CLPEX Chat Board

Hey. A quick question for y'all.

I am doing some ethics research on latent fingerprint examination- specifically the need for speed on the part of the police vs. Investigation integrity.

I.E: Not giving the Fingerprint repository hits to authorities (IAFIS or Local) to check out after the primary has verified the print (Not to arrest, just to invesigate. E.g. In the cases of burglaries, trying to catch them in the act)

I was wondering if there were any articles anyone could point me too regarding either side of the debate?

Cheers

I'm not sure your question is clear. A latent print (if of sufficient quality) is entered into an AFIS system and possible candidates are returned. The latent print is then compared against those of the candidates for potential individualizations. Are you asking if somebody can declare that a latent sure looks like a certain candidate, inform a detective or investigating officer of their belief, and then wait to have a second person verify it? That is not the norm. Or are you asking if once a latent print is individualized, do agencies inform an investigator or detective about all of the people on the candidate list that the latent print wasn't individualized to? That's not the norm either.

This thread may provide some material for you....
Search for "reporting 'potential' suspects", I found it on page 5 of the chat board.

http://library-resources.cqu.edu.au/JFS ... 890719.pdf

I haven't found any article specifically speaking to that topic, nor would I necessarily characterize speed and thoroughness as mutually exclusive. The link is to an article that I think accurately characterizes the dilemma of ethics in forensic science, which I think spills over into the topic you are interested in. Ethics, like science must be approached via the porridge principle (not too hot, not too cold), meaning there should be tension between the two. There are clear cut paradigm cases and borderline cases but any attempt to define the border will end up in disagreement. Ethics, like science is conventional and is dependant on the philosophical approach one takes to science in the first place as well as the civilian/commissioned status and agency goals (just to name a few factors). Unfortunately, most of the denotations of ethics in forensic science read like the forensic scientist is a superhero judge robocop whose job it is to be the sole administer of justice.

I like the article above, because it was written in 89, before the popular culture's fixation on forensic science.

Hope it helps.

Thank you I am going to check out that article right away!

And let me see if I can clear up the question a bit...

Here is a hypothetical situation of what I am trying to get at...

There has been a series of burglaries in a span of small towns. Investigators have found several latent prints at each site. Running the prints through AFIS, they found that several of the prints have drew the same name. A primary has not verified the prints, nor have they been sent out to be verified by an outside source. Police officers want the name though: not to arrest, but to put a watch on him. They know that it may take several days or even weeks to get the prints verified. Two years ago a similar situation had occurred and the police had waited for the second verification before acting. In this time period, the burglar had struck again and in the process had killed the 88-year old inhabitant of the home.

Any knowledge of real-life incidents like this one (articles, news stories, etc.) would be incredibly helpful. Also, any articles on WHY names can't be just given to the police (more then just common sense). I need both sides of the stories, and maybe just some leads. Anything would be helpful

reah wrote:Here is a hypothetical situation

Hypothetical? Really?

Your "hypothetical" situation is a bit severe, but similar scenarios happen all the time. For example; a series of res-burgs in the chief of police's neighborhood and prints have been found at one of the houses. The chief is "hot" on this and pressures the Invest bureau to find the suspect. But there is no one at the crime lab to do the comparison. So what do they do?

Our answer has been, as a professional courtesy the lab will work the case as quickly as possible, but it is still just a residential burglary, and not something to break our backs over. If the powers that be really think it's worth it, they can call back people in on over time to do the comparisons and verifications, but that is a rare event in this economy. If an identification has been made, but not verified, only our lab administrator has the authority to release that name to the detectives on a case by case basis. Of course our detective know that the name may be false and that they can't really do anything but look at the person until the full verifications are done. However that in of itself can be useful. That scenario with the res-burgs near the COP's home was true and the even the burglary detectives were called in on over time to work the case. Some guy was found "casing" that neighborhood one morning with "burglary tools" in his possession and everyone was ready to pin all the burgs on him and call it a day. But the prints from the scene came back to a different person, and there was no one else available to do the verifications. So with our lab administrator's blessing we called the detectives and told them in a round about way that they probably don't have the right guy or at least not all of them and to start looking some more. That really ruined their day since they were about to go home, but it probably helped that poor sap they found wandering the area earlier.

P.S. We do print out the top 50 in our candidate list (just SID #'s) and add that to the AFIS part of the case packet. Anyone can look at it, i.e. detectives, lawyers, defense experts, etc. The detectives can look up all those numbers to find the person's info if they want.

I'm confused as to why it is taking days or weeks to get identifications verified? We staff a minimum of 2 people at any given time who are qualified to conduct comparisons for that exact reason. So that verifiations can happen immediately if needed. I also used to work with a lab that had examiners on call for middle of the night AFIS runs and identifications/verifications for time sensitive cases such as kidnappings.

As for the issue of releasing the name of an AFIS identification to Detectives before a verification is made - my understanding is that it is up to the individual lab and how their policies are written. Another lab in my area does not conduct verifications at all, but we do. So to answer your question about WHY names are not released before identifications are verified, it's lab procedure/policy, not a legal issue. Usually that policy exists because the examiners are using ACE-V mehtodology, which requires verification as the final step. In addition, verifications are highly recommended by the majority of people in our field. So it follows the line of making sure you follow a process that is 'generally accepted' by the field.

If you want research and studies as to why verifications should happen in the first place, or why the field recommends it, perhaps start with validations on the ACE-V method. Also look up erroneous IDs that were made because no one verified them, so they weren't caught. If I can find any, I will post them here.

I also don't under stand why it takes so long, 5 minutes to ID and another 5 to verify, 10 minutes plus a bit of paperwork no more than 1/2 an hour, if your lab does not have the staff email to a mate some where else, email it to me if you like what is the big deal.

But an even bigger issue in my mind is why on earth is someone telling the investigators that you have a list or a possible ID, tell them to bugger off and don't ring us we'll ring you. Talk about creating your own problems, I don't mean you personally but your office. Is your office policy for self flagellation or something?

I imagine it would be easier for the cops to take the nearest phone book and pick out names that they think matches local crims and keep tabs on them; it would be just as useful. Seems to me all that is happening is if you have been fingerprinted before in your local area (along with other extended family members) you are more likely to be on the list if one of them is the offender than someone who has no racial nor family ties to the offender and you are no more likely to be a match to the offender. I have seen numerous cases where even when you extend the list to 100 candidates none have been identified yet those at the top of the list have scores of 3000 or more. (our list is defaulted to 20 long)

Aren't you making things very difficult for yourself by printing out the list from AFIS and attaching it to the file then sending that out to the offender via his/her solicitor, imagine if your surname was very unusual like Tuwairua you maybe the only person in town with a name like that and everyone would know you had been arrested. I picked that name because it is a NZ Maori name and there are only 5 listings in the NZ White Pages and none live in Auckland which has a population of over 1.5 million, in a situation like that I can imagine there would be big payouts if the police got sued. Surely in a country like yours there are laws about releasing personal information from government data bases.

Why would you want to have a bunch of cops sit around watching another bunch of crims just in case one of them is the offender, actually that is a great idea, why not print out the whole data base and be done with it? (Then my wife's pine tree forest value will increase ensuring at happy retirement). Not to mention there would be next to no crime in your area. A win win situation.

You guys really don't understand why it takes so long? Really?

Right now, due to people retiring, and what not, we have one person who is doing AFIS, comparisons, and verifications all shift. ONE PERSON! Out of the 9 of us, there are five people who are signed off for comparisons for a city of nearly 500,000 people. We work two shifts 7 days a week, handle field calls with on call rotations, process evidence in the lab, take photographs, and collect biological evidence in addition to any AFIS or comparison work. We have new people in field training so those who are cleared for comparisons are training them as well. Due to ASCLD:ISO stuff, just notes and report writing takes an hour on a case with only a few lifts. So if every shift you bring in six or seven cases, it adds up and starts to back up. Not to mention all the guns and other evidence that needs to be processed in the lab. And no, we cannot just e-mail the case to someone else to verify. It's not in our SOP and let's just leave it at that. When we were running at full capacity of 10, we still only had one person per shift running AFIS or doing comparisons. We have two verifiers for ID's and we also verify non-ID's, so at the earliest, it would still take 2 days for all three people to look at an ID. And due to budget cuts, this is not an uncommon set up for cities around here.

And about the candidate list. I think you are misunderstanding that the list is comprised of numbers, not names. The only way to get the name of that person corresponding with that number is through Law Enforcement of some kind. The reason we print out the list is because we have been asked before in court to provide the candidate list by defense attorneys as part of discovery. We have also been asked by attorneys what is the rank of their client in the candidate list.

P.S. for those not in the USA (specifically CA), we have a Brady Law that allows the court to use anything posted on the entire internet by a police officer or other expert witness i.e. a fingerprint examiner to be used against them in voir dire or even impeachment. So when there is a mention of a situation that did not follow standard operating procedures, I think you should read between the lines....

P.P.S. Not all latents just take 5 minutes to ID. The "big deal" is a case called Mayfield. I think you've heard of it.....

WOW rm1023! And here I was all feeling sorry for our situation..My little "town" is also nearly 500,000, but we have a crew of 18 in two shifts that pretty much do the same type of work you do. All of our staff are fully trained and seasoned, but there are those on long term disability, so actually we have about 15, including supervisors that now do field work too. And like you, I was a bit baffled by the 5 minute remark...we often spend far longer than 5 min. on a comparison. Our staff is totally stressed with our workload, and with our California summers, it is only going to get busier. So when I read your post two things immediately came to mind. 1) how do you and your people keep treading water? and 2) I certainly hope our city manager doesnt catch wind of how you manage to do it all with far less staff.

PCC wrote:So when I read your post two things immediately came to mind. 1) how do you and your people keep treading water? and 2) I certainly hope our city manager doesnt catch wind of how you manage to do it all with far less staff.

When we were at full staffing with everyone trained to the point of being able to do things on their own, we were just able to keep things at a manageable level. We were never without a backlog though. We also got several grants to use for over time and people would come in to do that second verification or pull cases to enter into AFIS. If your City Manager asks, you can tell him/her that the last time ASCLAD inspected us, they recommended to our Chief that for the size and level of crime of our city, we should have 3 times as many staff.

Hi RM1023
Case well put, I too feel sorry for you, I think the ASCLD:ISO is where the problem is because we were not too different with as I said a population of 1.5 million or there abouts we had about 10 to 15 staff 3 or 4 of them trainees plus two people in the lab, SOCOs going to most field jobs, our guys going to homicides, 3000 latent hits a year I did close to 90% of the checking, I do know what its like but we had no ASCLD:ISO. Ten years ago we were warned by the Aussies to stay well clear of it; best advise we were ever given. I stick to my 1/2 hour though and absolutely 5 minutes to check, my way was to always be looking for why it was not identical rather than verifying the identification. I also have a difficulty with this blind verification thing, if it is true blind then some one should give you a lift a say can you search this for me. That would be pointless as you may well put your points into AFIS differently and search the wrong area resulting in a no hit, what would that prove?

I guess your bosses decided to go with ASCLD:ISO so now they have to provide the staff to man their decision, it is their problem not yours just let the back log build-up till the $@#% hits the fan and see where it lands. Just make sure you have it on paper that you have warned them of what is going to happen. And definitely do not provide them with a candidate list. They will at some stage say they got a hit off AFIS and suddenly it becomes your problem to "please explain".

Best o Luck
Neville

Mayfield? yes it took me about 4 minutes to decide it was either not his or insufficient to ID, after another couple of minutes I settled on the latter. Some time after that I had a better quality link on the internet and changed my opinion to it not being his, you can argue that I was biased, it maybe true though I doubt it.

I admit there are occasions when it takes longer but at least 3/4 of verifications are easy.

Neville wrote:And definitely do not provide them with a candidate list. They will at some stage say they got a hit off AFIS and suddenly it becomes your problem to "please explain".

I don't really understand what your are trying to say here. You mean that at some point the defense will say they ID'ed the latent to a different person from the candidate list? Or that the defense used their own AFIS system and got a hit that so happens to not be the same person?

As part of the case file it is reported that the latent has been entered into AFIS and compared to the top 50 candidate with whatever result. Does not the defense have the right to ask, "who were those other candidates that you reported to have looked at?" If you are confident that the latent does in fact ID to that person, or that you really did look at all of them (how many your SOP says you need to look at) and none of them ID, then what is the harm in giving the defense a list of 50 numbers?

No, the cops may tell the offender they have an ident off AFIS to try and get an admission. Has happened before today.

Re Do the defence have the right to ask who else you compared it with??? May I ask a question or two which will probably answer that one; when you were searching manually in the Henry collection did you supply the name on every fingerprint form you turn over in your manual search for the matching print? Do you really compare every print on the list once you have an ident on the first one (with a score of say around 6000) on the list when the other 49 on the list have scores of around 100 or less (if you do why)? Do you really think that stopping at the 50th candidate answers the obvious next string of questions? Why did you stop the list at 50, the true offender may have been 51 on the list, did you compare with every one on every other data base, blah blah blah.

Anyway why did you or the powers to be choose 50, is there any scientific basis for the number 50. Seems to me you are making life very hard. I think ours is set at 20 maybe 25 though we would never say we compared all the other 19 candidates, what is the point in that.