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Author Topic:   Is Fingerprint Analysis a Science?
Jon
Inactive Member


Message 31 of 38 (644453)
12-18-2011 1:47 AM
Reply to: Message 30 by Straggler
12-17-2011 9:04 AM


Re: Legal Vs Unscientific
I think we're in agreement here.
There is definitely a science to fingerprint analysis.

Love your enemies!

This message is a reply to:
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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 32 of 38 (644522)
12-18-2011 5:57 PM
Reply to: Message 27 by Trixie
12-16-2011 2:24 PM


Re: singled out?
he fact is that, i te UK, prior to this case, FEs were not cross-examined, they did not illustrate the evidence on which they based their findings and they declared that they were 100% certain.
I took some time to read portions of the Fingerprint Inquiry Report, and I came away with a slightly different impression. Apparently there were court procedures for challenging fingerprint evidence, but apparently the use of the procedures was quite rare.
From the report with reference to Ms. McKie's trial for perjury. Mostly from chapter 11.
quote:
The defence position changed dramatically when Mr Wertheim examined the mark on 24 March 1999. That was less than three weeks before the start of the sitting of the High Court when the trial was scheduled to take place. From that point both
prosecution and defence were dealing with a situation that was unique, at least in Scotland.
Also
quote:
Equally, there can be no criticism of the Crown failing to instruct an external review of the fingerprint evidence at that stage. The conflict among the fingerprint examiners for the prosecution and the defence was a matter for the jury
It seems that there were procedures for challenging fingerprint evidence, but that the prosecution was utterly unprepared for the reality that someone might actually want to do so.
What I find fascinating about the perjury trial is that in the US, government witnesses are almost never tried for testimony that is demonstrated in court to be false. In cases where the evidence is primarily fingerprint evidence, among the more obvious lines of defense must be a bad identification.
quote:
It is unlikely that, even with the benefit of more time to prepare, the SCRO witnesses would have been able to present their evidence in a more effective manner. The SCRO examiners were ill-prepared to meet the challenge. Fingerprint evidence having been for so long treated as routine evidence the SCRO examiners had neither the training nor the experience to equip them to justify their opinions.
My impression is that the treatment of fingerprint evidence in Scotland may have become atrophied and sloppy through the lack of vigorous challenges, to the point where Ms. McKie was subjected to a trial based on accusations generally aren't even pursued. If my impression is a fair assessment, then perhaps we should be grateful that left leaning, bleeding heart lawyers here in the US put DA's through the wringer while defending people we'd consider to be criminal scum.
The report doesn't challenge the idea that fingerprints are unique, but rather the idea that people are actually performing fingerprint analysis for the state are actually able to give relevant testimony on the identification based on their comparisons of fingerprint exemplars to non-ideal, perhaps incomplete and distorted impressions found at crime scenes. The two ideas are markedly different.
I'd recommend reading Chapter 12 of the report which deals with the testimony and cross examination at trial.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 33 by Trixie, posted 12-18-2011 8:47 PM NoNukes has replied

  
Trixie
Member (Idle past 3706 days)
Posts: 1011
From: Edinburgh
Joined: 01-03-2004


Message 33 of 38 (644531)
12-18-2011 8:47 PM
Reply to: Message 32 by NoNukes
12-18-2011 5:57 PM


Quick reply
Just a quick reply cos I'm heading for bed.
you say
What I find fascinating about the perjury trial is that in the US, government witnesses are almost never tried for testimony that is demonstrated in court to be false. In cases where the evidence is primarily fingerprint evidence, among the more obvious lines of defense must be a bad identification.
It's not commonplace here either, but this case was unique. Briefly the only evidence against the murder suspect was a fingerprint found on a tin containing cash in his bedroom. This fingerprint was said to have come from the murder victim and that the accused had stolen the tin of money when he murdered her. The problem was, his parents insisted that they had given him the tin, originally containing candy, a few years before. The entire prosecution depended on fingerprint evidence. By testifying at the murder trial that she had never been in the house, the police officer put the entire case against the accused in jeopardy because it raised the question of the validity of the fingerprint identification and the competence of the FEs.
The accused was convicted of murder, but it was believed that the police officer had put the entire case in jeopardy just to save face. She had never been authorised to enter the scene of the crime, in fact it would have been very irregular for her to have done so. What they didn't consider for a moment was that she was telling the truth.
It has subsequently been determined that the fingerprint on the candy tin did not belong to the victim and that the FEs had made TWO errors in one case. The conviction has been overturned.

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 34 of 38 (644535)
12-18-2011 9:22 PM
Reply to: Message 33 by Trixie
12-18-2011 8:47 PM


Re: Quick reply
It's not commonplace here either, but this case was unique.
Consider the following case currently on going in my current hometown.
The murder conviction of Michael Peterson was recently overturned based almost completely on the fact that a state investigator was found to have lied about his credentials and the evidence in the murder trial, and committed other serious acts such as misrepresenting evidence and hiding exculpatory evidence in 34 other cases.
While it may be difficult to show deliberate lying about the evidence, surely the perjury related to his credentials (e.g. claiming to have tested about blood spatter evidence in 200 cases when the actual number is more like 50) ought to be a slam dunk. Despite the fact that his testimony was found to be perjured, and the fact that the man no longer works for the state, the state district attorney says that she does not intend to prosecute.

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 Message 35 by Tangle, posted 12-19-2011 3:17 PM NoNukes has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 35 of 38 (644622)
12-19-2011 3:17 PM
Reply to: Message 34 by NoNukes
12-18-2011 9:22 PM


Re: Quick reply
nonukes writes:
Despite the fact that his testimony was found to be perjured, and the fact that the man no longer works for the state, the state district attorney says that she does not intend to prosecute
Does she explain why?
(In the UK there are other prosecuting options such as perverting the course of justice.)

Life, don't talk to me about life.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 34 by NoNukes, posted 12-18-2011 9:22 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 36 of 38 (644659)
12-19-2011 8:13 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by Tangle
12-19-2011 3:17 PM


Re: Quick reply
Tangle writes:
NoNukes writes:
Despite the fact that his testimony was found to be perjured, and the fact that the man no longer works for the state, the state district attorney says that she does not intend to prosecute
Does she explain why?
Not really. The DA has expressed words concerning the general difficulty of proving intent in perjury cases.
I suspect that the reasons might involve not wanting to completely trash evidence that the state will need in the retrial of Peterson, and a general reluctance to pursue perjury of state investigators.
Edited by NoNukes, : Repair tags

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Open Access Library
Junior Member (Idle past 4341 days)
Posts: 1
Joined: 04-30-2012


Message 37 of 38 (660878)
04-30-2012 8:23 AM


Open Access Library
Open Access Library
Not really. The DA has expressed words concerning the general difficulty of proving intent in perjury cases.
I suspect that the reasons might involve not wanting to completely trash evidence that the state will need in the retrial of Peterson, and a general reluctance to pursue perjury of state investigators.
Edited by Open Access Library, : No reason given.
Edited by Admin, : Spamify the link.

Replies to this message:
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Admin
Director
Posts: 12998
From: EvC Forum
Joined: 06-14-2002
Member Rating: 2.3


Message 38 of 38 (660881)
04-30-2012 8:54 AM
Reply to: Message 37 by Open Access Library
04-30-2012 8:23 AM


Re: Open Access Library
Hi Open Access Library,
You posted a bare link (violation of rule 5 of the Forum Guidelines), you posted no words of your own (violation of rule 4), and you posted words from the previous post without quoting them (violation of rule 7).
I suspect that you posted the link in an attempt in increase the rank in search engines like Google, so I am disabling it. For typical spammers selling escort services and viagra and the like yours is not unusual behavior, but for a legitimate biology research site this is a first. Shame on you.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

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