association of Forensic Scientists conference this year. The same arguments are trotted out again, and the podcast sees nothing original nor sophisticated about his argument.

Eric Ray and Glenn Langenburg work their way through the newest position statement from the International Association for Identification. Does it allow examiners to say whatever they want? Is it too vague? Does it overstep the IAI's role, or does it abandon the IAI's traditional role in the discipline? All good questions that Eric and Glenn will try to answer (sort of).