Calvin Goddard
Laci Jepson
Criminal Forensics
Hour 5
9/11/2014
Calvin Goddard
Calvin Goddard was a researcher, a pioneer in forensic ballistics, and a forensic scientist.
He was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1891. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree and a medical degree from Johns Hopkins University.
He created the Bureau of Forensic Ballistics alongside C. E. Waite, Phillip O. Gravelle, and John H. Fisher in New York in 1925. The Bureau, headed by Goddard, was the first independent criminological laboratory in the United States. The Bureau of Forensic Ballistics was formed to offer identification of firearms in the U.S., but evolved into fingerprinting, trace evidence, and blood analysis along with ballistics.
Goddard was working in the field of criminal justice throughout 1920s40s. Before joining criminal justice he was a colonel of the United States Army. He was also an editor for the American Journal of Police Science, and a professor of police science at Northwestern
University. After WWII, Calvin Goddard commanded the US Army Crime Laboratory in Japan.
Calvin Goddard was involved in the Sacco and Vanzetti case. Italian Born, Sacco and Vanzetti were American Anarchists. They were arrested for a robbery of $15,766.51 from a shoe factory and the murder of a security guard in South Braintree, Massachusetts. They were sentenced to the electric chair in 1927. However, when contradicting ballistics evidence arose and a confession of helping in the robbery from a third person, their sentence was postponed. Soon it became a worldwide known case. The case was appointed to Goddard to examine and trace the firearms used in the crime. After he examined the spent casings recovered from the robbery, the bullet that killed the security guard, and Sacco’s .32 Colt, he concluded that Nicola Sacco and
Bartolomeo Vanzetti were guilty. They were executed on August 23, 1927.
Criminal Forensics
Hour 5
9/11/2014
Calvin Goddard
Calvin Goddard was a researcher, a pioneer in forensic ballistics, and a forensic scientist.
He was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1891. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree and a medical degree from Johns Hopkins University.
He created the Bureau of Forensic Ballistics alongside C. E. Waite, Phillip O. Gravelle, and John H. Fisher in New York in 1925. The Bureau, headed by Goddard, was the first independent criminological laboratory in the United States. The Bureau of Forensic Ballistics was formed to offer identification of firearms in the U.S., but evolved into fingerprinting, trace evidence, and blood analysis along with ballistics.
Goddard was working in the field of criminal justice throughout 1920s40s. Before joining criminal justice he was a colonel of the United States Army. He was also an editor for the American Journal of Police Science, and a professor of police science at Northwestern
University. After WWII, Calvin Goddard commanded the US Army Crime Laboratory in Japan.
Calvin Goddard was involved in the Sacco and Vanzetti case. Italian Born, Sacco and Vanzetti were American Anarchists. They were arrested for a robbery of $15,766.51 from a shoe factory and the murder of a security guard in South Braintree, Massachusetts. They were sentenced to the electric chair in 1927. However, when contradicting ballistics evidence arose and a confession of helping in the robbery from a third person, their sentence was postponed. Soon it became a worldwide known case. The case was appointed to Goddard to examine and trace the firearms used in the crime. After he examined the spent casings recovered from the robbery, the bullet that killed the security guard, and Sacco’s .32 Colt, he concluded that Nicola Sacco and
Bartolomeo Vanzetti were guilty. They were executed on August 23, 1927.