Forensic appraisal as an expert identification activity and opinion evidence in the judiciary, has multifaceted characteristics. To ensure its objectivity, impartiality, scientificity, and credibility, different laws are needed to regulate it from different aspects. There are different types of dual structures in these laws, including the subject duality of “producers” and “users” in forensic appraisal legal relationships, the administrative management of forensic appraisal laws and the duality of forensic procedures, and the duality of forensic appraisal in litigation procedures. Due to differences in functions and different regulations on forensic appraisal, different laws are prone to conflicts, so it is necessary to coordinate and solve such problems. By analyzing the dual structure of forensic appraisal law, based on the analysis of the problem and its causes, the principles for solving the coordination problem of the dual structure are established, and reference ideas are proposed for resolving the legal problems of the dual structure.

The Decision on the Management of Forensic Appraisal (hereinafter referred to as the Decision) passed by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress in 2005, as the only specialized law in the field of forensic appraisal, has promulgated and implemented a unified forensic appraisal management system. However, with the progress of the rule of law and many new situations in the field of forensic appraisal, the legislation of forensic appraisal has once again become the focus of attention. The legislation of forensic appraisal is not only facing with the old problems left over from the formulation of the Decision, but also with new problems derived from the implementation of the Decision. On the basis of the operation of the existing system, it is necessary to conduct in-depth research on the major issues involved in the legislation of forensic appraisal, respectively from the macro, meso and micro levels, so as to gradually form a systematic, forward-looking and relatively mature legislative consensus.

The 2018 Supervision Law and the 2021 Implementation Regulations of the Supervision Law respectively stipulate appraisal measures in supervision and investigation, marking the emergence of supervision and appraisal methods to solve specialized problems in China after judicial appraisal and administrative appraisal methods are used. The Implementation Regulations of the Supervision Law stipulate the basic norms of appraisal measures in the scope of supervision and investigation authority. Supervision appraisal has the necessity and basic value for solving specialized problems in supervision and investigation. According to the relevant provisions of the Implementation Regulations, the appraisal measures of the supervision organs shall be entrusted to external parties, and the appraisers shall appear in court to testify, and the supervision organs shall not set up internal appraisal institutions. To improve the supervision and appraisal system, it is necessary to establish departments within the supervisory organs dealing with external entrustment, establish a list of external entrusted supervisory institutions, establish a system for reviewing supervision and appraisal opinions, and improve the system for appraisers issuing reports to testify in court.

The 23rd Triennial Meeting of the International Association of Forensic Sciences was held in Sydney, Australia from November 21 to 24, 2023. As the most influential academic communication platform in forensic science, over 1 700 registered delegates from more than 70 countries and regions around the world attended this conference and presented more than 700 oral presentations and more than 300 digital posters. Focused on the theme of “Where to from Here”, the conference set up 4 plenary sessions and 24 breakout sessions in 4 days, which systematically demonstrated the cutting-edge technologies, scientific research, value of evidence, ethical risks and quality assurance of forensic sciences worldwide. The conference paid particular attention to the challenges posed to forensic science caused by the digital transformation, explored the added value of the Sydney Declaration, and looked forward to the direction of “Where to from Here” in the context of reflection and critique.

The 60th annual meeting of the International Association of Forensic Toxicologists (TIAFT) took place in Rome, Italy, from August 27 to 31, 2023. As the most influential academic activity in the field of forensic toxicology, the annual meeting presented a platform for intellectual discourse and a great opportunity to exchange new ideas regarding research findings, hot topics, and emerging trends within the field. The conference highlighted several notable issues that are of international concern or at the forefront of forensic toxicology research, including new psychoactive substances and the evolving landscape of drug abuse, issues related to driving under the influence of alcohol, drugs, and medications, drug-facilitated crimes, clinical toxicology, postmortem toxicology, anti-doping, and systematic research advancements. Through the overview of the meeting, the authors aim at providing valuable insights and references for the research and development of forensic toxicology in China.

How to inherit the advantages of footprint inspection technology and further improve the reliability and scientific nature of this technology, has always been an urgent problem that forensic technicians need to solve. This article analyzed the development status and problems of footprint inspection technology in depth. Focused on the construction of talent echelons and management incentive mechanism, this article pointed out the lag of its professional theory in guiding practice, proposed to deepen the research on the basic theoretical system of footprint, strengthen the discovery, extraction and characterization of footprint, and deep mining feature information. It is also necessary to promote the integration of footprint inspection technology with modern criminal investigation technologies such as informatization, thus improving the application efficiency of footprint inspection technology.

Forensic appraisal of eco-environmental damage is the first forensic identification discipline that has been registered and managed through the negotiation procedure of “The Supreme People's Court of The People's Republic of China and The Supreme People's Procuratorate of The People’s Republic of China”, since the “Decision of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on the Administration of Forensic Identification”was promulgated. In the practice of forensic appraisal of eco-environmental damage, how to scientifically and objectively determine the relationship between the pollution process and the eco-environmental damage, and accurately calculate the value of eco-environmental damage have been difficult issues. This paper comprehensively summarized the identification and evaluation techniques in the major categories of eco-environmental damage, in order to provide reference to solve important and difficult issues and promote the standardization, legalization and scientific development of forensic appraisal of eco-environmental damage.

Objective To establish an analytical method for the simultaneous determination of 12 antidepressants including moclobemide and bupropion in human blood by ultra high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS). Methods Blood samples were purified through protein precipitation with acetonitrile that contained internal standard (proadifen), then the samples were injected into the UHPLC-MS/MS. The separation was performed on an ACQUITY UPLC HSS T₃ column (2.1 mm×100 mm, 1.8 µm) using gradient elution with a flow rate of 0.35 mL/min. The mobile phase consisted of water solution and acetonitrile solution that both contained 2 mmol/mL ammonium formate and 0.1% formic acid. The analytes were detected using multiple reaction monitoring mode. The electrospray ionization source was performed in positive mode.The internal standard method was used for quantification. Results The correlation coefficients of the 12 antidepressants were better than 0.999 in the corresponding concentration ranges, and the limits of detection ranged from 0.05 ng/mL to 0.2 ng/mL, the limits of quantification ranged from 0.5 ng/mL to 1 ng/mL. At different spiked concentrations (low, medium and high), the accuracy ranged from -7.1% to 11.7%, the intra-day precision ranged from 0.1% to 11.5%, the inter-day precision ranged from 1.9% to 9.4%, the extraction recoveries ranged from 85.7% to 113.5%, and the matrix effect ranged from -18.2% to 10.2%. The stability of each component at different levels of concentration and under different environment conditions ranged from -9.30% to 11.30%. All of the above results meet the requirements for biological sample analysis and forensic toxicology analysis. Conclusion The method is selective, reproducible and precise. The simultaneous determination of 12 antidepressants in human blood can be applied in forensic toxicology practice and it will be of great use in the analysis of the cause of death in unnatural death cases.

Objective To establish a method for the identification of Acipenser sinensis and its potential hybrids based on mitochondrial DNA and nuclear DNA markers. Methods Primers were designed according to the cytb gene sequence of Acipenser sinensis published in NCBI, and the single-copy nuclear gene fam43a amplification primers of sturgeon were used to amplify and sequence the DNA of Acipenser sinensis. The amplified product of fam43a gene was TA cloned and sequenced. The source of the sample was determined by BLAST sequence similarity search, and the phylogenetic tree of Acipenseridae was constructed based on the neighbor-joining method. Results The lengths of cytb and fam43a gene sequences obtained by sequencing the Acipenser sinensis samples were 728 bp and 730 bp, respectively. The fam43a gene sequences of the 10 clonal populations were completely consistent. The analysis of BLAST sequence similarity search showed that the measured cytb and fam43a gene sequences had the highest similarity with the Acipenser sinensis in the GenBank database, which were 99.86% and 100%, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the sequences of Acipenser sinensis all clustered with the DNA sequences of Acipenser sinensis in the GenBank database, and belonged to different clades with other species of Acipenseridae. Conclusion The combined use of mitochondrial DNA and nuclear DNA markers can quickly and accurately identify Acipenser sinensis and its potential hybrids. This method can meet the needs of forensic identification cases and provide technical support for the rescue and protection of Acipenser sinensis.

Objective To explore the effects of different regions and amounts of fingerprint minutiae on the evaluation of likelihood ratio of fingerprint evidence， based on automatic fingerprint identification system (AFIS) score, and to provide scientific and reliable AFIS score data for the construction of likelihood ratio model for fingerprint evidence. Methods 200 fingerprints simulated to those collected at crime scene were made. According to three different minutiae regions (the center and left/right delta) and 12 different minutiae numbers ranging from 5 to 16, the fingerprints were assembled and sent to both the self-constructed same-source fingerprint database and the ten-million-person different-source fingerprint database for matching using AFIS. The match scores from the two databases were analyzed quantitatively using statistical methods. Results For different regions of fingerprints, the results including concentration trend, high score range, and maximum values of similarity scores for same-source fingerprints were significantly better than those of different-source fingerprints. Different-source fingerprints exhibited a similar data of concentration trend across different regions. Regarding the amounts of different minutia, as the amount increased, the score variation range of same-source fingerprints was larger than that of different-source fingerprints, and the dispersion of scores of same-source fingerprints gradually increased. However, the scores of different-source fingerprints exhibited different characteristics for different amounts of minutia, showing segmented situations.Conclusion This study used AFIS to conduct “black box” experiments on the region and amount of minutia influencing the evaluation method for fingerprint evidence. The quantitative analysis method is simple and easy to implement, and is also in line with the actual quantitative analysis of the factors affecting the fingerprint evidence in ultra-large-capacity databases. The results help to enrich the forensic expert’s understanding of the region and amount of minutiae, which is conducive to the construction of a scientific and reliable likelihood ratio evaluation model for fingerprint evidence.

Objective The multimedia (video/audio) data in the embedded systems with digital video recorder (DVR) often act as vital pieces of evidence in the field of digital forensics. However, in the practice of forensic appraisal, it is common that the data in the DVR are inaccessible due to accidental deletion, malicious deletion or damage, which undoubtedly makes the digital forensics process more difficult. Methods Combined with the practice of forensic appraisal, taking the inaccessible DVR video files stored in MicroSD card as an example, the research on DVR data recovery based on the file allocation table (FAT) 32 file system and H.264 related file formats was carried out. Results The video files recovered through these two methods explored in this paper can be accessed normally, and the automatic reconstruction of DOS boot record (DBR) can also be achieved by running script files. Conclusion In this paper, we effectively recovered DVR systems data of FAT32 file system and H.264 format. In addition, we also realized the automatic reconstruction of DBR by running script files, which improved the efficiency of forensic examination. The research of relevant examination techniques has significant theoretical and practical value for the research on forensic examination of embedded DVR systems.

Although self-commissioned appraisal widely exists in our country, the current legislation does not clearly indicate its nature, the definition of  “quasi private document certificate” in cross-examination rules reserves the room for academic discussion. In the theoretical circle, there are opposing views on the nature of the opinion issued by a self-commissioned appraiser: is it factual statement or statutory evidence, where the latter has the different views as expert opinion, witness testimony and documentary evidence. In practice, there are some errors in handling the problem of self-entrusted appraisal, such as simplification of judgment view, avoidance of making clear its nature, misinterpretation of provisions and abuse of burden of proof. Based on the re-thinking and examination of theoretical differences and errors in judgment, this paper argues that self-commissioned appraisal has the dual attributes of fact assertion and evidence, and the latter is more significant. Furthermore, it is argued that opinions issued by self-commissioned appraisal should not be regarded as statutory appraisal opinions in principle, but can be converted by exception upon the consent of the parties. In the absence of consent from the parties, it may be permitted to use similar appraisal opinions for cross-examination certification. At the same time, in order to effectively avoid errors in judgment, regulations regarding burden of proof, conditions for application of appraisal, the adoption of written opinions and other issues relating to self-entrusted appraisal should be comprehensively improved, so as to better understand and apply Article 41 of the 2019 revised Several Provisions of the Supreme People's Court on Evidence in Civil Litigation on the basis of systematic interpretation.

The phenomenon that medical appraisal is over dependent on by judges in medical damages litigation is labeled as the “replacement of trial by appraisal”. Nevertheless, empirical study indicates that in the cases where the appraisal opinions are adopted, the ranges of the portion of liability corresponding with the types of liability in the appraisal opinion are wide, it is not rare for judges to decide liability and its portion not relying on the appraisal opinion, and the medical institution can be held liable without appraisal opinion. This data make the statement of replacement unpersuasive. The medical appraisal opinion is only a kind of evidence, helping judges to make the facts clear. There is gap between the replacement statement and the real function of appraisal. The misunderstanding is brought by the judges intention to avoid risks from the performance review and complaint from the parties, the complaint from the parties and some researchers also intensify the misunderstanding. The approach to replace appraisers by technical judges and expert assistants does not work. The evaluation system for medical case judges should be improved, and the parties should be encouraged to participate in the appraisal procedure.

With the rapid development of forensic science in China in recent years, a number of identification standards and technical specifications have been updated. However, due to the uniqueness of Chinese Judicial system, the application of relevant standards still causes confusions. From the aspect of applicability, this paper introduced the relevant standards of handwriting identification in Europe and the United States, and compared them with the standards of forensic handwriting identification in China. These identification standards formulated by different organizations are different in terms of basic structure, content, conclusion expression and so on. On the other hand, even domestic handwriting identification standards also varied in content and system. The causes of the differences were analyzed in this paper. Based on the current situation of domestic handwriting identification, suggestions were put forward to provide reference to the forensic practice, as well as the future modification of handwriting identification standards.