Some legal aspects of identification of unidentified corpses

Abstract

Some problematic aspects of fingerprinting of unidentified corpses are outlined. It is noted that in the practice of law enforcement agencies there is often a situation related to the discovery of corpses, so there may be questions about the identity of the deceased and search for his relatives, as often at the time of death there are no documents proving his identity. Under such conditions, the use of fingerprinting with the use of the person, finding out the causes and death, crime detection, etc.
 Today in the country as a whole there is a problem of unsatisfactory normative definition of dactyloscopy of corpses, including with significant posthumous changes, namely there is no procedure at the level of the algorithm that would ensure the mandatory and clear sequence of such a procedure.
 In particular, it has not been determined which procedural documents the investigator sends to operatives, specialists of the Expert Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Bureau of Forensic Medical Examination. There is an acute lack of both departmental and interdepartmental regulations (including with units of forensic medical examination), which would functionally consolidate the relevant study. The recommendations available in the literature, on the one hand, are methodologically imperfect, and on the other hand, are not mandatory for forensic workers or law enforcement officers.
 The problem can be solved by appointing a comprehensive expert study with the involvement of specialists in both fields, on the basis of the forensic bureau. However, first of all, it is necessary to carry out detailed legal regulation of this type of research by departmental regulations and it is necessary to develop a clear step-by-step algorithm for such a comprehensive study.