Skin Distortion
Definition
The deformation of a bite mark pattern caused by the viscoelastic properties of skin, body position, postmortem change, and healing. PCAST identified skin distortion as one of the two fundamental scientific problems (the other being the unknown uniqueness of dentition) that bite mark analysis has not resolved.
Related terms
- Black-Box Study
- A study in which qualified examiners are given realistic test cases with known ground truth and asked to make decisions under conditions...
- Foundational Validity
- The requirement, articulated in the 2009 US National Academy of Sciences report and taken up by courts and reform bodies, that a...
- Innocence Project
- A US non-profit organisation founded in 1992 by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld that uses DNA testing to challenge wrongful convictions. Its...
- Inter-Examiner Reliability
- The degree to which different qualified examiners reach the same conclusion when independently analysing the same evidence. Studies of bite mark analysis...
- Wrongful Conviction
- A conviction that is later determined to be factually incorrect, usually through post-conviction DNA testing or other newly available evidence. Bite mark...
Explained in
- The Bite Mark Controversy: NAS and PCAST CritiquesThe deformation of a bite mark pattern caused by the viscoelastic properties of skin, body position, postmortem change, and healing. PCAST identified skin dist...