- Starting out with pre-conceived conclusions
- Overlooking files and records
- Using secondary sources of information instead of primary sources
- Being misled by the bias of others
- Yielding to pressure for “quick action”
- Confusing conclusory data with factual data
- Failing to preserve evidence
- Failing to personally inspect “the scene”
- Recording investigation data in incomplete, haphazard manner
- Reaching a final conclusion before completely gathering and evaluating investigatory data
- Deciding on relevancy of information before all the information is gathered
- Drawing inferences that do not logically and reasonably follow from the evidence
By: Hanna Yurkovetskaya