Edmond Locard

Edmond Locard (ca.1915)

Edmond Locard (born December 13, 1877 in Saint-Chamond (Loire) , † April 4, 1966 in Lyon ) was a French doctor and lawyer. He is considered a pioneer in the field of forensics , which was also called "Sherlock Holmes of France". He formulated the basic principle of forensic science - that "every touch leaves a trace". This was called Locard's rule or also Locard's principle . Edmond Locard had a prominent role in the European and worldwide development of forensics , in particular chemical trace analysis (forensic chemistry) and micro-dust trace analysis. He is the son of Arnould Locard (1841–1904).

Life and work

Edmond Locard was born in Saint-Chamond (Loire). His family moved to Lyon a few years later. He studied medicine and law at the Universities of Demoiselles Blanchoux and College St Thomas Aquin. He was fluent in eleven languages, both spoken and written, including Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Sanskrit. After completing his studies, he became assistant to the French doctor Alexandre Lacassagne (1844–1921), who is often referred to as the father of modern forensic medicine, at the University of Lyon . Lacassagne became Locard's mentor.

In 1902 Locard received his doctorate in medicine. A few years later he began studying law. In 1907 he passed the bar exam.

In 1908 Locard began to travel the world. First he studied in Paris with the French anthropologist Alphonse Bertillon (1853-1914) in order to understand the anthropometric system of criminal investigation. In the following years he visited the police stations in Berlin, Rome and Vienna. Further trips took him to the United States of America, where he also got to know the police stations in New York and Chicago. After visiting the criminalist Archibald Rudolph Reiss in Lausanne, he finally returned to Lyon in 1910.

In 1910, there was an increase in the number of violent crimes, especially murders, in Lyon. Locard managed to convince the Lyon police of the advantages of having a laboratory for collecting and examining evidence. In the police department, he was given two attic rooms and two assistants. It was the first police laboratory to investigate criminals. In November of the same year, his investigative work solved his first case with the help of a fingerprint, twelve years after the first fingerprint identification under the direction of Bertillon.

In 1912 the laboratory was officially recognized by the Lyon Police. Locard directed the world's first official police crime laboratory for basic scientific research in forensic ballistics , toxicology and identification . It received worldwide recognition and passed on its knowledge to many criminalists in the following years. One of them was the Swede Harry Söderman (1902-1956), who became Locard's mentor.

Between 1914 and 1918, Locard developed his conclusions on fingerprint identification and the criteria used to provide reliability based on statistical analysis. His study, published in 1918, found the following tripartite rule:

• If there are more than twelve features on a clear print, there is an irrefutable certainty of identity.

• Eight to twelve features are borderline cases; the certainty depends on the clarity of the imprint, the rarity of the type of feature, the presence of the pattern core or deltas, the direction and size of the angles at bifurcations (the perfect and obvious identity in terms of the width of the papillary ridges and valleys that Direction of the lines and the angular value of the branches), as well as the presence of pores. Locard is therefore also considered the founder of poroscopy , ridgeology and edgeoscopy .

• If there are fewer than eight features, then it is a question of a partial imprint; a reliable assessment is not possible.

He continued his research until his death in 1966. During the First World War , Locard was used as an officer because of his great knowledge of foreign languages ​​to decode secret messages.

In 1929 Locard founded the International Academy for Criminology in Lausanne with the Swiss criminalist Marc Bischoff, the Austrian Siegfried Türkel , the Dutch CJ van Ledden Hulsebosch and the German Georg Popp . However, the academy was not to survive the Second World War. Further police laboratories were set up, even after the Second World War, based on the model and influence of Locard. After Locard's death there was a significant decline in criminalistic developments in France.

Locard published more than 40 works in French, English, German and Spanish. His best known work are the seven volumes of the Traité de criminalistique (textbook of criminalistics), published between 1931 and 1935. In this monumental work he presented the methodology of this new science. It is still the basis for all forensic laboratories worldwide today. This contract includes a detailed study of the criminal investigation, the search for traces of fingerprints and proof of identity, the expertise of written documents and falsification of the research. Many of his books are significant contributions to the field of forensic science and forensic science. His publications include several works on the police investigations that he personally conducted.

Locard was also an avid philatelist and wrote several books on the subject. As an opera critic and patron of the theater, Locard published numerous articles as a writer and journalist in Lyon magazines in his spare time. Various articles appeared in collaboration with his friend Marcel E. Grancher in publications with the publishers Lugdunum, Payot, Rieder and Gallimard. In addition to her scientific expertise, Edmond Locard was a man of "art and words". He developed a great passion for literature, painting and music (he was a music critic for the Revue Musicale Guignol Lyonnais ). He was a member of the Académie du Merle Blanc and the Académie du Sciences et Belles Lettres and President of the Friends of Lyon and Guignol . In 1959 he organized a crime fiction prize named after him, which was awarded to H. Clarys De fil en aiguille .

He was named Commander of the Legion of Honor for his enormous contribution to forensic science. His biography Dr Edmond Locard. Mémoires d'un criminologiste was published in 1957 by Robert Corvol.

Locard's contribution to forensic science is enormous. His most important contribution is the principe de l'échange (principle of exchange), also known as Locard's rule or the Locard's principle . Locard declared: "Toute action de l'homme, et a fortiori, l'action violent qu'est un crime, ne peut pas se dérouler sans laisser quelque marque." Translated, it means that every act of an individual, and especially the violent act of a criminal offense leads to the transmission of evidence. From this sentence the entire principle of the exchange of traces between two objects after the occurrence of contact was founded, for example when a vehicle touches another car and as a result there is paint residue on both. Likewise, when someone sits in a chair, fibers from their clothing will be left on the chair, and fibers from the fabric of the chair will remain on the person's clothing.

Harry Söderman later wrote of Locard: “He put the analysis of handwriting on a more solid foundation, systematized the analysis of dust in the clothes of suspects, invented a modified method of analyzing blood traces and invented poroscopy, whereby the papillary inguinal pores of fingerprints as Means of identification are used. "

The Belgian Georges Simenon , inventor of the well-known crime figure Maigret , attended some of Locard's lectures in 1919 and 1920.

Publications

• La mort de Judas "et" Le crépuscule des Dieux ": Essais en psychologie (vers 1905)
• "L'identification des récidivistes" (The identification of repeat offenders), Paris, Maloine, 1909
• Instructions pour les recherches techniques dans les enquêtes criminelles (The police. What is it, what it should be), Paris, Payot, 1919
• The criminal investigation and scientific methods (L'enquête criminelle et les méthodes scientifiques), Paris, Flammarion, 1920
• The handbook of police techniques (Le manuel de technique policière), Paris, Payot, 1923 1934 1937 1941
• Police and policemen, Paris, Payot, 1924
• Le crime et les criminels (Crime and Criminals), Paris, La Renaissance du Livre, 1925
• The criminal investigation and its scientific methods , edited by Willy Finke, Berlin (Kameradschaft Verlags-Gesellschaft) 1930.
• Traité de criminalistique (TI et II), Les Empreintes et les traces dans l'enquête criminelle, (Textbook of forensic sciences, fingerprints and traces in criminal investigation), Lyon, Desvignes, 1931
• Traité de criminalistique (T III et IV), Les Preuves de l'identité, (textbook of forensic sciences, proof of identity), Lyon, Desvignes, 1932
• Bloody Millery Malle, Lyon, Desvigne and Co., 1933
• Tales Apaches, Lyon, Lugdunum Editions, 1933
• A primer on the history of the opera, Lyon, Desvigne and Co., 1933
• Traité de criminalistique (TV et VI), L'Expertise des documents écrits (Textbook of Criminology, The Expertise of Written Documents), Lyon, Desvignes, 1933
• Note on the identification of suspects, International Journal of Forensic Sciences, 1935
• Forensics for use by the people of the world, Lyon, Desvigne and Co., 1937
• Traité de criminalistique (T VII), L'Enquête Criminelle (text-book of forensic science, the criminal investigation), Lyon, Desvignes, 1940
• Confessions (memories of a policeman), Lyon, Editions Lugdunum, 1942
• Manuel du philatéliste (Philatelist's Manual), Paris, Payot, 1942
• Defense against crime, Paris, Payot, 1951
• At-elle empoisonné son mari (Has she poisoned her husband), Affaire Lafarge, 1954
• Le magistrat assassiné (The Murdered Judge), Affaire Fualdès, 1954
• Le crime inutile 1954
• Mata-Hari 1955
• La machine infernale, Affaire Ousini, 1955
• La fiancée de la guillotine (The Bride of the Guillotine), Affaire Lacenaire, 1956
• La vipère 1956
• Memoirs of a criminologiste, Paris, Fayard, 1958
• Mysteries of Lyon, Lyon, Pierre Bissuel Edition, 1967
• Foreword to the book by Felix Benoit, Purification Through the Ages, 1945

literature

• Quinche, Nicolas, Crime, Science et Identité. Anthology of the text fondateurs de la criminalistique européenne (1860–1930). Genève: Slatkine, 2006
• Christophe Champod, Institut de Police Scientifique et de Criminiologie BCH / Universite de Lausanne, "Edmond Locard - Numerical Standards", Journal of Forensic Identification, 45 (2) 1995
• Kingston, C. & Kirk, P., School of Criminology. University of California, Historical Development and Assessment of the 12-Point Rule in Fingerprint Identification, Berkeley, United States, 1983
• Stoney, d. Ä. and Thornton, J, "A Critical Analysis of Quantitative Fingerprint" Journal of Forensic Sciences, JFSCA, Vol. 31, No. 4, October 1986
• Mazévet, Michel, "Edmond Locard, le Sherlock Holmes français", Traboules Publishing Basis, 2006
• Jürgen Thorwald : The hour of the detectives. Becomes and worlds of criminology. Droemer Knaur, Zurich and Munich 1966, pp. 342–356.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Sciencesforensiques.com, accessed September 14, 2009
2. ^ Forensic Science: Edmond Locard ( Memento of April 24, 2009 in the Internet Archive ). Accessed September 14, 2009.
3. ↑ Champod, Christophe, Edmond Locard-Numerical Standards & Probable Identifications , Journal of Forensic Identification, 1995, pp. 136-155
4. ^ Wohlfahrt, M., housework on the history of criminalistics , not published, Wiesbaden, 1990
5. ↑ Prante, Helmut, The person recognition - Daktyloskopie, BKA series of publications, Wiesbaden, 1982
6. ↑ Kingston, C. La Regle des 12 points dans l'identification par les empreintes: historique et valeur , Revue internationale de police criminelle, 1965, pp. 62-69
7. ↑ http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3448300353.html, accessed September 15, 2009
8. ↑ Mazévet, Michel, Edmond Locard, le français Sherlock Holmes , Editions of Traboules, 2006
9. ↑ http://sciencesforensiques.com/article.php?pg=art&article=edmondlocard&noid=2 accessed on September 15, 2009
10. ^ Locard, Edmond, The criminal investigation and its scientific methods , Berlin, 1930
11. ↑ Söderman, H., On the trail of crime: Memoirs of a criminalist (Mitt liv som politimann), 1957
12. ↑ http://sciencesforensiques.com/article.php?pg=art&article=edmondlocard&noid=2 from Sciencesforensiques.com and other sources, accessed September 15, 2009