Advances in technology?

[Dr. Borracho]

From today's news articles posted by Ms Potter:

TheState.com 03-30-17
Calif. man held in 2011 slayings of Columbia mother and daughter
SLED investigators in March 2013 identified a usable palm print, Holbrook said. Testing was inconclusive, but investigators decided recently to retest the print because of advances in technology. A test last month revealed a positive match for Canzater, Holbrook said.
http://www.thestate.com/news/local/crim ... 35144.html

Reading the article, the paragraph that tweaked my ire says this:

Columbia police later asked the State Law Enforcement Division to review crime scene photos and blood splatter patterns, and SLED investigators in March 2013 identified a usable palm print, Holbrook said. Testing was inconclusive, but investigators decided recently to retest the print because of advances in technology. A test last month revealed a positive match for Canzater, Holbrook said.

In the first place, I find it distasteful and less than precise to use the word "test" because ISO uses that word, instead of the more descriptive word "compare" that latent print examiners have used for over a century to describe what we do.

But more pointedly (pun intended) for this case, what "advances in technology" make a print identifiable today when it was of no value for identification in 2011?

I do not sense they are talking about advances in latent print development techniques. The clear inference is that they are talking about advancements in comparison techniques. Can anyone provide any information on what went on in this case?

[Boyd Baumgartner]

what "advances in technology" make a print identifiable today when it was of no value for identification in 2011

Answer: Magnification!

Reminds me of NY v Kent

State of New York v. Kent (1968)
Aka People v. Kent. Perhaps the first trial that a defense expert testified that although the identification had 12 (some articles say 14) points of similarity, the prints were not identical. Richard Stanley Kent was charged with murdering Joseph Murphy, a retired New York City Policeman. The key evidence against Kent, a latent print on a bed board, seemed to be irrefutable. William J. Ciolko, Dutchess County Public Defender, hired Dr. Vassilis C. Morfopoulos, director of the American Standards Testing Bureau, to look at the identification. Dr. Morfopoulos analyzed the
identification using a 25x microscope. He testified that he found 3 differences, “One distinct and crucial difference destroys the validity of an identification”, he said. Richard Kent was found not guilty of the murder. In 1970, the FBI and the IAI refuted Dr. Morfopoulos’s analysis and sided with Wilfred Holick, the original examiner in this case. The defense attorney and the defense expert gave a presentation of this case at the 55th IAI Conference. There were two significant points to this case. This was the first time ‘the prints are not identical’ was used in court as a defense strategy, and the defense claimed that this case broke down the apparent ironclad status of fingerprints.

[Dr. Borracho]

Are you sure it wasn't just missed on the first comparison, and found on the second?

[Bill Schade]

Visualization techniques have improved gretly over the simple magnifiers we used 'back in the day"

We too are seeing prints on old cases that were boarderline "of value" now being searched and identified on AFIS searches.

Technology is wonderful and I'm a believer now more than ever before.

However its always possible that something was "missed" and then identified later. We always attribute that to "better exemplars became avilable"

How did you explain it?

[Boyd Baumgartner]

Looks like the advances came in DNA technology, not fingerprint technology.

Here's a link to two different articles

From the first article:

In reviewing the case in 2013, the State Law Enforcement Division found a palm print that agents entered in a national database. The DNA did not conclusively match Catzaner, but it put him in a group of four people who could not be excluded.

Cold case investigators searched in February for Canzater in a database of violent criminals. He had been arrested in California a short time before for a probation violation on a California robbery charge. Cabzater provided police with a DNA swab. New DNA testing techniques found that the DNA matched to the palm print.

[Dr. Borracho]

Visualization techniques have improved gretly over the simple magnifiers we used 'back in the day"

Absolutely! "Back in the Day" being pre-Photoshop? But the case to which the article referred was in 2011. I was betting they simply missed the ident the first time around and found it in a later recomparison. Nothing wrong with that. If there was new technology than enabled an identification on review, that's great! But if it was simply "Opps, missed it the first time. How can we explain finding it after it became a cold case," then a simple admission of missing it the first time would be much appreciated.

Hence, my question about what new technology for "testing" a latent print?

Boyd gives us the answer. The latent print was tested for DNA and "identified" in that way, not through a traditional comparison. That answers both of my comments in the initial post.

Thanks, Boyd!!!