I now turn to a letter written by the SCRO fingerprint experts, dated 14 November 2005, to Lord President and Lord Justice General, Lord Cullen of Whitekirk.Robert Loomis was convicted in 1920 for the murder of Bertha Myers during a burglary in 1918 in Easton, Pennsylvania. Two latent print experts testified for the government that a latent print found on a jewelry box could be identified to Loomis. Loomis won a new trial on the basis of faulty jury instructions. At Loomis’s second trial, the government admitted that Loomis was not the source of the latent print and declined to offer it into evidence.
A latent print found on a calling card at the scene of the notorious Hall-Mills murders in New Brunswick, New Jersey in 1926 was attributed to William Stevens by three latent print examiners. Interestingly, one of the examiners was Joseph Faurot, who had been one of the first examiners to offer testimony in court in the United States. Two latent print examiners testified for the defense and claimed the attribution was erroneous, but they also contended, inconsistently, that the print might have been forged. Stevens was acquitted; the jury reportedly disregarded the latent print evidence.
John “The Bug” Stoppelli was convicted in 1948 for the sale of narcotics in Oakland. After a drug raid, in which four other suspects were arrested, a latent print was recovered from an envelope containing heroin. The print did not match any of the four arrested. After an extensive database search, Internal Revenue Agent W. Harold “Bucky” Greene attributed the latent to Stoppelli, a parolee in New York City. Greene found fourteen matching ridge characteristics. No other evidence linked toppelli to the crime. Stoppelli was convicted. Eventually, his attorney, Jake Ehrlich, convinced the arresting officer, Colonel White, to talk to Stoppelli. White became convinced of Stoppelli’s innocence and had the print reviewed by the FBI laboratory.85 The FBI excluded Stoppelli as the source of the print, and President Truman commuted his sentence. He had served two years.
Roger Caldwell was convicted of the murder of Elisabeth Congdon in Minnesota in 1978. Three latent print examiners attributed a latent print found on an envelope to Roger Caldwell. The envelope was addressed to Caldwell and contained a gold coin believed to have been stolen from the victim’s home. The examiners were: Steven Sedlacek, who testified for the government at trial, Claude Cook, who “verified” Sedlacek’s identification, and Ronald Welbaum, who was retained by Caldwell and also corroborated the match. All three were IAI-Certified Latent Print Examiners. Sedlacek testified that “the latent print partial . . . I found to be identical with the inked impression on the fingerprint card bearing the name Roger Caldwell.” This conclusion was based on eleven matching ridge characteristics and no unexplainable dissimilarities. The original negative of the latent print was reexamined for the trial of Caldwell’s wife and supposed co-conspirator, Marjorie Caldwell. The forensic scientist Herbert MacDonell and the latent print examiners George Bonebrake and Walter Rhodes testified that Roger Caldwell could not have been the source of the latent print. Marjorie Caldwell was acquitted, and Roger won a new trial. That the fingerprint evidence was erroneous does not necessarily exonerate the Caldwells, and Roger Caldwell eventually pled guilty to time served rather than submitting to a new trial. On the other hand, a guilty plea to time served is a difficult offer for even an innocent person to refuse and is, therefore, not particularly convincing evidence of Caldwell’s guilt. Sedlacek, certifications revoked by the IAI.
Special Agent German reports a case of erroneous identification reported by an examiner from “a small American police department in the Midwest” in 1984. The nature of the crime is not reported. The defendant was a parolee. Testimony implicating the defendant based on latent print evidence was given at a preliminary hearing and parole revocation hearing. The latent print examiner was IAI-certified and was decertified upon exposure of the error. The defendant was released upon exposure of the misidentification. German reports that “[t]he Latent Print Examiner, being relatively new in the business, had not previously caused anyone’s incarceration based upon fingerprint evidence and the Prosecutor decided that no future warrants would be issued based on just the local examiner’s work.” After decertification, the examiner continued to work as a police officer, crime scene technician, and, apparently, latent print examiner, since German reports that the examiner “to my knowledge has since always submitted fingerprint identifications to outside agencies for verification.” German withholds the identifying details “because I am proud of his (and his department’s) integrity and professionalism.”
Michael Cooper was arrested for being the “Prime Time Rapist,” a serial rapist, in Tucson, Arizona in 1988. Two latent prints from two different crime scenes were attributed to Cooper by two law enforcement personnel: Timothy O’Sullivan and Gene P. Scott. While O’Sullivan apparently had minimal latent print experience, Scott was a Supervisor. The examiners claimed to have found “eleven or twelve” corresponding ridge characteristics between a crime scene print and an inked print taken from Cooper, and Scott called the match a positive comparison. On the basis of the fingerprint evidence, Cooper was subjected to an illegal interrogation, which the Ninth Circuit later decided violated his civil rights. During the interrogation, one investigator, Weaver Barkman, began to harbor doubts about Cooper’s guilt, which he expressed outside the interrogation room. According to Barkman, his supervisor, Tom Taylor, “said something very close to fingerprints do not lie. Get your #$$@ back in there, Weaver.” Identification technician Mary McCall also participated in the interrogation, telling Cooper that he had been positively identified by fingerprint evidence. The record does not show whether or not McCall had yet examined the evidence herself. Upon double-checking her work, however, McCall began to doubt the match. O’Sullivan and Scott initially “ignored her and declined to reexamine the exemplars.” Eventually, however, the examiners changed their conclusion to one of exclusion. At the time, they maintained that there were twelve corresponding ridge characteristics but also some unexplainable dissimilarities, which rendered the comparison an exclusion. Scott and O’Sullivan were demoted, and McCall was suspended for two days without pay.
Bruce Basden was arrested in 1985 for the murders of Remus and Blanche Adams in Fayetteville, North Carolina. A latent print found in the Adams’ home was attributed to Basden by latent print examiner John Trogden. Upon reexamining and enlarging the evidence in response to a discovery request by the defense, Trogden withdrew his conclusion of identification. The charges were dismissed. Basden had been jailed for thirteen months.
The FBI and the North Carolina State Bureau of Identification reviewed the work of Trogden and another latent print examiner named Sue George. Their review found three erroneous identifications. A latent print in a burglary case was attributed to Maurice Gaining, who had been convicted of burglary and sentenced to ten years. The print apparently belonged to Gaining’s co-defendant James Hammock. Other latent print evidence, reportedly correctly attributed, remained against Gaining in other pending burglary cases. Coincidentally, one of the other misattributed prints was attributed to Hammock in another burglary case for which he was sentenced to ten years.124 Again, there was additional print evidence, apparently correctly attributed, against Hammock.125 The third error was the attribution of a palm print to Darian Carter. Carter had been convicted of larceny and sentenced to ten years. Again, there were also two fingerprints, which had apparently been correctly attributed to Carter. Identification Bureau officials noted that the errors occurred “early in the identification careers” of Trogden and George, that the examiners “did not have [the] luxury” of “learn[ing] from more experienced people,” and that they “had identified a record 118 fingerprints in 1987.” Trogden and George remained on the job. Their supervisor commented, “I’m not going to throw them out because of a mistake. I think with additional experience and training, our print examiners will be the finest in the state.”
Neville Lee was arrested in 1991 in Nottinghamshire, England, for the rape of an eleven-year-old girl on the basis of a supposed fingerprint match. It is not known how many corresponding ridge characteristics were identified, but at that time a minimum requirement of sixteen matching ridge characteristics was in force in the United Kingdom. Lee’s home was wrecked by vigilantes, and he was assaulted in jail. Another individual subsequently confessed to the crime, and Lee was released. The authorities admitted that the fingerprint match was erroneous.
Martin Blake136 was arrested and interrogated for three days in 1994 for the murder of seven people during a robbery in Palatine, Illinois. A Chicago Police Department latent print examiner matched a print from the crime scene, a Brown’s Chicken & Pasta, to Blake. Upon review by the Illinois State Police and the FBI, the match was determined to be erroneous.
Andrew Chiory was charged in 1996 for the burglary of the home of Miriam Stoppard, a writer and broadcaster who also happened to be the exwife of the well-known playwright Tom Stoppard, in London, England. Two separate latent prints from the crime scene were attributed to Chiory. Both matches were “allegedly triple-checked,” and both were
conducted under the requirement for sixteen corresponding ridge characteristics in force in the United Kingdom at that time. Chiory served two months in prison before the match was exposed as erroneous. Despite an extensive external investigation of this miscarriage of justice, no explanation for the misidentification has ever been made public.
Danny McNamee was convicted in England in 1987 of conspiracy to cause explosions. He was dubbed the “Hyde Park Bomber” for his alleged role in a 1982 Irish Republican Army bombing that killed four soldiers and seven horses. McNamee was implicated in the crime by three latent prints: two from tape found with explosive-making equipment, and one from a battery recovered from debris after a controlled explosion in London. The latent print from the battery was the most incriminating. At McNamee’s trial, Metropolitan Police latent print examiners offered evidence that McNamee was the source of the latent print on the battery. As McNamee appealed his conviction, controversy emerged over the battery print. At least fourteen different examiners analyzed the evidence. Two Glasgow examiners found eleven corresponding characteristics between the latent print and McNamee’s inked prints, but they were not the same eleven characteristics. At least two Dorset examiners also attributed the print to McNamee, but did not agree with some of the corresponding ridge characteristics identified by the original examiners.151 Other experts, including Peter Swann and Martin Leadbetter, found the latent print insufficient for identification. The appeals court quashed the fingerprint evidence, the case collapsed, and McNamee was released in 1998 after serving eleven years in prison.
Scottish Criminal Records Office Cases
These were the best-known cases of fingerprint misidentification until the Mayfield case. The cases surrounded the murder of Marion Ross in Kilmarnock, Scotland in 1997. David Asbury was identified as a suspect, in part, based on a latent print found on biscuit tin in his home containing a substantial amount of cash. The print was attributed to Marion Ross. Asbury was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Shirley McKie, a detective with the Strathclyde Police Department, had been assigned to secure the crime scene. A latent print found inside Ross’s house was attributed to McKie.158 (It is standard practice to “eliminate” latent prints by checking them against the known prints of nonsuspects, such as victims and investigating police officers.) McKie denied entering the house.159 After resisting substantial pressure to admit having abandoned her post and entered the house, McKie was charged with perjury. Both the Ross and McKie fingerprint matches were attested to by four (the same four in both cases) latent print examiners from the Scottish Criminal Records Office (SCRO) and were described as meeting the British requirement of having at least sixteen corresponding ridge characteristics. However, unbeknownst to either prosecution or defense, five SCRO examiners had declined to attribute the disputed print to McKie.163 A clinical psychologist who examined McKie and formed the opinion that she was telling the truth was “told that any question of a mistake in the fingerprint evidence was ‘unthinkable because of its implications.’”
On the eve of McKie’s trial, in 1999, she and her father Iain McKie, a former police officer, persuaded two American examiners, Pat Wertheim and David Grieve, to come to the Scotland to reexamine the evidence. Wertheim and Grieve testified that McKie could not be the source of the latent print. McKie was acquitted and released.
In 2002, the biscuit tin latent was reviewed by Wertheim and Allan Bayle, a former Scotland Yard examiner. They concluded that Ross could not be the source of the print. In other words, the SCRO had allegedly made two erroneous identifications in a single investigation. Asbury was released. This does not necessarily mean that he was
actually innocent. McKie sued the police, and a full investigation into the SCRO was launched. Two extensive reports issued in response to the scandal said a great deal about the organizational culture and procedures of the Scottish Criminal Records Office, but virtually nothing about the technical details of the McKie and Asbury attributions themselves and why they may have occurred. Reforms were instituted at the SCRO.
In 1998, Richard Jackson was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Alvin Davis, his friend and occasional lover, in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. The sole evidence against Jackson was a latent print found on a fan in Davis’s home. Three latent print examiners attributed the crime scene print to Jackson: Anthony Paparo of the Upper Darby police, William Welsh of the county police, and Jon Creighton, an IAI-certified examiner from Vermont. Jackson hired his own experts, Vernon McCloud and George Wynn, both former examiners for federal agencies, who concluded that he was not the source of the print. With McCloud and Wynn questioning the prints, the government hired a consultant, Eugene Famiglietti. According to District Attorney Patrick Meehan, Famiglietti said, “You guys made a gutsy call. Stick to your guns.” Later, however, Famiglietti said the comparison was inconclusive.
Although McCloud and Wynn testified at trial, the jury convicted Jackson, and he was sentenced to life in prison. After Jackson was convicted, McCloud and Wynn complained to the IAI and the FBI. The FBI and the five members of the IAI Latent Print Certification Board reviewed the evidence and agreed with McCloud and Wynn’s conclusion that Jackson was not the source of the print. After some prosecutorial resistance and delays, Jackson was released, having served two years in prison. The true perpetrator has never been caught. Creighton was decertified by the IAI.
Journalists’ investigation of two disputed identifications in Manchester, England (the Wallace case and McNamara case) turned up an erroneous identification that occurred in 2000. This attribution had been “triple-checked.” The suspect had a convincing alibi and did not fit the witness’s description. It was eventually discarded as an erroneous identification. It is not known how many corresponding ridge characteristics were testified to in these two misidentifications, but the sixteen-point minimum standard was in place in the United Kingdom at that time.
Kathleen Hatfield was mistakenly identified as dead, based on an erroneous fingerprint identification in 2002. In June 2002, an unidentified corpse was found in the desert near Las Vegas, Nevada. “After some skin restoration using tissue builder,” the coroner was able to obtain a single thumbprint “of value.” This print was compared unsuccessfully with a number of inked prints from missing persons. Hatfield, a forty-six year- old transient from Sonoma County, California, had been listed as a missing person in May by her mother. Hatfield matched the physical description of the corpse. The California Sheriff’s Office faxed a copy of Hatfield’s ten-print card to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. The prints were examined by a Law Enforcement Support Technician Supervisor. This individual did not work in the ten-print section of the Police Department but had twenty-five years of ten-print experience and “had been helping the coroner’s office make identifications for many years.” This individual identified the body as Hatfield based on the fingerprints. Las Vegas Police Detective David Mesinar said, “We only had one readable fingerprint, and it was so close a match that they went ahead and made an identification.” Hatfield’s mother was informed, and funeral preparations were made. Hatfield had by this time been stopped and released by the Sonoma County police. The Sonoma County sheriffs began looking for Hatfield and eventually found her in August. Her mother was informed. Hatfield’s grave had already been dug. Meanwhile, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office mailed Hatfield’s tenprint card to Las Vegas. The Technician re-examined the print and decided that she had made an error. The Las Vegas Municipal Police Department Latent Print Unit confirmed that the prints did not match. No official analysis of the erroneous identification has been made public.
In 2001, David Valken-Leduc was charged with the 1996 murder of a motel clerk in Woods Cross, Utah. Latent print examiner Scott Spjut testified at a preliminary hearing that Valken-Leduc was the source of two bloody prints found at the crime scene. Spjut was not merely an IAI certified examiner; he was the Chair of the IAI Latent Print Certification Board, the body that oversees the certification examination (and had helped
determined that the match in the Jackson case was erroneous, see infra Part II.A.3.m). Spjut subsequently died, shot by a rifle he was examining in the laboratory. Whether the shooting was accidental or suicide is still not clear. After Spjut died, the crime laboratory reviewed his findings and found that the victim was the actual source of the bloody crime-scene prints. Whether the misattribution was fraud or an “honest error” is also not clear. Crime Laboratory Director Rich Townsend told the press, “We’re mystified as to how he came up with this conclusion with his level of training and expertise.” But Valken-Leduc’s attorney told the press, “[O]ur first line of attack was going to be that [Spjut] had manufactured evidence in other cases.” No such additional cases have yet been reported.
The Cowans case is the first in which DNA evidence played a role in demonstrating that the fingerprint evidence was erroneous. Stephan Cowans was convicted of attempted murder in 1997 for allegedly nonfatally shooting a police officer, while fleeing a robbery in Roxbury, Massachusetts. He was implicated in the crime by the testimony of two eyewitnesses, including the victim, and a fingerprint found on a cup. (The perpetrator fled the scene, invaded a home, and held the family hostage for around ten minutes. During that period, the perpetrator drank from a cup.) Boston Police Department (BPD) latent print examiner Dennis LeBlanc testified that he found sixteen corresponding ridge characteristics between the latent print from the cup and Cowans’s known print. LeBlanc testified that the two prints were “identical” and that the latent print belonged to Stephan Cowans. BPD latent print examiner Rosemary McLaughlin verified the attribution. Cowans was sentenced to thirty to forty-five years in prison. According to Cowans’s attorney, Cowans retained two former BPD fingerprint experts who agreed that he was the source of the latent print.209
Cowans served six years in prison, volunteering for “biohazard” duty n order to earn money for a post-conviction DNA test. Three DNA samples recovered from the same mug that contained the latent print and from a hat and sweatshirt discarded by the fleeing perpetrator all excluded Cowans as the donor of the DNA. Based on the DNA evidence, the Boston and State Police reexamined the fingerprint evidence and concluded that it was erroneous. Cowans was freed in January 2004. Subsequent investigation revealed the latent print actually belonged to one of the family members who was held hostage. Unlike the other cases discussed here, criminal charges were brought against the latent print examiners involved. An external review reported that LeBlanc had “discovered his mistake” before trial “and concealed it all the way through trial.” However, a grand jury declined to indict LeBlanc and McLaughlin. They were, however, reassigned and suspended with pay. In an extraordinary move, Police Commissioner Kathleen O’Toole shut down the entire BPD fingerprint unit and turned latent work over to the state police.
Allegations were made that Boston Police Identification Unit had long been a “dumping ground” and “punishment duty” for troubled cops.
The most recent and best-known case in the U.S. is the Mayfield case (see supra Introduction). Mayfield, an attorney in Portland, Orgeon, was a Muslim convert and a U.S. Army veteran. He had once represented, in a child-custody case, one of the “Portland Seven,” who had pled guilty to conspiracy to wage war against the United States. Even when Mayfield was first arrested, it was known that the Spanish National Police were uncertain about the identification. While FBI examiners identified fifteen corresponding points of comparison, the Spanish could only find eight.
Spain has a ten-point minimum standard. The FBI adheres to no set standard for declaring a match. FBI examiners reportedly traveled to Madrid to try to convince the Spanish that the identification was legitimate. On this occasion, the FBI reportedly declined to examine the original evidence and instead “relentlessly pressed their case anyway, explaining away stark proof of a flawed link—including what the Spanish described as tell-tale forensic signs—and seemingly refusing to accept the notion that they were mistaken.” Further investigation showed that the FBI had reprimanded Agent Massey for making false attributions in 1969 and 1974.
I quote verbatim from page 2 of that letter.
http://www.thefingerprintinquiryscotlan ... G_0557.pdf
The claim here is Peter Swann ‘has brought to light misidentifications in important cases.’ That is ‘misidentifications’ plural, in ‘cases’ plural. So this must mean at least two ‘important cases’.The McKie’s solicitor instructed Peter Swann to examine the fingerprint identified as Ms McKie. Mr Swann is one of the United Kingdom’s leading Independent experts and has a reputation for honesty and integrity as he has brought to light misidentifications in important cases. Peter Swann examined the evidence and agreed the identification made by the SCRO experts.
I am looking for the readers help in identifying the cases referred to by the SCRO Experts in their letter.
If it helps Peter Swann himself claims to ‘have been involved in cases of wrong identification’, as evidenced by his expert report in the McKie case.
http://www.thefingerprintinquiryscotlan ... G_0283.pdf
On Wednesday 7 June 2006 Peter Swann gave the following oral evidence to the Justice 1 Parliamentary Enquiry:It is important in all cases for the identification to be checked by an independent expert. Mistakes do occur, albeit my knowledge of working in a police environment for many years, does suggest that they shouldn’t. Nevertheless I have been involved in cases of wrong identifications and it follows that there is always the possibility of this happening again.
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/busin ... tm#Col3344
SCRO claim Swann ‘brought to light misidentifications in important cases’. Swann knows of only three cases of misidentification in England, albeit he does openly claim to ‘have been involved in cases of wrong identifications’.Peter Swann: ….I have worked in fingerprints since I was 23, so I know a bit about the systems. I am not saying that no one makes mistakes; we are all fallible creatures and mistakes can occur. However, I was the head of a fingerprint department for 15 years and I can boast that we never made a mistake, because of the procedures that were in place—just as procedures are in place in Scotland and any fingerprint bureau in the country. If the procedures are followed correctly, there will be no mistakes.
Given the right circumstances—people, timing or what have you—it is inevitable that something will go wrong. However—it is that 99.999 per cent figure again—in 49 years of experience I can count only three wrong identifications in England. I can think of another two or three that I felt should not have gone to court, but that is a different matter from wrong identifications. I can count only three wrong identifications in 49 years.
My understanding is Ron Cook ‘found’ the Andrew Chiory misidentification. I also believe the Neville Lee misidentification was found by Nottingham Fingerprint Department on re-checking. So which cases did Swann spot the ‘misidentifications?
Can anyone shed any light on the ‘cases’ (plural) which it is claimed Peter Swann ‘brought to light’? Are they outside the UK? Are there misidentifications which are as yet unknown and remain to be disclosed?
Perhaps Daktari with their links to the very people who wrote the Lord Cullen letter can shed some light?
On a separate issue, there is an entry for Peter Swann on the following website:
http://www.expertwitnessscotland.info/s ... 601&type=C
Judging by the information contained it must be an up to date entry and must have come from the actual expert named. I am interested in the final sentence in which it is claimed about Swann:
Can anyone confirm if this is the case and if Swann ‘has been instructed in most of the recent high-profile cases.’In the UK he has been instructed in most of the recent high-profile cases.
If it helps I would appreciate anyone contacting me in confidence via the internal messaging.
Many thanks for reading this.