The data show clear trends between the quality of bitemarks and the outcomes examined. As the bite injury patterns exhibited more unique features, expert disagreement about their analysis decreased. This suggests that bitemark injuries that do not have prominent distinctive features are at higher risk for disagreement among expert forensic analysts, error, and consequent miscarriages of justice. Bitemark evidence in child abuse cases (bitemarks on alleged child-abuse victims) had statistically significantly lower forensic value than those in other crime types. This may be because child abuse cases often involve "closed populations" in which only one or two potential suspects have access to the child. In such cases, odontologists may consider that accepting a lower level of detail within a bitemark is justified. There may also be a bias related to a greater desire by the examiner to assist in resolving the case because the victim is a child. Using a case mix of 49 bitemark cases from 2000 to 2007, each bitemark injury was independently assessed for its forensic significance, using a previously described bitemark severity scale. Following the assessment, the mean value for the bites was categorized according to the crime type, the degree of expert agreement, and the legal outcome. 2 tables, 3 figures, and 15 references