CRIME SCENE RESPONSE
UNIT
The Crime Scene
Response Unit provides the Prosecutor's Office with a number of different
services designed to achieve the successful prosecution of criminals.
Chief among these is the investigation of homicide scenes. The Prosecutor's
Office is charged as the primary investigative agency in the instance
of homicide. With a defendant's potential exposure to the death penalty,
great care and diligence must be taken to ensure that all aspects of
evidence examination are pursued and that full exploitation of all of
the
information that a crime scene has to offer are discovered and recorded.
To these ends, highly
trained and expert crime scene investigators staff the Crime Scene Response
Unit. In fact, once an investigator is assigned to the Unit, it is extremely
rare for him to be re-assigned anywhere else. This allows the investigator
to develop an expertise based on many years of active field and lab
work. A lot of training is invested in these officers who are charged
with the responsibility of preserving, recording, collecting and preparing
all evidence for forensic and scientific analysis. Ultimately, they
must be able to testify in court as experts and ensure that their efforts
stand up to the rigorous scrutiny of the defense.
In addition to conducting
crime scene investigations and providing crime scene support for the
other investigative units of the Prosecutor's Office, the Unit assists
the prosecutorial staff with courtroom presentations. One of the jobs
of a prosecutor is to re-create the crime in the courtroom so that the
jury can understand exactly what happened and how to apply the law to
that set of circumstances. This is done through witness testimony and
the presentation of physical evidence, photographs, charts, diagrams,
maps and PowerPoint presentations. The Unit is the primary source for
many, if not most of these presentation aids.
