ANTHROP 3FA3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 14: Forensic Anthropology, Post-Mortem Interval, Nuclear Dna
14 Sep 2016
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Personal identification is the process of linking an unknown personal object or material (which may be a whole body, a skeleton, a fingerprint, a biological fluid) back to an individual of known identity. Identification is important in 3 contexts: legal, morally. Identification for closure and resolution by surviving relatives and friends: humanitarian. Investigations of armed conflict and human rights investigations. For a deceased individual, the determination of identity is the responsibility of the local medicolegal authority, usually a medical examiner or coroner or sometimes a justice of the peace or sheriff. The identification of the deceased becomes official with the signing of the individual"s death certificate by the medicolegal authority. There is currently no legal or scientific threshold for confirming or rejecting an identification. While a forensic anthropologist could be a medicolegal authority, forensic anthropologists do not typically have the authority to make a personal identification.
