>> Hi everyone, welcome back to the course.
In the last module,
we wrapped up our discussion on mobile forensics.
In this module we're just going to
talk about forensic reporting.
Just a quick pre-assessment question,
according to the Frye standard testimony
is inadmissible unless it has been deduced
from a well-recognized scientific principle
or it has gained
general acceptance in its particular field.
Is that going to be true or false? That's true.
Frye standard, just remember that scientific
related and not related to expert witness testimony.
That'll help you a lot on the exam.
Forensic reports. Basically the forensic report
is used to communicate results of an investigation.
Think of it like a first testimony.
Even if it's an informal report,
you just want to think of it as like,
how do I structure this that way if
opposing counsel was looking at
this thing and they were asking me questions about it,
I want to be able to substantiate
anything I'm listing here.
As I mentioned, we've got the informal method,
verbal is generally informal,
it can be formal as well, same with written.
That one is generally formal,
but it can also be informal as we'll see as well.
Verbal reports.
You'll sometimes hear this
called preliminary report as well,
so a preliminary and
formal pretty much the same thing there.
Generally the informal aspect of it
heard in an attorney's office.
For example, let's say you're hired by the prosecution.
You create just a general report information
>> to then verbally tell the prosecutor saying,
>> these are the things we're working on,
here's some tests we're running.
We should probably depose or get
a deposition on these particular people.
We should send subpoenas to these people, etc.
This tie in formal aspect of it,
you're just summarizing what's
going on with the investigation.
Then the formal aspect of
a formal report would be something that you would like
go to the board of directors and speak in front of them
like a civil or an administrative type
of case or to managers,
if it's like a disciplinary action type of thing,
as well as sometimes it can be
a formal verbal report to the jury.
But generally speaking, that would be also
a formal written report to the jury as well.
You might be summarizing your written report
to the jury in a formal aspect.
Not so much seen, at least on the exam,
you might see tested formal verbal report
and that would generally be something like
a board or a manager.
Then we have a written report.
Again, this one is generally formal.
That's going to be your actual thing
that you declare under oath.
You swear that yes,
this report is mine,
this information is correct in it,
etc, because then
you're going to be cross-examined on that.
There is also the, as I mentioned,
the informal aspect of it,
where you can list
out everything that's going on
with the investigation to date.
However, understand that
any written report at all can be made to be discovered.
For example, the opposing counsel can
request your informal report
and a lot of time they'll say, well,
if you have that and then they'll use that against you
under oath when you're actually testifying
in your actual written report,
your formal one, they'll try to compare them and find
differences and then question you and
discredit to you on that aspect.
Also, if you do an informal written report,
if you go ahead and destroy that,
it's actually considered destruction of evidence or
spoliation is the legal term for that.
Report structure. This is fairly straightforward,
you'll have your abstract, your table of contents,
the body of the report,
conclusion, any references,
any glossary terms,
terminology that people might need to know,
different acknowledgments like thank
you for your help so and so,
and then any appendices
of additional information or graphs,
>> that sort of stuff.
>> Expert witnesses.
The expert witness is going
to be testifying opinion-based.
They base their opinion off
of their educational background,
their knowledge, their skills and experience.
We can see all that stuff to some extent off
their CV or curriculum vitae.
But generally speaking, they're
just testifying off their opinion of,
here's the facts of the information
and based off my experience,
I think that this occurred.
Then we have our technical witness.
Generally speaking, like your forensic investigator,
that would just be testifying like,
we found these items on the computer.
We did X, Y, and Z,
we then found these particular files,
we then copied the files using this format,
then from there we did this and this and this,
and that's where we come into play with our chain of
custody that we talked about throughout the course.
The main thing here to differentiate them
between expert witness and so not
offering any type of
conclusion or opinion on the evidence,
strictly just saying I found this or that,
and we did it through this method.
The Daubert standard.
This is regarding the miscibility
of expert witness testimony.
Number one, the testimony has to
be relevant and reliable to the case,
the actual case with this is
Daubert versus Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals.
Basically, there has to be sufficient facts and
data that the expert witnesses is pulling from.
They have to use reliable principles and
methods for that data,
and then from there, they have to apply
those principles and methods to
actually formulate their actual opinion.
There are some standards in place to
>> make sure that the testimony is going to be relevant.
>> We have our Frye standard.
Again, this one is surround scientific aspect.
For this to be admissible,
it has to be related to
a well-recognized scientific principle or discovery,
or it has to have gained acceptance of the field.
It could be like a new thing going
on in the field, a new finding,
new creation, new experiment, etc,
>> but it has to have general acceptance in the field.
>> Direct versus cross-examination,
pretty straightforward here.
For example, if I'm hired by the prosecutor to
testify and they call me to the stand,
>> then that's direct.
>> They essentially hired me
and I'm being called to the stand.
Cross-examination would be,
I'm working with the prosecutor
and then the defense attorney calls
me to the stand and they cross examined me,
so basically the opposing side.
They cross examined me, asked me a bunch of questions.
Deposition. The things you want to remember for the
>> exam on this is that both the attorneys are present,
>> and according to EC council,
the jury and judge are not normally present.
Now there are situations where
a judge may be present in a deposition in real life,
but for the purposes of the exam,
just remember that jury and judges
are not normally present,
but do remember that both attorneys are present.
Then, you are in a deposition,
the opposing counsel is just asking
questions to see like,
what's your testimony at
trial would be, so just keep that in mind.
Just a quick post assessment question here,
the Frye standard relates to
the miscibility of expert witness testimony,
is that true or false?
We know that one is false, the Frye standard is
related to scientific evidence.
Then question number two, a judge and jury are
always present at a deposition,
is that true or false? That one is false as well.
As I mentioned sometimes in real life
a judge is present at a deposition,
but according to EC counsel,
the judge and jury are not present at a deposition.
In this video, we just talked about
our forensic reporting,
in the next video we're just going to
have a quick wrap-up of the course.