CLPEX Chat Board

As a cognitive scientist what I find most interesting is that initially the examiner "concluded that there was insufficient detail to be able to make a meaningful comparison." (paragraph 14), but then, after someone was charged, he "re-examined" the photographs, and made an identification (paragraph 15). Part of the explanation provided is that the lab "acquired a new scanning and printing machine which enabled him to run the print off and compare print to print more easily."

I find myself wondering if there is more here than a mere issue of a new scanning and printing machine. Being a cognitive scientist I think in terms of brain and cognitive mechanisms. In this case, how the extra examination --once there was a suspect that was charge-- may have affected perception, judgement and decision making.

I find myself seeing potentially two conflicting cognitive effects: A 'positive' one in which the 'target' suspect and extra examination enabled the examiner to focus on specific details and guide his examination and conclusion, and a 'negative' one in which the 'target' suspect may have biased the examiner.

I was wondering what people thought about this, and if & how one can distinguish when the context of a suspect is 'helpful' and when it may be negative.

Thanks,

Itiel

I can clearly see where you are coming from, but the reality is that in fingerprint comparison work 80% of suspects given (give or take a few) are not identified so after a few years one becomes a bit negative about suspects. In fact often it is quicker to search on AFIS than to check suspects. I understand the latent in question was never searched due to the quality, I suggest that when given a suspect most experts would go into the comparison with only mild expectation at most. I know in my experience I often think to myself just another elimination!!!!

Hi Itiel,

Aside from the obvious procedural and personal incompetence issues a number of options appear possible to explain the expert’s change of mind and the eventual identification.

• It could be, as the appeal judgement states, a simple question of new technology facilitating the further enquiry and eventual identification. Co-incidental but possible.

• Then again it could be, as was suggested at the Fingerprint Inquiry into the SCRO case, that pressure was brought to bear on the experts by the police who, believing they had identified the killer, required further evidence to convict and did not want the guilty to go free. This of course could entail a criminal act by the expert(s) in meeting the police goal.

• It could of course be down to the positive/negative cognitive factors you suggest and I have no doubt that the existence of a suspect can affect ‘perception, judgement and decision making’. I do appreciate Neville’s point however that there often is a ‘suspect’ and this alone is unlikely to trigger such cognitive factors. If we were talking about a ‘good suspect’ who the police believe committed the crime then matters are likely to be different.

In the ‘Mayfield’ case the potential of contextual information to affect the cognitive processes was well evidenced.

‘The Mayfield misidentification also reveals the danger that extraneous knowledge might influence experts' evaluations. If any of those FBI fingerprint examiners who confidently declared the match already knew that Mayfield was himself a convert to Islam who had once represented a convicted Taliban sympathizer in a child custody dispute, this knowledge may have subconsciously primed them to "see" the match.’
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ar ... May28.html

There is an argument for fingerprint experts having no contextual information available while carrying out their examination or having such information limited to that which will assist the analysis process but not encourage negative cognition to develop.

While accepting the importance of cognitive factors my feeling is that, as in the Mayfield and SCRO cases, cultural factors were critical to what happened and provided fertile ground for negative cognition. Institutional arrogance ('We are the best'), the pre-eminence of senior experts, the imperative towards agreement rather than disagreement being powerful factors at play.

I certainly hope that there is a thorough enquiry into the issues raised by the Regina V Smith judgement and that the lessons are learned. It is likely that the Fingerprint Inquiry Scotland will cover many of them.

Best wishes,

Iain

Hi Ian
This statement of yours is well put;
"While accepting the importance of cognitive factors my feeling is that, as in the Mayfield and SCRO cases, cultural factors were critical to what happened and provided fertile ground for negative cognition. Institutional arrogance ('We are the best'), the pre-eminence of senior experts, the imperative towards agreement rather than disagreement being powerful factors at play."
Clearly displayed when to the world media in Spain the FBI told told us all that the Spanish Police did not know what they were talking about, more or less saying they were ignorant; we are the FBI we know what we are talking about. At the time I wondered how the NZ Police would have dealt with such arrogance. I smelt a rat then and there I wondered if the FBI had got it completely wrong as the FBI spokesman admitted he had not identified the print. What on earth were they thinking, why did they send no expert with them to discuss it with the Spanish experts and view the original material. It could have saved a whole lot of problems.
Having read another blog on this site I am a little concered that there may still be a bit of arrogance hiding in their mind set.


HI Les
I guess it comes to us all soon or later. Rest assured that within a month or two at your office they will be saying Les who???
But "we will remember them them". ( well you actually) Enjoy you retirement you deserve it. Hope you do not stop blogging, I haven't.

Iain, Itiel and Neville,

This current thread brought back a memory of a pleasant evening with Ian Evett after participating in the 16-point study in England and Wales. The so-called proficiency test had been given and Ian had come to the US and Canada to include North American examiners in the study. Over dinner, Ian was relating some of his most memorable encounters with the UK culture of the time. An unnamed examiner from an unnamed agency was analyzing one of the photographs to determine the number of "points" present. Suddenly he asked Ian what was the charge?

Since this was a test, there was no crime, but Ian fired back, "Murder." The examiner smiled and said, "Then this mark has sixtenn points." Ian fumbled with his papers, then told the examiner he had been mistaken, the charge was theft. The examiner studied the photo for a few seconds, then said, "In that case, there are fourteen."

I agreed with Ian that there was little science used in determining whether a mark could be identified, but I had heard others, including examiners in the States, that would reverse decisions when they discovered the case was a serious crime. I used to call it the "John Wayne Syndrome," based largely on the belief that really bad guys had to be put away. This attitude went beyond "teasing" points in the mark. The hard reality is that, unless the examiner gets caught, prosecutors don't care.

At the same time, I reviewed a case in which easily demonstrated identifications were marked insufficient. I contacted the examiner to state I disagreed with his conclusions and would report three identifications. To my surprise, the examiner agreed with my findings, but confessed without any embarrassment that he "raised his standards" on cases from that particular area. "The defense attorneys in that city are all really good and I don't want the hassle."

I remember someone asking an expert in foods what nutrition was in a carrot? The response was, which carrot, where was it grown and when was it picked? I don't know an "average" examiner.

Years ago (late 1970’s), a colleague and I were visiting a non-USA agency’s fingerprint section and the subject of minimum number of points required for an identification in different jurisdictions came up in our discussion. This particular agency had a minimum number of 8 points. The scenario of only having seven points in a sensitive comparative examination was presented to the examiner. The response was along the lines of, “if I have seven, I can find eight”.

I hear what you all say, and I definitely agree that culture plays a great and critical role. I think that you misconceptualize 'cognitive' vs. 'culture', where in fact they are two sides of the same coin. People, cognition, and the human brain work within culture, organizations, and social interactions, and are --of course-- very affected by it.

Of general interest on this issue is a nice book by Oxford University Press, "The Mind as a Scientific Object: Between Brain and Culture", see details (if interested) at: http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780 ... estMatches

Of specific interest in forensic science, is how different elements (e.g., cognition and culture) can contribute to bias and problems in forensic work, I have a paper where I make exactly those distinctions, see details (if interested) at: http://www.cci-hq.com/Dror_JUR_human_biases.pdf

Thanks,


Itiel

Hi Pat
I somehow missed your comments regarding is there something more to it. I would suggest most likely; How many times has the Nothingham expert given fingerprint evidence in court? Perhaps in answering the questions he lead himself into a corner he could not get out of.

Itiel.

I did not mean to suggest that "culture" is more than one factor in a process that may not yet be adequately defined. And while there may be a broad category of "culture," there may be subsets. I recall a presentation by Chris Coombes as the UK was preparing to adopt a non-numeric standard. Chris described the five year training program then utilized in the UK and elsewhere as the "bop" method of conditioning. For five years, the trainer would ask the trainee what he/she saw. If the response was contrary to what the instructor saw, the trainee was hit on the head "bop." By the fifth year, the trainee responded not based upon what he/she actually saw but to avert being hit again. Even though we all knew Chris was exaggerating, his point was well taken. It does not encompass the entire culture but perhaps expalins where some of the remainder originated.

I believe that the Evett Williams review of the 16 point standard in the 90's had its own internal problems. I seem to recall that the technical personnel (print experts) were removed from the study group as their opinions did not fall in line with what the academic side of the fence wished to publish. Maybe some of the these experts (or others with more knowledge of this) can confirm/expand/refute?

Graham F wrote:I believe that the Evett Williams review of the 16 point standard in the 90's had its own internal problems. I seem to recall that the technical personnel (print experts) were removed from the study group as their opinions did not fall in line with what the academic side of the fence wished to publish.

Wait - there's bias in research!?

Let’s get back to the case shall we? Judges can get it wrong too. If one of the main issues here is the lack of a proper report and contemporaneous notes then is the judge simply trying to shoe-horn DNA practices into fingerprints? Fingerprint characteristics are not DNA loci. Not every forensic discipline is the same and a police-funded fingerprint expert does not have the resources of an independent organization, or the FSS. Contemporaneous notes in fingerprints were largely discouraged over the years (by the courts) due to the risk of prejudicing the case by exposing previous convictions. Charting characteristics for presentation at court has been largely discontinued, not because fingerprint experts don’t want to produce them but because the courts never use them . ‘Sample Idents’ and statements which only mention the identified marks have become common because that is what the CPS ask for. I’m sure the expert in this case could (did?) answer all the judge’s questions and produced marked up enlargements and if that is the way to go in all cases then fine – that is easy to achieve, but must be mandated.

If the issue is that experts disagree, then that will always be so and is certainly not unusual in forensics. Many cases have been discontinued because of this. I thought this was why the Forensic Regulator position was created, so that all experts could be validated and licensed?

The area of what is and what isn’t a ridge characteristic is the OPINION of the examiner at the time of the examination. Different examiners will have different opinions and a single examiner will have different opinions at different times. This does not indicate incompetence. Ask Eric Clapton, Brian May and Johnny Marr to play the same song and they will probably play different notes and it will sound different although obviously the same song – does that mean one of them is incompetent?

And sure we all have anecdotal experience of experts saying things like – “if there are 14 characteristics I can always find 16” or saying they have tried hard to identify a suspect. I could also quote many police officers and other forensic experts saying something equally unpalatable. What they say and what they do are two different things. They are people who do a hard job and want justice. They definitely don’t want to make a wrong identification whether it be a murder or shoplifting –and so they will not sign off an identification unless, IN THEIR OPINION, it could only be that one person. Ongoing refresher training and competence testing would validate that.

If every case needs a full report, blind confirmation and marked up enlargements then so be it. It isn’t rocket science so I don’t understand what the delay is. Let’s also have the government fund a full independent scientific study of fingerprint comparison and validate it properly. Maybe ISO/IEC 17025 certification of fingerprint bureaux is the way to go? Fingerprint bureaux have been allowed to do their own thing and corners have been cut in the procedures, due to inexperienced managers and budget constraints – NOT due to incompetance. It doesn’t mean the identifications are invalid or wrong, but the courts have to be part of the process and FP bureau shouldn’t lose sight of that just because they rarely go to court.

Knee-jerk reactions to this case and old prejudices are not helpful. For the sake of proper justice we must avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I thought this was why the Forensic Regulator position was created, so that all experts could be validated and licensed?

If the Regulator was in place to undertake these aspects, how would this fare for Ms Catherine Tweedy, whose training has been called into question by the CPS

Dear Steve,
As per your question ("bias in research?"), yes, of course! Many times when I present at forensic conferences people ask me "are you biased"; and the answer is also, yes, of course! The point is that sciences and researches are aware of their bias, acknowledge it, get training in this area, and take measures to minimize it. And mere 'awareness' of it and 'willpower', is by no means a way to deal and minimize it. What sciences and researchers do, for example, is use placebos, blind ratings, inter-rater reliability, double-blind procedures; I can tell you that when I do my research I let someone else do the statistical analysis (someone not involved in the research, because there are many statistical tools, and I want to make sure that I do not chose the statistical tool that fits my hypothesis or my unconscious bias, etc.); and there are many other methods which can be found in basic scientific research methods books. The point being that bias is inevitable when human judgements are involved, and measures need to be taken --as much as possible, as much as is reasonable-- to minimize them.

Dear Takenforgranted,
Yes, let's get back to the case: an examiner determined a latent print had "insufficient detail to be able to make a meaningful comparison.", but then, once there was a suspect who was charged, he made a comparison and identified him (see my post at the top of this page); what do you make of that?

Thanks,

Itiel

In the light of the issue in relation to Ms Tweedy's qualifications and the way in which the evidence was adduced at trial, we consider it important that we should identify some of the features which have become apparent to us. None have been material to the decision we have in fact reached in this case as to the safety of the conviction, but as they are important to the way in which fingerprint evidence is adduced where the print is not clear; we set them out :

The court of appeal thought that there needs to be some clarification. How the ACPO etc. go about doing this is up to them.

I don't think this is such a big issue since it was not the reason why the conviction was quashed. Rather, what the court wants those who direct fingerprint policy to consider.