INCONCLUSIVE COURT TESTIMONY
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NRivera
- Posts: 138
- Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2009 8:04 am
- Location: Atlanta, GA
Re: INCONCLUSIVE COURT TESTIMONY
I had a similar case a couple of years ago where a lady's purse was stolen and later recovered. I was able to develop a very faint latent print on her driver's license. I could tell that it was a whorl pattern, but I could not reliably establish clear ridge counts between characteristics because the latent was so faint and degraded. (the purse was recovered from under a house after several months during a nice, hot and humid GA summer) While I could not identify the suspect I was presented with, I could certainly exclude him on the L1D alone. If I were the one wearing the suspect's shoes I would definitely want you to keep that latent.
"If at first you don't succeed, skydiving was not for you."
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Charles Parker
- Posts: 586
- Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2005 6:15 am
- Location: Cedar Creek, TX
Re: INCONCLUSIVE COURT TESTIMONY
Boyd, I always get into trouble when I try to explain something with less than 15 words.
The best example I like to give is you have the whorl pattern and you just cannot see a sufficient amount of detail to individulize but it is certainly has sufficient information for you to tell it is a whorl. You get two suspects. One has all loops and small arches. There is enough information to exlclude. So you exclude. You have a second subject who has 9 loop patterns and one whorl in the right thumb. You can exclude 9 fingers but not the number 1.
Since you cannot individulize or exclude the right thumb of subject number 1 the finding of your Examination (Analysis--Comparison--etc) is inconclusive.
For me (This does not fit everyone's ideal concept)
Suitable for Identification: It has sufficient information to identify or exclude a source.
Suitable for Comparison: It has sufficient information to exclude a source but not individulize.
Non-Suitable (InSufficient Detail): It does not have sufficient information to even compare to a particular source.
I really believe there are four conclusions that can be derived from an analysis and not the three that SWGFAST has in their standards. Those four are:
1. Not Suitable for any type of comparison or examination
2. Individulization (ID, Match, Bingo, Gotcha, etc)
3. Exclusion (No ID, Non Match, Next Time Buddy, etc.)
4. Inconclusive---Cannot ID or Exclude
Then of course you have the fifth one----Not compared, no exemplars present, etc.
The best example I like to give is you have the whorl pattern and you just cannot see a sufficient amount of detail to individulize but it is certainly has sufficient information for you to tell it is a whorl. You get two suspects. One has all loops and small arches. There is enough information to exlclude. So you exclude. You have a second subject who has 9 loop patterns and one whorl in the right thumb. You can exclude 9 fingers but not the number 1.
Since you cannot individulize or exclude the right thumb of subject number 1 the finding of your Examination (Analysis--Comparison--etc) is inconclusive.
For me (This does not fit everyone's ideal concept)
Suitable for Identification: It has sufficient information to identify or exclude a source.
Suitable for Comparison: It has sufficient information to exclude a source but not individulize.
Non-Suitable (InSufficient Detail): It does not have sufficient information to even compare to a particular source.
I really believe there are four conclusions that can be derived from an analysis and not the three that SWGFAST has in their standards. Those four are:
1. Not Suitable for any type of comparison or examination
2. Individulization (ID, Match, Bingo, Gotcha, etc)
3. Exclusion (No ID, Non Match, Next Time Buddy, etc.)
4. Inconclusive---Cannot ID or Exclude
Then of course you have the fifth one----Not compared, no exemplars present, etc.
Knuckle Draggin Country Cousin
Cedar Creek, TX
Cedar Creek, TX
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mgirard
- Posts: 24
- Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2007 4:19 pm
Re: INCONCLUSIVE COURT TESTIMONY
Okay Boyd, you are right, the numbers were probably a little high. At the time it just felt like that is how many I call inconclusive. I have gone back through the last couple months of reports and have some numbers, which still show that the majority of my conclusions are Inconclusive. I had approximately 36% ids, 17% exclusions and 47% inconclusives.
You did bring up a good point though regarding my conservative nature towards exclusions. You mentioned that just because I have caught erroneous exclusions doesn't mean that I'm making them. But that is exactly what has driven me to be more conservative, because when you see what has caused others to make an error you realize that maybe you can't be so confident in what you think you know is occuring in a latent. I would say part of your final comparison conclusion is based on the liklihood that you think you could be wrong, which is based on how often you have seen others wrong in a similar situation. Is this biasing information, of course it is, but that is what makes us humans, we base our future experiences on past experiences to try not to make the same mistakes. So I am more willing to have to explain my Inconclusive determination even though I don't see agreement because I have seen others make erroneous exclusions when the clarity of the print has been similiar and I don't want to make the same error.
It probably does come down to training. I don't think that there is enough training given in Exclusions. I know my agency doesn't train in Exclusions, it is all about finding agreement and making Indivdiualizations. There are no courses that I know of where Exclusions are the focus. Maybe it is because it seems like it should be so obvious. I just don't think it is that obvious all the time.
This may make analysts upset at me for saying but it is my opinion that there are many analysts who have too much confidence in the Analysis they are doing and unfortunately because of this confidence in their Analysis they are creating mindset going into the Comparisons. I think there can be over-confidence in source determinations, orientation, and minutiae which cause errors. I for one would love to see more errors recognized and documented in a single place so all analysts could learn from them, because you don't know what you don't know.
You did bring up a good point though regarding my conservative nature towards exclusions. You mentioned that just because I have caught erroneous exclusions doesn't mean that I'm making them. But that is exactly what has driven me to be more conservative, because when you see what has caused others to make an error you realize that maybe you can't be so confident in what you think you know is occuring in a latent. I would say part of your final comparison conclusion is based on the liklihood that you think you could be wrong, which is based on how often you have seen others wrong in a similar situation. Is this biasing information, of course it is, but that is what makes us humans, we base our future experiences on past experiences to try not to make the same mistakes. So I am more willing to have to explain my Inconclusive determination even though I don't see agreement because I have seen others make erroneous exclusions when the clarity of the print has been similiar and I don't want to make the same error.
It probably does come down to training. I don't think that there is enough training given in Exclusions. I know my agency doesn't train in Exclusions, it is all about finding agreement and making Indivdiualizations. There are no courses that I know of where Exclusions are the focus. Maybe it is because it seems like it should be so obvious. I just don't think it is that obvious all the time.
This may make analysts upset at me for saying but it is my opinion that there are many analysts who have too much confidence in the Analysis they are doing and unfortunately because of this confidence in their Analysis they are creating mindset going into the Comparisons. I think there can be over-confidence in source determinations, orientation, and minutiae which cause errors. I for one would love to see more errors recognized and documented in a single place so all analysts could learn from them, because you don't know what you don't know.