Rahvin writes:
But I think the real problem is how fingerprints are presented to juries. Like with DNA, a typical jury member is going to just say "well, his prints were there, so he did it," without understanding the relative probabilities involved when dealing with fingerprint analysis. The print card may have a nice set of prints, but the prints you leave on an object through normal contact aren't nearly so clear. When the jury hears "it was a match," I'm not sure that they are actually told how much of a match the prints are.
I think this goes to the heart of the case in Scotland. At the perjury trial the prosecution knew that the main evidence for the defence was to be based on fingerprints. Even knowing this the Scottish fingerprint experts were ill-prepared to demonstrate their findings, unlike their US counterparts. When questioned as to how they reached their conclusion that the prints matched one of the Scottish "experts" could only say "because I'm an expert!" They also declared that it wasn't their job to make juries fingerprint experts in 5 minutes. That smacks of arrogance.
The very foundation of any science is the ability to defend your opinion, based on the evidence that led you to that opinion. Every single day scientists stand up and give presentations and are then bombarded with questions. Every day scientists submit their findings for scrutiny and publication.
Since the OJ Simpson case defense lawyers are willing to challenge DNA evidence and this has resulted in greater stringency in collecting and analysing DNA evidence. Challenging DNA evidence is only possible because when evidence is given no-one testifies to 100% accuracy since there are all sorts of factors that can come into play, such as contamination.
In the Scottish fingerprint case, the Scottish experts testified to 100% certainty which is, in fact, not the case. This mindset was ingrained in the legal system and defense lawyers had no idea of the complexities of fingerprint comparison. The lawyers now know and this may be the catalyst to bring fingerprint identification in Scotland up to standard.
As to whether the Scottish FE had any formal scientific training, I really doubt it. Feast your eyes on this nonsense. When asked by the inquiry about how he went about matcing prints, one expert stated that he would identify a target area with similar features. He would then work from there until he found 16 features in agreement. Once he found the 16, he called it a match. If there were obvious differences outwith this area
he ignored them on the basis that they weren't in his target area!!! This is what this expert testified to under oath and he saw nothing wrong with that! You couldn't make this up.