The Myth of Fingerprints
Fingerprints — long popularly considered the bedrock beginning of scientific detective work — are increasingly under attack and, in fact, could be abandoned in the United States as not being scientifically rigorous to be used in court cases.
Lingua Franca recently published an article by Simon Cole, one of those questioning the scientific validity of fingerprints. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Suspect Identities: A History of Fingerprinting and Criminal Identification, which maintains that fingerprint evidence lacks any solid scientific grounding.
As the article notes, the problem is not that fingerprints are not unique at some level, but rather that criminal forensics almost always deals with partial, smudged, smeared, and otherwise incomplete fingerprints — so-called latent prints — and then attempts to match them with varying degree of accuracy to clean prints taken from suspects.
Simon notes, for example, that at Daubert hearing where it defended fingerprints, the FBI itself managed to produce evidence of the problems with the process. Steven Meagher, a fingerprint specialist with the FBI, sent a copy of a latent print and the inked print from a suspect, Byron Mitchell, to state laboratories asking them to compare the two.
But rather than clarifying matters, Meagher’s survey added yet another wrinkle to the case. Seven laboratories failed to match one of the latent prints with Mitchell’s inked prints, and five failed to match the second latent print. Suddenly, [Mitchell's lawyer Robert] Epstein had a number of qualified FPEs who said that the latents from the getaway car could not be positively identified as Mitchell’s prints. The prosecution had a problem.
In fact, ironically, almost know statistically solid study of the accuracy of fingerprint matching has ever been done. Fingerprint was validated scientifically in the 19th century, but by using methods that wouldn’t pass muster today.
But could fingerprinting ever really be excluded as evidence? Law professor David Faigman thinks so. He recently told the Associated Press,
I would predict … that within the next year, if not within the next six months, some judge somewhere in the country will write an opinion excluding fingerprinting. It’s inevitable. The research is just too thin to let it in.
An alternative might be that fingerprints will still be used but defense lawyers would be allowed to attack their veracity, and jurors would be allowed to consider that in their deliberations when weighing fingerprint evidence.
Sources:
Fingerprint evidence loses credibility. Malcolm Ritter, Associated Press, April 7, 2001.
The Myth of Fingerprints. Simon Cole, Lingua Franca, November 2000.
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