LAPD Fingerprint Mistake

[Dennis Degler]

[Iain McKie]

As a non expert the information I want to see is contained in the article.

"This is very, very serious," said Rhonda Sims-Lewis, chief of the Police Department's administrative and technical bureau. "We feel very compelled to take quick action when something like this arises. Guilty people can be set free and innocent people can be jailed."

One fingerprint analyst, who was involved in both the mishandled cases, was fired and three others were suspended last year after internal investigations, Sims-Lewis said. Two supervisors in the department's latent print unit were replaced.

"This is something of extraordinary concern," said Michael Judge, public defender for Los Angeles County. "Juries tend to afford the highest level of confidence to fingerprint evidence. This is the type of thing that easily could lead to innocent people being convicted."

It seems to me that your profession can only benefit when swift, efficient and fair enquiry is made and remedial action taken where necessary.

As I contemplate at least another 6 months of the Scottish Fingerprint Inquiry I only wish that the authorities here had acted decisively instead of doing everything in their power to cover up what I believe to have been incompetence and wrongdoing.

http://www.thefingerprintinquiryscotlan ... ry/21.html

http://shirleymckie.com/

[charlton97]

Here we go again again again !!!

Bad fingerprint leads to teen's release
Associated Press
October 18, 2008
HARTFORD, Conn. - Charges are being dropped against a Hartford teen who spent more than a year behind bars, accused of a 2007 home invasion robbery, because the fingerprint evidence against him is faulty.

A judge granted a motion to end the prosecution of Argenis J. Burgos after the initial fingerprint identification in the case proved to be incorrect. And Burgos, now 18, does not fit the victim's description of the robbers.

Burgos' lawyer says his client always maintained his innocence and was never near the East Hartford apartment where a 71-year-old woman was robbed at gunpoint.

Police initially said they lifted the fingerprint evidence from the base of a cordless phone. But Burgos' lawyer says the print actually came from the getaway car, which was a stolen rental car.

[Pat A. Wertheim]

A couple of friends called and emailed me about the situation in Los Angeles this week. I replied something like, "Look, as I understand it, you've got one case of lost latent print lifts and one case of erroneous identification in, what, the last ten years? Come on, LAPD has about 50 full time latent print examiners doing probably tens of thousands of correct identifications during that time. Is there a problem? Maybe. Is it serious? I doubt it!"

Stephen Meagher stated at a conference a few years ago that the FBI makes an erroneous identification about 1 for every 11,000,000 correct identifications. If you happen to be the person misidentified in that one erroneous ident, it is a serious problem (ask Brandon Mayfield). But in the overall scheme of things regarding reliability of forensic evidence, it is not a big problem.

It has always been my contention that dishonesty is a far more serious problem than erroneous identification. Cases of fabricated evidence far outnumber cases of honest mistake. But the underlying current of this thread is that this is a problem we in the fingerprint community have to deal with, and that is correct. We need to take corrective action wherever and whenever erroneous idents occur, but we also need to purge the dishonest people from our ranks. They are the ones who do more harm. And each of us needs to stay informed on these issues so we can answer in court when questioned about them.

[Steve Everist]

Here we go again again again !!!

Bad fingerprint leads to teen's release
Associated Press
October 18, 2008
HARTFORD, Conn. - Charges are being dropped against a Hartford teen who spent more than a year behind bars, accused of a 2007 home invasion robbery, because the fingerprint evidence against him is faulty.

A judge granted a motion to end the prosecution of Argenis J. Burgos after the initial fingerprint identification in the case proved to be incorrect. And Burgos, now 18, does not fit the victim's description of the robbers.

Burgos' lawyer says his client always maintained his innocence and was never near the East Hartford apartment where a 71-year-old woman was robbed at gunpoint.

Police initially said they lifted the fingerprint evidence from the base of a cordless phone. But Burgos' lawyer says the print actually came from the getaway car, which was a stolen rental car.

So was it misidentified or the wrong substrate with a good ID?
A lot of information is lacking in this story.

[Outsider]

Stephen Meagher stated at a conference a few years ago that the FBI makes an erroneous identification about 1 for every 11,000,000 correct identifications. If you happen to be the person misidentified in that one erroneous ident, it is a serious problem (ask Brandon Mayfield). But in the overall scheme of things regarding reliability of forensic evidence, it is not a big problem.

I agree but only if everybody (police officers, lawyers, judges, juries, journalists) understand that this is not the likelihood of the accused in a particular case being innocent. Errors "self-select" because they look suspicious while all the correct and innocent idents are ignored. If there was only a 1 in 11,000,000 chance of the accused being guilty without the fingerprint evidence then there would be an evens (50:50) likelihood of guilt after taking it into account (that may not be a completely rigorous explanation, anybody like to try a better one?).

I think there is job for someone who knows the processes and procedures to put the equations and research of the academic world into plain language and connect them to the real world (in industry engineers do this).

I don't think the FBI statement that “Fingerprints offer an infallible means of personal identification” is helpful. It can be misinterpreted as meaning that we can always be certain that someone is lying if they dispute an identification - no need to think about anything else. The possibility of human error should never be forgotten.

End of second paragraph
http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cjisd/ident.htm

[Dennis Degler]

Perhaps it should be said that "fingerprints are a reliable means of personal identification".

[L.J.Steele]

More on LA

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me ... rint.story

[Dennis Degler]

[Ducky]

And another article
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la- ... ?track=rss

[Dennis Degler]

(withdrawn)

[Carl Speckels]

Now Dennis, I thought you knew better than to believe everything you watch on TV... Like everyone else we have our backlogs but that's the way it is in the big city...it's getting better every day and that's the best we can do. Now then, if the KPHO story were true, it most certainly would have been HUGE news in this area but you might notice that there were no other news stations (or newspapers) that took this story on...hmmm.

[Dennis Degler]

(withdrawn)