The article discusses some aspects of additional professional education for forensic experts from different ministries conducting forensic activities. The authors believe that the the problems existing in this are systemic and hinder the implementation of the provisions of the Federal legislation on a unified scientific and methodological approach to forensic practice, professional training, and specialization of forensic experts. To implement the provisions of the law, the authors propose to organize an interdepartmental center for the additional professional education of forensic experts for the employees of state forensic institutions of various ministries and departments, as well as non-governmental examiners and foreign specialists. The concept of the center is described.

The article deals with topical issues of complex research on the traces of hands, teeth, lips as well as mechanical damage of clothing. The features and specifics of each type of research in the course of complex examinations are indicated. The author emphasizes the need for further research in the field of the complex studies of fingerprinting and dermatoglyphics, the development of a comprehensive methodology for the investigation of handprints. Some organizational and methodological aspects of the appointment and production of complex examinations are shown.

Railway forensic examinations are one of the primary means to establish the circumstances in the detection and investigation of crimes connected to the safety of traffic and operation of railway transport or traffic accidents. This type of forensic expertise falls within the class of transport and technical forensic examinations together with aviation, auto-technical, and water-technical. The forensic and expert literature still has not developed any theoretical provisions concerning the subject of the railway forensics, its objects, tasks, as well as the methodology for conducting the study. The object of forensic expertise is an integral and defining feature of the generic and species identity of the expert study, a source of information about specific events. Based on the investigative and expert practice studied by the author, specialized literature, and the author’s formualtion of the subject of the examination under consideration the classification of objects of the railway forensic examinations is proposed, the types of this kind of forensic expertise are identified.

More than a 100-year history of the development of the forensic institutions in Russia demonstrates the objective link between the stages of the system’s evolution and the political, economic, and social transformations in the society. The continuity of scientific schools in the system of forensic expert institutions of the Ministry of Justice is shown on the example of S.A. Smirnova’s activity. Leading the modern system of forensic institutions, she is a talented organizer of innovative scientific research, a major administrator who cares for her team, creates and increases the material and technical base of forensic laboratories, the scientist who has influenced the recognition in the scientific school of the Russian Federal Centre of Forensic Science in the scientific community, as well as a teacher who has brought up more than one generation of expert researchers. The set of achievements of the forensic science institutions team of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation marks the current stage in the development of forensic expertise based on continuity and deep respect for the traditions of the scientific school with a comprehensive modernization of the practical activities of the system.

The article presents a scientific and practical analysis of ensuring the accuracy of forensic experts’ opinions. It is shown that Russian substantive and procedural legislation needs improvements in the part of the inclusion of the criteria for assessing expert opinions’ accuracy. It has become necessary to develop more explicit criteria for the appointment of additional and re-examinations. New legal definitions are required to establish the cases when probabilistic and evaluative characteristics may be the ground for doubts in the accuracy of an expert’s opinions. Basing on the official statistics of expert errors ascertained by justice, the author proposes to define the criteria of expert opinions’ accuracy in the legislation.

The mobility of digital technologies results in the increased number of conducted forensic facial recognitions on video materials obtained during investigations of criminal incidents. Unfortunately, a significant amount of research ends with the conclusion that it is impossible to identify the person in question, because there is not a sufficient number of anatomical features displayed on the video. The author has tried to analyze and reflect on the existing problems, to offer their solutions. To overcome the negative trends in forensic facial recognition a complex of measures is suggested: 1) to improve the quality of methodological support of expert research; 2) to use the entire spectrum of human appearance characteristics (including complex and dynamic) for solving the identifications tasks; 3) to modernize comparison methods through introduction of information technologies; 4) to expand the scope of legal regulation of forensic expertise. In the context of the author’s comprehensive cross-sectoral approach to the procedure of appointment and conduct of identificational facial recognition, its effectiveness will depend on the quality of enhancement of the methodological, legal and technical support for expert research of the entire volume of visual information about a person captured on a video recording.

This work aimed to study the possibility of using chemometric methods in the analysis of IR spectra in the middle region for a comparative study of narcotic drugs. The results of using a chemometric (discriminant) method for analyzing the IR spectra of the middle IR-region of samples of the narcotic drug α-pyrrolidinovalerophenone from different sources of seizure are presented, which allowed us to divide the investigated substances into different classes and refer them to different sources. It was found that when forming the table of standards, it is necessary to minimize the influence of the background, the concentration of the active substance in the tablet with potassium bromide, and the thickness of the light-absorbing layer.

The article presents the practice of conducting forensic examinations to determine the causes of falling trees by the Centre of wood expertise “ZDOROVY LES”, the most common questions put before experts, the sequence of an expert’s actions as well as it enumerates the causes of falling for damaged trees. The author reviews the list of modern devices needed for the diagnostic of the internal state of trees to detect the dilapidated ones, describes how to use the equipment.

The study is a part of the research of the Russian Federal Centre of Forensic Science of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation. It is the initial stage in the development of methodological recommendations for conducting forensic handwriting examinations of images of handwritten objects in digital photocopies of documents. The author has analyzed the current procedural legislation and judicial practice on the use of digital photocopies of documents in proof, as well as the modern expert practice of handwriting studies concerning the images of handwriting realizations presented in such copies. The analysis has shown that these forensic handwriting studies are being quite actively conducted in both judicial and extrajudicial examinations; however, they acquire the procedural status of evidence in the case. Though, the object remains outside the scope of expert methodological support and a comprehensive systematic review in the theoretical aspect. The author considers this practice unacceptable.

The article reviews a complex of issues related to determining the properties and attributes of images – handwriting objects presented in photocopies of documents, their qualitative characteristics, and other factors essential for conducting forensic handwriting examinations and formulating relevant conclusions.

The paper presents a discussion of legal, scientific, and practical aspects of forensic linguistic analysis of the Internet extremist discourse as practiced at present and might be improved in the future. The author states that present experts’ practice in Russian legislation is based on limited knowledge of Internet linguistics properties and is conducted mostly as an empirical art in which the forensic linguist examiner acquires skill through extensive linguistic training and forensic experience. Courtroom cases in which forensic linguists have offered their written reports and testimony on extremist materials distributed on the Internet have got negative critical assessment in mass-media and scientific linguistic society. The judicial responses have varied with rulings, both admitting and rejecting extremist linguistic evidence. To some extent, the various legal viewpoints have reflected various linguistic methodical perspectives regarding the extremist diagnostic criteria to be expected in the examined Internet discourse represented under various forensic and communicative conditions. The necessity to use the unified linguistic criteria of resolving Internet text ambiguity is substantiated in the paper. The author concludes that methodological uncertainties concerning the contemporary expert practice of detecting linguistic signs of extremist statements are so significant as requiting that the forensic applications be approached with great caution.

One of the pressing issues of forensic activity is the absence of an approved list of the necessary and sufficient documentation to conduct a full and comprehensive study for every type and kind of forensic examination, including construction forensics. This makes the tasks put before an expert more challenging, expands the duration of the examination, and sometimes it even leads to the additional and re-examinations. The resolution of this problem would make the work easier for investigators and experts streamlining their activity at the early stages of investigations. The author identifies the types of input data for forensic construction and technical examinations of destroyed buildings. The article provides a list of documentations regulating the research process in cases of building collapse; limits for the use of equipment and tools are also covered.

There has been an increase in the relevance of forensic and expert support for investigating the negligent harm caused by health workers to patients' health, often resulting in death. Such actions (inaction) of medical workers are identified as a specific category of “iatrogenic crimes”. The forensic characteristic of iatrogenic crimes has some distinct features, including their subject, distinctiveness of the circumstances that occur during diagnostic, treatment, and rehabilitation procedures, as well as the ways of hiding the traces of a crime. To improve the quality of the investigation of iatrogenic crimes, the author proposes to create a forensic information network, substantiates the need to ensure the possibility of remote consultations for investigators with highly qualified medical specialists using telemedicine technologies, and to conduct thorough preparation for the appointment of forensic examinations. It is recommended that the concluding documents of every investigation and trial of iatrogenic crimes include a more detailed presentation of the progress and results of expert opinions' assessment.

The issues of exercising expert’s rights when ordering a forensic examination, entrusting its production to a specific competent person, conducting a study, reflecting its process and the results in the expert’s opinion do not lose their relevance. Basing on the analysis of practice for the appointment and conduct of forensic construction and technical examinations, the authors of the article have examined the organizational and legal problems encountered by an expert when familiarizing himself with the case materials and studying them; applicating for additional materials; involving another expert in the production of an examination, as well as in the exercising other expert’s rights provided by the legislation on forensic examination.

The article discusses forensic situations when it is often allowed either an unjustifiably broad interpretation of the provisions of the law in this part, or an unreasonably narrow, and sometimes incorrect, in the authors’ opinion, their interpretation. All this prevents the expert from working efficiently, leads him to procedural errors, which, in turn, makes him vulnerable to reasonable criticism of opponents and creates the preconditions for an investigator or court to evaluate expert’s opinion as a piece of unacceptable evidence. The authors propose ways to overcome these negative trends and related practical issues in forensic construction and technical examination.