La inspección del lugar del hecho y la valoración legal de la huella o evidencia

The inspection of the crime scene is conceived by criminalistics as a tactical action that is carried out whenever possible in order to obtain traces or evidence in order to explain what happened, as well as to identify both the victims and the perpetrators, with the objective of deploy an investigative process. The research that is presented aims to demonstrate how when this investigative operation is carried out in compliance with the methodological norms of criminology, including respect for the chain of custody, it is possible to provide traces and other evidence from which expert opinions based on science can be issued. This evidence is evaluated by a judge and is part of the evidence that is given in a process. In preparing the article, use was made of specialized bibliographies and the experience of the authors as experts, judges and university professors. For knowledge methods, analysis-synthesis and induction-deduction were used. The main results are the relationship between an adequate inspection of the crime scene, the analysis of the traces or evidence in the forensic laboratory and the assessment of the expert opinion as evidence, which can serve as a reference for investigators, experts and operators of the criminal justice system.