Department of Forensic and Investigative Science, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia 26506-6121, United States.
C. Eugene Bennett Department of Chemistry, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia 26506, United States.
J Am Soc Mass Spectrom. 2023 Jul 5;34(7):1210-1224. doi: 10.1021/jasms.3c00124. Epub 2023 Jun 5.
Mass spectrometry has made profound contributions to the criminal justice system by providing an instrumental method of analysis that delivers exquisite analytical figures of merit for a wide variety of samples and analytes. Applications include the characterization of trace metal impurities in hair and glass to the identification of drugs, explosives, polymers, and ignitable liquids. This review describes major historical developments and, where possible, relates the developed capabilities to casework and legal precedents. This review also provides insight into how historical applications have evolved into, and out of, modern consensus standards. Unlike many pattern-based techniques and physical-matching methods, mass spectrometry has strong scientific foundations and a long history of successful applications that have made it one of the most reliable and respected sources of scientific evidence in criminal and civil cases. That said, in several appellate decisions in which mass spectrometric evidence was challenged but admitted, decisions sometimes still went against the mass spectrometric data anyway, which goes to show that mass spectrometric evidence is always just one piece of the larger legal puzzle.
质谱分析在刑事司法系统中做出了深远的贡献，它提供了一种仪器分析方法，为各种样品和分析物提供了极高的分析质量。其应用包括痕量金属杂质在头发和玻璃中的特征描述，以及毒品、爆炸物、聚合物和易燃液体的鉴定。本文描述了主要的历史发展，并在可能的情况下，将已开发的能力与案例工作和法律先例联系起来。本文还深入探讨了历史应用如何演变成现代共识标准，以及如何从中脱离。与许多基于模式的技术和物理匹配方法不同，质谱分析具有坚实的科学基础和成功应用的悠久历史，使其成为刑事和民事案件中最可靠和最受尊敬的科学证据来源之一。话虽如此，在几个质谱证据受到质疑但被采纳的上诉判决中，判决有时仍然与质谱数据相悖，这表明质谱证据只是更大法律难题的一部分。
