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5. Major Findings and Recommendations
Pages 109-114

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From page 109...
... CABL does not, however, have the unique specificity of techniques such as DNA typing to be used as standalone evidence. It is important that criminal justice professionals and juries understand the capabilities as well as the significant limitations of this forensic technique.
From page 110...
... Recommendation: A formal and documented comprehensive proficiency test of each examiner needs to be developed by the FBI. This proficiency testing should ensure the ability of the analyst to distinguish bullet fragments that are compositionally indistinguishable from fragments with similar but analytically distinguishable composition.
From page 111...
... in each element, the committee recommends that a detailed statistical investigation using the FBI's historical dataset of over 71,000 bullets be conducted. To confirm the relative accuracy of the committee's recommended approaches to those used by the FBI, the cases that match using the committee's recommended approaches should be compared with those obtained with the FBI approaches, and causes of discrepancies between the two approaches such as excessively wide intervals from largerthan-expected estimates of the standard deviation, data from specific time periods, or examiners should be identified.
From page 112...
... Recommendation: The possible existence of coincidentally indistinguishable CIVLs should be acknowledged in the laboratory report and by the expert witness on direct examination. Finding: Compositional analysis of bullet lead data alone does not permit any definitive statement concerning the date of bullet manufacture.
From page 113...
... Finding: The available data do not support any statement that a crime bullet came from, or is likely to have come from, a particular box of ammunition, and references to "boxes" of ammunition in any form are seriously misleading under Federal Rule of Evidence 403. Testimony that the crime bullet came from the defendant' s box or from a box manufactured at the same time, is also objectionable because it may be understood as implying a substantial probability that the bullet came from defendant' s box.
From page 114...
... Plasma-Mass Spectrometry Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emission Spectroscopy A 65-125 Ib casting of lead; more generally, a casting that has solidified after having been pourer! from a vessel in the form of molten metal A metal external shell, often copper, surrounding the leacl core of a bullet, frequently used for high velocity ammunition LA Laser Ablation MC-ICP-MS Multi-Collector-Inciuctively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry Melt A quantity of molten lead Mold The container into which molten metal is poured to allow it to solidify NAA Neutron Activation Analysis Pb Lead, a metallic element user!


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