Experiment for Latent Print Examiners (& Trainees) at IA

[g.]

Friends and Colleagues,

At the upcoming IAI conference in Boston, Pat Wertheim and I will be jointly conducting an experiment. Minnesota recently experienced a Frye hearing in which Simon Cole testified for the defense and raised a number of issues regarding the validity of ACE-V methodology. Pat W. is experiencing some similar legal issues too in his cases. (Pat works for Ariz. DPS and I work for Minn. Bureau of Criminal Apprehension).

As part of the fulfillment of my Ph.D. thesis through University of Lausanne in Switzerland and to address some of these legal challenges, Pat and I will conduct a live experiment Thursday afternoon, July 6 at 2PM (1400 hours) at the conference. For those of you that may have participated in a previous live experiment or the survey that I conducted (for the thesis work), this is not like those experiments.

In fact, this will be quite straightforward. I obviously cannot say too much, as I would not wish to be accused of introducing bias into the experiment, suffice to say we are testing consistency of examiner opinions (especially with respect to various experience, training, and ability levels). A statistical analysis will be performed on the results.

Participants will be asked to evaluate 6 side-by-side comparisons and render an opinion. All the appropriate tools and equipment you would need to reach a conclusion will be made available (loupes, photographic enlargements, acetate, markers, laptop with Photoshop).

That is all I probably should say at this point, but I would encourage latent print examiners trained to competency to participate. The results of this experiment could be very helpful towards addressing some of legal arguments which are being made in this country. Trainees are also welcome to participate (their status will be noted of course during statistical calcs). Examiners from other countries are also welcome to participate (again, this will be noted)

This experiment is closed only to these participants willing to donate their time and expertise. I am sorry to exclude 10-print examiners, but obviously we will be looking at latent prints and should have an appropriate test group.

After the conclusion of the experiment, we will open the room to any attendees and debrief the participants, and explain the scope, intent, study design, statistical tests, etc. of the experiment.

Pat and I will be advertising fiercely throughout the conference.

Thank-you all for your attention and I look forward to seeing you in Boston.

g.

Glenn Langenburg