Give us your opinion

[RJ Hillman]

Story first, then the question

The Story:

A detective goes to a bank and receives from them a “forged personal check” and a piece of paper (banking form) with the suspects name and a single fingerprint on the form. The detective attached the check and the paper with the print on it to his report and turned it in to his supervisor (yes he should have put them into evidence). The report with the evidence attached goes through the chain of command (No one noticed the attached evidence) and ends up in our records section. The records section scans his report into our RMS system (including the front of the check and the paper with the fingerprint) and then shreds the report and evidence. (Our agency’s reports are all archived electronically so this is standard procedure……well….shredding the evidence is not standard procedure).

Ok, several months have gone by and now the detective wants us to compare the print that was on the piece of paper to a suspect he has developed. The records section prints out a copy of his report, including the front of the check and the paper with the print on it. The detective submits the print to us (Latent print unit) and gives us the name of his suspect.

Because of the circumstances surrounding the handling of the evidence and the unknown print submitted to us, all of our examiners had a meeting to laugh at the detective…..er….I mean discuss the evidence.

During our informal meeting the examiners were split 50/50 on how we should handle the case.

Half of our unit thinks we should not compare the print because of all of the problems surrounding it.
· No chain of custody for the print
· The print is not 1 to 1 in size
· The print was compressed when it was entered into the RMS system
· The print is a copy and not an original


The other half of our examiners think we should complete the requested comparison and document the issues in our report and let the attorneys and court decide.

So what do you think?

Come on everyone, voice your opinion and tell us what you would do.

[H. B. James]

First, I hope the incident was documented in the Detective's personnel file. I would not take disciplinary action on only one flub, but without documentation, additional flubs would be harder to deal with.

Second, I would do the comparison if the archived images were of suitable quality. Both my bench notes and my formal written report would reflect the issues of the mishandling of the evidence. To NOT compare the print is unfair to the complainants or victims. To do the comparison without disclosing the problems would be unfair to the defendant (not guilty until proven innocent and all that silliness, you know).

As a result, a criminal conviction would probably be impossible. But if the bank wanted to file a civil case for recompense of damages in the fraud, the evidence would probably be admissible in civil court.

When you make a mistake, own up to it and try to make things right. Don't ignore it and don't hide it. Those are my thoughts.

[RL Tavernaro]

Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater!

Seriously, I tend to agree with H.B. James. If the print is of good enough quality for comparison, then it should be compared & problems documented.

It seems that at least some of the problems can be overcome - i.e., print not at 1:1. If if was on a standard bank form, it should be relatively easy to use that as a scale to produce a 1:1 copy of the document, including the print. It may even be possible to reconstruct a chain of custody (although not in the traditional sense).

The fly in the ointment may be if there is a clear policy excluding improperly submitted evidence from acceptance by your lab/unit. If so, is there a provision for exceptions to the policy?
Regards, RLT

[mdavis]

As a pathetic and tragic aside to this scenario, the so-called "Check 21" law passed by the mega-bucks banking industry lobby provides for the Federal Reserve Banks to shred all checks received from submitting banks after making a reduced-image (photocopy?) for electronic transfer back to the bank of origin and subsequent inclusion in your monthly bank statement. That has essentially shut off all check evidence submitted for latent print processing at my lab, with the exception of a rare inked impression that survives the photocopy process. This destructive practice saves the banks lots of money in transporting original checks back to their origin, but does have the potential to generate a few such copies that may show up on our desks. Get used to it.

[Peter Griffin]

I am with HB and RL. It will be an issue in court if it makes it that far, but nothing that cannot be overcome with good documentation and a clear explanation by the LPE.
PG

[Steve Skowron]

We have faced a similar problem when dealing with
prints(knowns) that have been photo copied.

In cases where the copies are pixilated or half tones
the image quality can be so poor that we will not
use them for an identification.

We will use them for elimination. In your case I
would say go ahead and make the comparison.
If the print on the check is a big fat whorl pattern
and your subject has no whorls then you just may
have proven his innocence.

[mdavis]

That's essentially what I'm doing. Look 'em over and say what you can say. Maybe someone will get tired of always getting reports that say "insufficient quality".

[RJ Hillman]

Thanks to everyone who posted an answer to my question.

I am a little disapointed with the low number of responces.

Over 550 people have viewed this thread, and only five people answered.

Come on everyone..... Is there anyone out there that thinks the evidence should not be processed and is willing to say so ????

[Norberto Rivera]

I feel tempted to say 'no we can't/won't do that' on a daily basis. Time is a commodity and supplies expensive, among other things, so it's easy for us to be reluctant to work something like this when we could better direct our time and resources to 'more worthy cases'. More often than not though, I find that even these cases are worthy of attention. I like to take a 'customer service' type approach to our unit. We will process just about anything that an officer or investigator requests for us to do, so long as we have the resources to do it. In a way similar to blind testing, I don't want to know all the details surrounding an investigation because I want to find the evidence to support or dispel the investigative theories on my own. Call it blind processing if you will, not completely blind, but enough to curb any bias that would make me overlook something. Having said that, I tell my guys 'you can't make chicken soup out of chicken s***' so be mindful of what you submit for processing. The more evidence we have to process, the longer it's going to take for the final report to be issued out, and you may not like the results to boot. Not to mention the rest of your cases that will also take longer to complete because of increased workload.
In this particular instance, there is no doubt in my mind that some type of disciplinary action should be taken against the detective responsible for the gross mishandling of evidence along with the supervisors that allowed that document to continue through to the shredder. That may sound harsh, but that is one of my pet peeves. Every officer learns about evidence handling at the basic academy level but many seem to 'forget' something that they deal with on a daily basis. It boggles the mind. There is no reason for something like this to happen. Then again, I may be expecting too much, I don't know.
I would process it. If I was lucky I'd be able to identify someone who's lawyer is going to make this detective look doofy on the stand and hopefully evidence will go to the proper place next time. /2cents.