A new "expert" that we have to deal with

[ioan_truta]

Check this site:
http://www.rgchristopher.com/cfdb/exhib ... tRecord=18

I suggest to see all his exhibits regarding fingerprints.
In exhibit #18 if you read his notes you'll see that he challenges all CLPE to disagree him. I did.

This is not about a defense expert is about a good or a bad expert no matter from what side you do your expertise.

Ioan Truta, CLPE
Latent Print Unit, Boston PD

[Pat A. Wertheim]

Checking my IAI Directory, I see that this guy is not a member of the IAI. The method of determination and the conclusion in his article are pure nonsense. To say that he is expressing an opinion on something about which he has no knowledge, skills, or abilities is an understatement. He has a number of other fingerprint cases on his website. He is as blatently wrong in his conclusions in the rest of his comparisons as he is in this one.

[josher89]

I didn't know that taking one 40-hour class in Henry Classification makes you an expert

On top of that, as attested below, I have just completed a 40-hour fingerprint classification certification course to bring myself current in the field. (certificate dated 2006)

CURRENT IN THE FIELD??? Does anyone utilize Henry as their basis for being an expert?!?!?! OMG, where did this guy come from? I think the reason no one has challenged him is because he isn't worth anyone's time. I unfortunately took the time to read through his website and he is so vain asking anyone to challenge him...calling you a 'sissy' if you don't! His Comparaprint software is only as good as the database he has to search. If he uses the software to do a "comparison" for him (instead of side-by-side) he has wasted his money pruchasing that software. I'd like to know what he actually uses that for. I'll stop this post here otherwise the administrator might have to censor any further comments. By the way, I also disagree with him on Exhibit #18!!!

[Pat A. Wertheim]

Here are some more cases this defense expert claims to have attacked as being erroneous identifications by other fingerprint experts:

http://www.rgchristopher.com/cfdb/exhib ... stRecord=5

http://www.rgchristopher.com/cfdb/exhib ... tRecord=11

http://www.rgchristopher.com/cfdb/exhib ... tRecord=12

http://www.rgchristopher.com/cfdb/exhib ... tRecord=16

http://www.rgchristopher.com/cfdb/exhib ... tRecord=23

For a more complete list of cases in which he says he has conducted latent print examinations for the defense (and to see copies of both of his training certificates) see:

http://www.rgchristopher.com/FINGERPRINTING.htm

I would be interested in reading posts from any true fingerprint experts in the New England area who have had dealings with this guy.

[Steve Everist]

He's not new. At the San Diego IAI Conference, I included a couple of screen shots from his website in my presentation on exclusions. A week or so later, I got a call from Ken Martin who was wondering if RG was testifying up in the Pacific NW (which he hasn't).

But there is a new one that I've recently been made aware of - Manfred Schenk. He's Michael Cherry's fingerprint expert, among other fields.

[Boyd Baumgartner]

Now I'm not allowed to claim zero error rate, nor 100% accuracy these days, but I'm 'pretty sure' (that's a scientific measurement btw) that the fingerprint on his website is upside down. However, if he were to say "No it's not" that would be one discrepancy and he would have to win according to the One Discrepancy rule. What's a man to do?

[Gerald Clough]

Welcome to my world. Strange new methods never before heard and without supporting research. "Experts" citing completion of "courses" that upon investigation are found to be brief presentations and portions of presentations at conferences. Flip-flopping conclusions to agree with subsequent conclusions of other experts. Magical ability to go back in time and see the exact position of a body in space at the time a bullet struck.

[Peter Griffin]

WOW...scary stuff! This guy really needs to take Maceo's class on distortion since he seems to think fingerprints are produced like photocopies and are always exactly the same.

I also like how he says in slide 14 that “three crystals, if lumped together, would be about one millimeter in size. That being the case (in theory at least) they would also equal about one-milligram in volume.”
First, length (meter) is separate from weight (gram) and second grams are not volume units, cubic meters or liters are. It is like this guy never had a chemistry or physics class.

[David Grady]

The person was hired by a defense attorney in a case involving my LPU in Worcester, MA. Janis Ford from my office made an identification in a drug case that was being tried in the Worcester Federal District Court. He came in, looked at Jan's work and the following day a plea was made. However, the federal prosecuter who had the case seemed genuinely dissapointed to not get this guy on the stand. She referred to him as a "joke". Apparently she did her homework on him.

[josher89]

But there is a new one that I've recently been made aware of - Manfred Schenk. He's Michael Cherry's fingerprint expert, among other fields.

I emailed Michael Cherry's outfit asking for Mr. Schenk's credentials--his fingerprint training, etc. He has an educational background in mathematics and apparently specializes in cell phone tower mapping. I didn't see anything about fingerprints anywhere therefore the email request. We'll see if I hear back from them (it's been a few days now with no response).

[Dennis Degler]

If nothing else, I really dig the "Snidely Whiplash" music that Mr. Christopher plays on his website.

[Kent]

Oh Please... no more... I can't take anymore.. I went to this guys website and got laughing so hard I blew milk out my nose!!! Apparently this guy has never seen an inked card that was scanned into an AFIS then printed. Something anyone who actually works in the field knows about. Falsification? Fabrication? Manipulation? The only thing fabricated is this guys qualifications to testify as an actual expert. If anyone ever gets video of this guy on the stand, let me know. I'll bring the popcorn. I actually feel sorry for a good, honest defense attorney who buys this blow-hard's line...

[Alan C]

My favorite part is when he brings up error rates for chicken sexers.

When he talks about acceptable tolerance for "errors" being zero, it seems to me he's lumping tolerance for apparent differences in ridge detail (for which we all know there's room!) in with tolerance for comparison errors. He's obviously got very little experience doing comparisons if he thinks the prints linked in the original post are not an ident.

[reidsm]

I wish I could go into court with a Henry Classification certificate and qualify as an expert. (No offense Johnny - you are the MAN and have an excellent course of instruction.)

[Gerald Clough]

I wish I could go into court with a Henry Classification certificate and qualify as an expert.

I know you meant it facetiously, but you can. If there's no statutory criteria (as in Oklahoma, for instance, or the usual requirement for a physician to be licensed in the state), it's largely up to the opposing counsel who will accept or challenge the admission. I have been offered as a ballistics expert, with not one iota of training, other than the oddments you pick up in various crime scene and investigation courses and my own study of the standard texts, the offering having been made solely on my long experience with firearms. It's not a particularly comfortable position. I was testifying as the case officer, and I didn't know it was coming until the D.A. started laying down that basis for his offering. I'm pretty sure the judge was quite aware that I had never testified in his court on firearms and looked sort of surprised and looked to the defense attorney. I did too, since I expected him to jump up, object, and froth at the mouth. He didn't. He nodded, as if he followed the D.A.'s logic, and agreed that I could testify. Fortunately, the question was one that anyone with basic familiarity with ammunition could answer accurately. It was a fairly safe move by the D.A. It would certainly have been found on appeal that the defense counsel should have done better, but it wouldn't have reversed the conviction, because there was ample other evidence to convict, and the attorney did a reasonable job otherwise with a hopeless case. I've testified many times as an expert on "deadly weapon," based on 25 years as a paramedic. That was proper. I was properly not allowed (offered on the basis of considerable experience in child sex investigations) to testify as an expert on an issue of why a child might not repeat their account in court. That attorney knew enough to stop that attempt. (Of course he later inadvertently kicked that door open on cross-examination, giving the D.A. that opportunity to ask the question anyway. If they slip up and ask you to render an opinion, they've let you in as an expert.)

The point is that I could, if I wished, add "court-certified ballistics expert" to my vita or at least cite testimony as a ballistic expert in the district (felony) court. You're an expert if the opposing counsel thinks you are. In my case, defense counsel obviously had no clue as to what constituted a ballistics expert, any more than he or most others would have known the difference between classification and identification. If the guy had the Henry training and had practiced it, well - it's a fingerprint expertise, qualifying as knowledge and skill beyond the layman. So he's a "fingerprint expert." For that matter, there's nothing in most places to stop someone from reading up a bit, doing a bunch of fingerprint comparisons, during work or in their own time, and testifying as an expert. Further, if I had no formal dedicated fingerprint courses, I could probably work up a respectable number of "fingerprint training" hours by pulling together all the time devoted to fingerprint topics in other sorts of courses. I could cite the course names, and few attorneys would recognize that they weren't really courses dedicated to fingerprints. (Or that the "courses" were just snippets from conference presentations, as I caught one guy doing.) And I'll bet that once I had managed to testify once and had a letter from the court to that effect and had that "Henry" course, I might well get through the committee review and become a Fellow of the FPS. (You UK guys don't have to run check my file. Mine is legitimate.)