AFTE Store - Correspondence: Technical Note on Toolmarks Examination: Towards a More Robust Terminology

Forensic toolmark examiners have relied on feature comparison for over a century to help determine the source of toolmarks. To facilitate the comparison process, observed features on toolmarks have traditionally been categorized as class, subclass, and individual characteristics. However, the definitions associated with these categories have come under scrutiny, and we outline the reasons for this critical evaluation. We propose a new terminology to address these current shortcomings. The suggested qualifiers for observed features on toolmarks are “due to design” and “accidental”. The goal is to use terms that do not directly imply their selectivity but solely describe the mechanisms that caused them. This approach aims to prevent confusion between observations and weights to be given to the observations, thus enhancing clarity in toolmark examination and reporting.