Common Approach Path

The common approach path is a very important part of the collection of evidence process as it can dramatically decrease the time needed to fully examine a scene and remove the evidence. The common approach path is made by the scenes of crime officers before they start to fully investigate the crime scene, the path starts at the entrance of the crime scene and leads to all the evidence that is in the scene. The reason why a common approach path is needed is to set a clear path for the scenes of crime officers and anyone else who happens to enter the scene so that they do not just walk anywhere as this could result in evidence being contaminated or destroyed. As well as this the common approach path also makes it very easy for the scenes of crime officers to access every piece of evidence at the scene, this is because when the common approach path is set up all the evidence that has been located is marked and numbered which makes sure that no evidence can be lost or misplaced.

OJ Simpson

In the OJ Simpson case where OJ allegedly killed Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman there was no common approach path set up by the scenes of crime officers. This resulted in a lot of evidence either going missing or getting contaminated. As the crime scene officers did not arrive at the time that they should have done (they arrived around 2 hours later than expected) the collection of evidence process turned into a bit of a rush which resulted in the scenes of crime officers missing out very important steps such as the common approach path and making sure they were wearing the correct PPE. Due to them being late other members of the police force Such as Riske and Terrazas who were the first attending officers wandered into the scene to perform a brief examination, as there was no common approach path and they did not wear any PPE a lot of evidence was walked over and contaminated. If the scenes of  crime officers had arrived on time and followed the steps that were required of them then this issue could have been adverted and more evidence could have been recovered.