From the Publisher: Each volume of the Facts On File Library in a Book series is carefully designed to be a first-stop research source on important current issues. Written clearly and carefully so that even the most complex aspects of the topic are easily understandable, the books give the reader the essential information to begin work, plus the research tools needed to delve more deeply into the issues. Each book includes a history of the subject, biographical information on important figures in the field, a complete annotated bibliography, and a carefully designed index-everything the researcher needs to get down to work. Recent developments in forensic methods have revolutionized crime scene investigations so that one piece of forensic evidence can often determine an individual's guilt or innocence. Tests involving fingerprinting, polygraphs, ballistics, toxicology, voice analysis, DNA typing, and other techniques can be combined or used independently to provide information about a crime. Some of these methods have been known and used for many centuries; others have been developed only recently. Some procedures create highly valid and reliable results; others generate conclusions that may be uncertain at best or legally useless. DNA Evidence and Forensic Science examines the history and opinions surrounding the issue-from the early use of fingerprinting to identify civil servants to the latest advances in DNA typing in criminal investigations. Documents such as the Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988 and contemporary case studies such as Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals provide multiple perspectives and decisions surrounding the issue while also plotting a course for the future of legislative action pertaining to DNA evidence and forensic science.