National & University laboratories: An ignored forensic science resource
Robert D Blackledge
Forensic Chemist Consultant, USA
: Forensic Toxicol Pharmacol 2015, 4:4
Abstract
Billions of dollars of tax payers money is spent every year for the operation of national and university research laboratories. This is good! It is essential that the United States maintain its edge in technology. However, as far as the examination of forensic evidence (not just research), these resources are today being ignored by the forensic science community. This is not just bad! It is extremely wasteful and does not serve justice. This presentation will examine how this situation came about, how it may be remedied, and provide examples.
Biography
Robert D Blackledge has received his BS (Chem.) from The Citadel, Charleston, South Carolina, in 1960 and MS (Chem.) from the University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, in 1962. Starting with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Tallahassee Crime Lab in 1971, he worked in forensic science for over thirty years. Breaks included eleven years with the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory-Europe, and with “Aby’s” NCIS Lab from 1989 to 2006. The author or co-author of over fifty journal articles and book chapters, he is the Editor of, “ Forensic Analysis on the Cutting Edge: New Methods for Trace Evidence Analysis ”, Wiley- Interscience, 2007.
