Differences in Perspectives on Forensic Stored Sample Management. A Survey of Forensic Doctors and Lawyers

There are no legal regulations regarding the handling of forensic stored samples obtained during medicolegal autopsies in Japan. Therefore, this study surveyed the attitudes of forensic doctors and criminal retrial lawyers to examine the appropriate management and handling of forensic stored samples derived from medicolegal autopsies. A questionnaire was distributed to 75 forensic doctors and 43 criminal retrial lawyers in Japan. Responses were received from 34 doctors and 21 lawyers. While 73.5% of the doctors believed that they should manage the specimens, 47.6% of the lawyers thought that a public third-party organization should manage it. Regarding the preservation of frozen samples, nearly 90% of the lawyers responded that they should be preserved permanently, and only 20% of the doctors held the same view. There was a significant difference in the perspectives between the 2 groups. It became clear that opinions on the legal management authority of samples were inconsistent not only between the forensic doctors and lawyers but also within each group. The medical and jurisprudential nature of forensic samples will require constructive discussion and appropriate management based on the principles of due process, considering the decreasing evidentiary capacity of each samples as it ages.