LPE Needs Advice/Guidance with Serious Matter (US)

[LA5830]

I am in need of your professional guidance/opinion on a situation that has come up in my agency. I am sure this thread will get some serious criticism so I will try to be as detailed as possible with my description and background on this incident. I apologize for not using names, and substituting Investigator A, B, C, etc. but I cannot use names as this case is still under investigation. I hope it is not too hard to follow.

AGENCY:
This agency is a Law Enforcement Agency, with a Crime Scene Investigations Unit that is part of the Criminal Investigations Division. Latent Print Examinations is a part time function of the Crime Scene Unit. All members of the Crime Scene Unit/LPE are Sworn Law Enforcement Personnel. In addition to all other Crime Scene functions, Crime Scene Investigators rotate positions each week, with the "AFIS" assignment being every 5 weeks. This agency is a City Police Department (Civil Service), however the Crime Scene Unit is a "Metro" unit combined with the local Sheriff's Office. The supervisor of this unit is a Lieutenant with the Sheriff's Office (Non Civil Service). The supervisor has been in charge of this unit for 4 years. He has extensive background in Criminal Investigations, but no Latent Print experience (and does not want any). Investigator A and the supervisor has not seen eye to eye in about a year and tolerates each other, but tension is very apparent.

TRAINING:
Once transferred into the Crime Scene Unit, the officer undergoes three (3) months of "OJT". This encompasses every detail of the Crime Scene Unit with very little latent print work. After the officer has finished his training, he/she is sent to a Basic Fingerprint Classification School. After that, if available, the officer is sent to an Advanced Latent Print Examinations school. During this time, the other members of the unit help the officer in training with comparing fingerprints and grading them. When the peer officers feel that this officer is capable of performing grading and evaluations, he is cut loose to perform independent case work. There is no test to take to see if you are competent, and there are no proficiency tests performed at any time.

POLICIES:
This agency has Standard Operating Procedures and General Orders (Both do). They outline the Crime Scene Section and what is expected of the Crime Scene Investigator. However, there are no policies or procedures in place detailing the Latent Print Examinations, Grading, or anything else expected of the Crime Scene Unit dealing with Latent Prints. (Other than lifting them from the Crime Scene). This agency does not have ANY policies or procedures in place to deal with proficiency testing, or conflict resolution. Basically this unit operates with word of mouth policy and procedures in how to work with latent prints.
This agency is a major hub in it's area, and performs the latent print work for 8 surrounding Counties. Cases taken in weekly are approximately 50 cases per week, with over 100 Latents.

HOW CASES ARE HANDLED:
Cases are submitted to this agency weekly. When they are received, the investigator that is assigned to "AFIS" that week takes the cases in. That investigator then grades the prints on quality. Here is how the grading works:

"AFIS" = Print is AFIS quality and can be entered into the system
"GOOD" = Print is of comparable quality, however lacks enough detail to enter into AFIS (need suspect to compare)
"DESTROY" = Print is not of value (They are not destroyed, just placed in file with the letter D on it)

The investigator then marks on the envelope his grading. He then sends the case to another investigator where he also looks at the prints and "Verifies" them. He then puts his initials on the envelope. The original investigator then gets the prints back and handles them accordingly. A report is then generated, very simple, that has the case number, how many latents were of each grading, and if entered into AFIS, the ATN number. If there is an "AFIS HIT", another report is generated detailing the HIT. Even the HIT report is basic and does not go into any detail on how the conclusion was made. Only that the hit was made and a chart was completed. Manual comparisons are done when requested.

HERE IS WHAT IS HAPPENING:
Investigator A has been placed on paid administrative leave, pending an Administrative Investigation conducted by the department's Internal Affairs Section. His gun, badge, police unit, and all keys and commission cards were taken and he was sent home while the investigation is conducted. The Police Chief sent a letter to the District Attorney's Office, with copies to each Agency head, Mayor and CAO. The letter basically tells the District Attorney that the Officer has been placed on Administrative Leave pending an investigation into evidence handling and that they should review all cases by this officer for accuracy prior to proceeding. The officer was named in this letter. Also, the local news media picked up on this and the story ran in the local papers, and local television news at 5,6 and 10 naming the officer and that he was under investigation, but no details other than "policy violations".

DETAILS OF WHAT HAPPENED:
Incident 1=
Investigator A was assigned to AFIS for the week in question. Cases were submitted as usual and Investigator A was assigned. Approximately 15-20 cases were submitted that week with about 60-70 latents. Investigator A then graded the latents and marked them accordingly. The cases were then given to Investigator B for review (as per word of mouth policy). Investigator B then returned the cases to Investigator A with his initials. Investigator B had a question about one latent print in the batch that was marked as "Good". The print was brought to the attention of Investigator A. Investigator B told him "you may want to look at this one again, I think there is enough to enter into AFIS". Investigator A said okay, and later went to the AFIS computer to look again. Investigator A placed the print under the camera and for a few hours examined the latent. Investigator A still did not see enough detail to enter into the AFIS computer, so the print remained graded as "Good". Official reports are only done on HITS but a worksheet is completed on all gradings and entered into the case on the Police Reporting System. There is a space on the worksheet to put the initials of the second Examiner, and Investigator B's initials were placed there. FYI the space is marked "Verified by". There were no suspects to compare this latent to in this case. A few days later, Investigator B questioned Investigator A about the status of the print. Investigator B was told by Investigator A that he still did not see enough details to enter the print into AFIS, and it remained marked as good. Investigator B was visibly upset about this and asked why he was not consulted. Investigator A asked Investigator B to bring the case to the AFIS computer and show him what Investigator A implies that he is missing. This never happened.

Incident 2=
Investigator B walks into Investigator A's office and tells him to go check the AFIS computer, that he believes he has a HIT pending. Investigator A checks the AFIS returns pending and notices that there are two HITs pending. Investigator A was aware of these hits, as they were cases worked for a Fatal traffic crash where the identity of the deceased was needing to be verified. Investigator A clears out the cases, and looks at the rest of the returns. Investigator A did not see any further HITS pending and concluded his session. A few days later, Investigator B asks Investigator A about the status of this print. Investigator B was told that the prints were cleared out and no further HITS were observed. Investigator B looked confused, and stated to Investigator A, "there was another one". A few more days went by and Investigator A was approached by Investigator B and Investigator C. They had worked the case that was brought to Investigator A's attention and made an apparent HIT on the latent. Investigator A told the other two investigators that if that was the same latent in question, he must have missed it, because it was not noticed on his initial evaluation. Investigator A then looked at the latent, and agreed with the evaluation. Investigator A handled the case because he was the initial officer. In his report, he put both Investigator B and C as verifiers in this case. The print was compared and identified to a security guard at a burglary location, and was not considered a suspect.

It is very apparent that this turned into a witch hunt on this particular officer. The supervisor of the Crime Scene Section did not investigate this AT ALL. He turned in a complaint to the City Police detailing the allegations. The officer in question, Investigator A, was not brought in, or talked to AT ALL by the supervisor of the section. The first Investigator A heard of this complaint and investigation is when Internal Affairs showed up at the Crime Scene Unit and placed him on Administrative Leave. Investigator A has been on Administrative Leave for 4 weeks now. He is awaiting the completion of the investigation and notification from the Chief of Police of what, if any, discipline will be recommended. Or if he will keep his job as a Police Officer. The allegations lodged against this police officer as per the investigative report is: Filing False Police Reports, Damaging Public Records, Malfeasance, and failure to be attentive to duties. The general orders alleged to have been violated is the "Catch-all" Police Officers Professional Conduct. Many of you may think that there is underlying circumstances, or "Something else must have happened", but I assure you this is not the case.

It should be known that this particular officer in question is not a "Problem Child". His past 9 yearly evaluations have been superior and has been complimented in them for being a great officer. He has been assigned to this section for almost 4 years, and has been working latent cases for 3. It seems to me that this should have been handled by the supervisor of the section, and at the very worst, counseling should have taken place to see what went wrong and what corrective actions should be taken. I guess if this agency had polices in place for this, all this would have never happened. It is also very clear that there is a severe lack of training and guidelines for this Latent Print Section.

Any thoughts, comments, and suggestions on this situation would be greatly appreciated. I am especially looking to get guidance from other latent print sections that use sworn law enforcement personnel. Do you think discipline is warranted in this case? At the very least I expect this officer to be transferred out of the section.

Thank You in advance!

[Charles Parker]

The following are the views of the author and not necessarily those of a professional organization or government entity.

Sounds like your agency could use specific SOP’s for latent prints and crime scene as Departmental General Operations are not geared for that type of work. Even if specific SOP’s are not generated at least a process of ‘Conflict Resolution’ should be installed.

Regardless what some might think not all latent prints are observed exactly the same so some conflict resolution needs to be in place? Especially for AFIS as I see a lot of disagreements on AFIS quality.

Also keep in mind that any disagreements need to be documented and provided to the defense under Brady (if the detective files the case, if the DA accepted the filing, if defendant gets an attorney).

Also I would keep in mind the difference between ‘Conflict’ and ‘Consultation’.

[Tazman]

Dear LA5830,

An instructor in a class a few years ago used a phrase that stuck with me: "Show me the print." It seems to me that little bit of wisdom would apply here. I think I will withhold judgement on whether a terrible wrong has been perpetrated by examiners B and C and the Captain against examiner A. Maybe the print is "easy." Maybe the print is really, really nasty. That would be a pertinent fact that is missing from this discussion until I have seen the print in question.

I know of several latent print examiners from each of two moderately large departments who have resigned in the past year due to personality conflicts with supervisors. That would always be an option for examiner A. Check www.theiai.org and click on the job listings tab at the bottom of the left column. Also check www.usajobs.com and search the word "latent" and check the results. Then search the word "fingerprint" on the same site. I know the economy is bad and a lot of places have frozen their vacancies. But there are still jobs out there.

Pick your battles. If it is a losing fight from the start, sometimes you get hurt less if you just walk away from it.

You asked for advice. That is what I have to offer.

[Michele]

This brings up two inter-connected issues that don’t have to do with whether you’re an officer or not.

One issue is, what is the standard for a conclusion (of sufficiency or identity)? If there is no standard then examiners are free to arrive at any opinion they want. If examiners are allowed to arrive at ‘opinions’ then it should be of no surprise that people will have different opinions. Another standard (or expectation) would be to arrive at conclusions that are repeatable. This is an improvement over letting the standard be the opinion of the examiner but is still a weak standard. In the Mayfield case, the conclusion was repeated by others but still wrong.

Issue two is, how can you determine if any conclusion is in error? There are many groups trying to establish an error rate but before you can do this you have to first decide what an error is. There was a Weekly Detail a few weeks back that was trying to determine reasons for errors. If you haven’t determined what an error is then how do you know when to use the system for determining the reason for an error.

Here are my thoughts on it. To determine if something is an error, you need some sort of standard or expectation to judge the conclusion by. If there were a standard to judge conclusions by then we should be able to judge possible errors by this standard to see if it is really an error. The McKie print is a good example of what happens without a standard. Two sides then judge the conclusion against different standards and it’s virtually impossible to truly judge the accuracy of the conclusion. It comes down to one person’s opinion over another person’s opinion. If there was a common expectation for conclusions then perhaps the accuracy of this conclusion could have been resolved long ago. I gave a presentation last year at the Chesapeake Bay Conference stating that management should be obligated to tell employees what they expect out of conclusions otherwise management has no way to tell the employee they didn’t meet the unwritten or imaginary expectation. If the IAI holds practitioners responsible for good conclusions then they need to tell practitioners what expectation they are expecting practitioners to meet. As I read the IAI resolutions, it appears that there isn’t really a standard but they do state that conclusions are opinions. If they are opinions, what’s to say that my opinion is wrong and someone else’s opinion is correct?

Many people will then quote the statement of ‘there is no scientific basis to use a certain number of points’. I agree with this but I’m not referring to a numerical standard, I’m referring to a practical standard. As an example, how was it determined if Pluto was a planet? Scientists compared the qualities of Pluto to the definition (or criteria) of a planet. Pluto didn’t hold up to the criteria so it wasn’t given the title of a planet. What is your agency criteria for an identification, judging a print to be of value or judging a print to be of AFIS value?

A long time ago our agency’s expectation was for examiners to arrive at accurate conclusions 100% of the time but nobody said what an ‘accurate conclusion’ was. Others have stated that conclusions should meet ground truth. How do you measure a conclusion against ground truth? If we knew the ground truth then we wouldn’t have to figure it out.

These questions have been around a long time. There was a case in the 1970’s where 3 examiners were de-certified over a possible erroneous ID (the Caldwell case). In 2003, DNA testing was done on the evidence. It was positive to the suspect these examiners ID’d the print to. With the release of the NAS report, I think many of these problems are getting pushed to the forefront.

I realize that I didn’t give you any answers. I’m just acknowledging that the problem is one that a lot of practitioners and agencies have faced for a long time. I’m guessing that since you’re an officer then you must have some type of representation (maybe a union?). I’d think they would argue that it’s impossible for an employee to meet a criteria that isn’t stated. If your agency wants you to meet some expectation then they should be able to articulate the expectation.

I’m anticipating people wanting to know what a criteria might look like. The criteria will be different for each question (of value, of AFIS value, identification, exclusion, etc) and may also be different for each agency. One agency may run palm prints through AFIS while another agency might not have those capabilities. The criteria our agency uses for value, ID’s, or exclusions is too big to post here but it includes using objective data (data you’d use on any given day, or data that others would use) and being able to support any conclusion with valid justification. The examiners conclusion that a print was ‘fresh’ (from another thread) wouldn’t hold up in our lab because there is no valid justification to support such a claim (well, none that I know of – ‘based on his experience’ wouldn’t be considered valid justification to me). We also include that conclusions be ones that would satisfy others (not all others but most others). This is known as inter-subjective testing. If we find that there are groups of people (not just one person) with differing opinions, then we go with the more conservative conclusion.

[Bill Schade]

Michele

Interesting points but your forgot to point out that Pluto used to be a planet (at least when I went to school)

Sounds like the "standards" might be subject to change, or maybe the scientific conclusion was "open for change to provide for better explanations and conclusions"

[Michele]

Bill,

Exactly! I think it's important to always looks for ways to improve.

[Bill Schade]

"ways to improve" is one perspective.

But I suspect we are going to hear "so you were wrong before and now you're correcting yourself" alot in court.

I guess I need to retire my CLPEX tee shirt that states "nothing is certain except taxes and fingerprints"

[Michele]

We will probably have to explain why our criteria has changed but don't we already have to do that now? Here are some items I've seen change (at least in my office):

conclusions are absolute and conclusive
I'm 100% certain
there is a zero error rate
conclusions are based on the appropriate use of ACE-V
conclusions are to the exclusion of all others
use if the 1 discrepancy rule
using level one to exclude
saying the conclusion is based on my training and experience
verification as confirmation (I think people are moving away from this in favor of it being a review)
No possible or probable conclusions

Once we get good at explaining why we changed our minds on these things, it should be easy to explain other changes.

[printlady]

IMHO:

Incident 1
If there is no written SOP addressing the process to follow in disputed quality/quantity assessments then Investigator A can’t be considered to be in violation of any policy. Examiners should never be pressured into a conclusion that they cannot justify. If Investigator B felt the impression should have been searched through AFIS he/she should have been willing to point out objective details for Investigator A to evaluate. Becoming upset that another examiner disagrees with your opinion is not very professional or scientific.

Incident 2
I’m confused about the details in this case; did Investigator A miss an AFIS hit response on a latent he/she searched or did Investigator B run a latent that Investigator A didn’t notate ‘of value’ in the case?

If Investigator A didn’t see a latent on the lift card that was of AFIS value then he would have made a mistake. If that is the case I would think it would be more important to determine the cause of the error and the agency should address the specific issue with appropriate training rather than hanging him/her out to dry. That would be a waste of the investment the agency made into Investigator A’s training and experience. Personality conflicts with a supervisor or co-worker shouldn’t have any influence on this decision.

If Investigator B searched a latent through AFIS a second time on Investigator A’s case without first checking with the supervisor or Investigator A that would be improper.

[Bill Schade]

Printlady said:
"If Investigator B searched a latent through AFIS a second time on Investigator A’s case without first checking with the supervisor or Investigator A that would be improper."

I strongly disagree with that statement. It is not an examiners case we are talking about, it is the agencies case and it should be open for review and further investigation.
Especially regarding AFIS searches!
AFIS searches are subjective and even the same examiner will get different results if they search a print multiple times. If another examiner runs a search and makes a hit on a case the whole unit benefits. That should be encouraged.

Of course that "cooperation" in an office requires trust and strong working relationships among examiners which is probably lacking in the agency that generated the original post.
In fact I'm confident that a review of the situation outlined would find that egos and bad attitudes were a root cause of their problem

[printlady]

You are correct when you state that cases belong to the agency, not the examiner. I also agree that cases should be open for review and further investigation, I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I think that in the spirit of “cooperation”, openness in any review process can help avoid serious personnel issues, especially in an office environment as described by LA5830. Having had firsthand experience with this type of situation I can say that the second examiners actions could be perceived as being sneaky and devious by the first examiner. Professional courtesy can go a long way in promoting good working relationships.

[Peter Griffin]

Incident 1:
I agree with printlady, that without a written policy on dispute resolution there is really no way that Investigator A could have violated the policy. What the people who are reviewing this incident need to realize is there are subjective aspects to the analysis of latent prints, which are going to result in people reaching different conclusions. That is why it is important to have a policy that deals with this. Incident 1, really doesn’t even seem like it should be an incident! From what you said it sounds like Investigator B initialed the final gradings. I don’t see how Investigator A can get in trouble without Investigator B getting in trouble for initialing the report. The one thing I would have suggested Investigator A did before finishing the report was to check with Investigator B and have him show investigator A what he was seeing in the print. But, this is really Investigator Bs fault for initialing the report.
Our policy is that if two people disagree than it goes to a third examiner. That is really only on Idents. If it is for something like a “no value/of value” decision, the examiners usually sit down and show each other what they are seeing and error on the side of caution…which means it is usually deemed “of value”.


Incident 2
I am unclear about what happened. Are you saying that Investigator A searched a print and did not get a HIT, but Investigators B and C searched it and did get a HIT? If that is the case did Investigators B and C recode it (plot out the minutia, etc) or just search the same candidate list that Investigator A searched? If they ran two separate searches there is a chance the person it HIT to was not on the candidate list that Investigator A checked (do you print out the candidate list for your notes?). Or Investigator A just missed it.
That is why 100% verification is a good practice. Everyone at some point or another has probably missed a print (especially on AFIS which usually has crappy resolution). When doing thousands of comparisons a year with low quality prints it is bound to happen, that is why it is good to have a second set of eyes check behind you. It should not be happening a lot, but to think that it should never happen is unrealistic. I would simply make a note of it so you will be able to see how often it is happening.

[Gerald Clough]

A couple of perspective things. There may be quite good reasons for a section supervisor to not conduct an investigation. It may be policy that he not do so in the case of some classes of allegations. It can be bad no matter how it comes out. That's not unreasonable, especially since it is not uncommon to end up with embarrassing or even chronic unresolved problems when a unit is left to handle its own problems. There is a good argument for a supervisor not confronting the accused. Too often, that has been the setting for prepping the officer to mutually protect himself and the supervisor. What would be the point of the supervisor investigating? No matter his opinion, he's bound to pass it up, and there's an entity charged with such investigation, and I would NOT want an authority figure interviewing the accused before I began my investigation. (Or it could just as easily be the supervisor correctly judging the approaching train and deciding to stay off the tracks.) And while the facts, as such, may be pretty close to what you know about and related, the allegations may be different or allege more issues. This is not to say that the truth is different, but that the allegations may or may not be consistent with the facts. Whichever way it is, the officer is in a civil service system and has recourse to that process.

[LA5830]

I really apprecate the comments by everyone. As soon as a resolution is reached, I wil post it here. Thanks again.

[LA5830]

Well, it has been quite a while since this post was created, but I promised I would return with the near conclusion to this event. I am sure everyone has figured out that the person I was speaking of, was in fact me.

The investigation concluded on February 28, 2011 and the result was, termination. That is right, I was fired. Not transferred back to patrol, completely fired from the Police Force. Here is the reasons stated in my termination:

1. Attention to duty. I failed to individualize a print from AFIS candidates on a search. Apparently another investigator worked the case, and made the match after I had deleted it from AFIS.
2. Attention to duty. They pulled every latent print case I worked from 2007 to 2011.. probably several hundred, and identified 16 cases that I had marked as "No comparable value", or Good Quality but did not enter them into AFIS. They entered them into AFIS after reviewing. I think a few of those cases were matched to victims or suspects. The person who looked into all my cases: The complaining officer.
3. Destroying Evidence. Since I did not individualize the print from AFIS in question, I deleted the search from the AFIS computer. This apparently equals destroying evidence at my agency, since I deleted the print from the AFIS computer. I guess it didn't matter that the actual lift was sitting in an envelope in the file cabinet. Please remember, we have absolutely NO Policy or Procedure for this.
4. Falsifying Reports. When one of my cases was sent to the other investigator for Consultation, he claims that he thought the print should have been entered into AFIS, however I did not agree. There was not clear communication between us, and I did not enter the print into AFIS. My report reflected that the other investigator "Verified" the case. He did in fact "verify" other latents in this case, but apparently not the one they fired me for. The other investigator came behind me and entered the print, and made a match to someone who was not a suspect. There was two cases like this where he says I should have entered the print into AFIS but did not. He claims on both cases, he did not "Verify" the print in question. Our reports are only a few lines, and there is no place to verify each latent. The verify space is for the whole case.
5. Malfeasance in Office - I guess because of all of the above.

I was a latent print examiner for three years, and these incidents were the first time any problems had been reported. A complete lack of policy, procedure, training, oversight, and proficiency testing is what I contribute this entire fiasco to.

In addition to termination, the Chief sent the case to the District Attorney for review. He claims I may have violated criminal statutes of Tampering with evidence, malfeasance in office, and falsifying police reports. The case was investigated by the State Police, and after a year, the DA sent a letter back stating that there was no criminal charges warranted in this case.

Of course I can never work in Law Enforcement ever again unless I can clear my name in my upcoming Civil Service hearing. Hopefully that will happen. I do not desire to ever work in Latent Prints again, but it sure would be nice to be able to be a respectable Police Officer again, like I was before this incident.

I would love to hear your opinions as experts on what you think about this case. The Civil Service hearing is still pending, so I won't go into too much more detail on the incident as to not hamper my case.

Also, depending on responses my attorney and I may be looking to hire an Expert (Consultant) to help with my case to the Civil Service Board. No one that investigated this case has any fingerprint training or experience, and I am not sure if any outside sources were used before the discipline was carried out. Please message me if you think I have a good case to win, and would be willing to consult.

Thanks!