CLPEX Chat Board

I sent this out to my email group but thought it may be something for the chat board too.

As John Vanderkolk mentioned in a previous post, part of the scope of the OSAC includes, “The OSAC standards efforts shall encourage harmonization to minimize redundant, overlapping or conflicting standards."

In reading documents from the Trace and Latent disciplines, it doesn’t seem like there’s uniformity between the pattern evidence disciplines. The Trace document is advocating for 7 conclusions while the latent documents are advocating for 5 conclusions. Here are the 7 for Trace:
-Physical fit
-Association with highly discriminating features
-Association with discriminating features
-Association with limitations
-Inconclusive
-Exclusion with limitations
-And Exclusion

I wonder, is there a good reason for some disciplines to only need 5 conclusions and for others to need 7 conclusions?

Is using different continuums for different disciplines confusing to those practicing multiple disciplines (like a person who performs trace, latents and footwear)?

Is this confusing to laymen who need to listen and understand different types of evidence being presented (e.g., attorneys and jurors)?

I also noticed that the trace document distinguishes between findings and the interpretation of findings (or the significance of the findings). Something I think is an important distinction. As an example, ‘friction ridges developed’ would be a finding and ‘the latent print was deposited by John Doe’ would be the significance or the interpretation of the findings. Another example could be when you go to the doctor and tests are performed. A test may show you have a high white blood cell count (that’s a finding… but what does this finding mean?). The reason for the high white cell count could be infection, leukemia, stress, etc. (the interpretation of the findings is the doctor’s conclusion after considering the findings). As you can see, findings and conclusions are very different and it’s probably one of the areas all the disciplines need to work on and harmonize. Along with the words ‘findings’ and ‘conclusions’, the word ‘decision’ needs to be considered since many commonly refer to ‘the decision-making process’.

I’ve done some research into it and of course, as we’ve all recognized, words can have different meanings but I’ve found that decisions seem to be when people have a choice to make (should I wear shorts or pants when it’s 100 degrees out?). Decisions are not typically judged to be in error but they can be judged to be good or bad decisions (I decided to wear pants and that was a bad decision). At our agency, we recently changed ‘the decision-making process’ to be ‘Decisions and Conclusions’. The purpose is to describe the scientific method employed to make decisions and reach conclusions. It’s a small step at improving our explanations. We’ve added these 3 words to our definitions:

Conclusion – the interpretation of findings based on a criteria (e.g. complexity level, association to a subject, and/or non-association to a subject)
Decision – a choice made by an examiner based on preference (e.g. type of dye stain to be used, lighting used, running a marginal latent print through AFIS)
Finding – what data/information was found during testing (e.g. friction ridge detail)

I’d love to hear the thoughts of others on any of these things.

I think you make a good point and there's something that I'd add that wasn't succinctly part of the OSAC 5 Conclusion based on some of what you said.

Michele wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 10:01 am Conclusion – the interpretation of findings based on a criteria (e.g. complexity level, association to a subject, and/or non-association to a subject)
Decision – a choice made by an examiner based on preference (e.g. type of dye stain to be used, lighting used, running a marginal latent print through AFIS)
Finding – what data/information was found during testing (e.g. friction ridge detail)

Specifically that decisions are choices, findings are observations based on those choices, and conclusions are statements about the significance of those observations. I know, I know, it sounds a bit like Lloyd Dobler

The point being that unless the decisions are clearly articulated (criteria for running a print through AFIS) and the findings clearly articulated (I need to observe orientation, two target groups, and know the anatomical source of the detail for an Exclusion), then the Significance of those conclusions will be off. This is why 'You can use this language however you see fit' doesn't exactly ring true. It's like having a ruler whose tick marks change distance depending on who's holding it. That is to say, it's uncalibrated.

In the conflict resolution doc from OSAC, they attempted to differentiate between decision and conclusion.

Decision was referring to value or utility and conclusion was referring to a source conclusion.

Is this print of value? That's a decision - hopefully based on some objective measure the FSP spells out. Did this person make this print? That's a conclusion resulting from a decision of value.

We've used that in my shop for some time now. If you have a decision of no value but review of that decision results in it being of value, there's no error associated with the 'wrong' decision - you just move on to comparison. If you have a demonstrably wrong conclusion, that is an error and is handled through FSP policy (noncon/corrective action).