Secondary Transfer of Organic Gunshot Residue After Handshakes, Arrests

Secondary transfer is a bugaboo in forensic science. As instrumentation has picked up increasingly microscopic trace evidence, the concern an innocent person could by implicated by DNA or other molecules from a crime scene has become an increasing focus of defense arguments—and of laboratory research.

Organic gunshot residues can be transferred through weapons handling, handshakes and arrests, according to new trials undertaken by a Swiss and Australian team and published in the journal Science and Justice.

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