CLPEX Chat Board

I think that we would all agree that there are a variety of ways to author and report your findings as an examiner provided that the report is written clearly and that it accurately represents the findings/conclusions of the examiner. Therefore I am asking for your interpretation and feedback of the following report wording:

“Latent X has been compared to J. Smith and no identifications were effected.”

and

“Comparison of Latent X to the known prints of J. Smith did not reveal any identifications.”


Question #1: Do these two statements mean the same thing to you?

Question #2: How would you interpret the meaning of each of these statements? What is the author trying to communicate?


I would like to encourage everyone that reads this to provide feedback even/especially if you're not a Latent Print Examiner responsible for generating this type of a report. Afterall, our customers that read our reports and that are in the position of interpreting our results aren't Latent Print Examiners either.

Thanks to those that take the time to read and respond to this request.

The statements mean the same thing to me and I understand them because I'm a Latent Print Examiner. As a matter of personal preference, I have never liked the term "effected."

I routinely write: "Comparisons of the latent prints with the fingerprint/palmprint exemplars for J. Smith revealed no matching impressions." Some people are shorter: "Item 1: no match" with the subjects's name elsewhere in the report, usually listed under "Suspect(s)" at the top of the report.

We at my agency are currently going through an SOP update and are trying to come up with conclusions and definitions of those conclusions. I don't think it matters how you say the info, only that you convey the correct meaning. There are many ways to de-fur a feline.

Both statements have the same meaning. I'm not crazy about either, but that's purely a matter of style. If I were a detective with no particular latent experience, I'd assume you didn't match to Smith but that the latent is such that you might match it to the source, if the source's prints were presented. I would assume that if it was because they were too poor to likely be used to identify anyone, you would have said that.

Hi Sharon,

Thank you for the response...

Reference the reporting convention that you used in your post, "Comparisons of the latent prints with the fingerprint/palmprint exemplars for J. Smith revealed no matching impressions."

Is that statement used to communicate that you have excluded the individual?

Carl,

My first response after reading your question was that neither one of your statements actually says that you’re excluding the person – only that you didn’t make a match in your comparison. I don’t find a big difference between the two statements specifically in this regard, but it’s what they don’t say that I found interesting. Of course you stepped in and mentioned ‘exclude’ before anyone else had a chance to notice that neither one, regardless of intention, actually said that J. Smith was excluded. The first two responses by Sharon and Gerald may have just assumed that this was the case and went on to a comparison of the actual statements themselves.

This was a question I posed in the beginning of the exclusion presentation that Michele Triplett and I gave in San Diego – what does it mean to exclude someone? I also mentioned a couple of things that have been used in the past to insinuate that they didn’t find it, without actually saying so.

I think either one could technically mean "I didn't find it," although when presented in court they would more likely be interpreted to mean that there was exclusion.

I assume that you're going somewhere with this thread regarding the language used in reports, what they appear to mean, and what they actually mean?

Hey Steve,

Yes, I was trying to phrase the question in a way that wouldn't be 'leading'. Having reviewed the 'report wording' of many different agencies I've come to find that these specific phrases (regardless of the word choice or arrangement) have multiple intended meanings (exclusion/inconclusive) by the authoring agencies. Some even use this type of 'ambiguous' report wording and then go on to delineate the specific meaning in their notes. Anyway, I'm hoping that more readers choose to chime in with their interpretations.

Carl,

From reading the different posts, it sounds like most agencies don't follow the SWGFAST recommendations for conclusions (Individualize, Exclude, or Inconclusive). Am I correct or are people writing statements like "No Identification effected", "No match", and "didn't reveal any identifications" as alternatives for inconclusive?

When agencies write these statements, is it in their SOP's that this means inconclusive?

Michele

Yes, Carl: "no matching impressions" means I have excluded the subject. (When Dennis Degler is reviewing my reports, I also add "--not made by Smith" because he is a big doo-doo head on that subject, although he has cleaned up the rat slander very well).

MY "previous agency" required us to say that "...no matching impressions were observed"--thus leaving the out for the unlikely circumstance that someone else could come along and actually match the person I compared to the latent print. Their reasoning was that I haven't compared every single millimeter of friction ridge skin on J. Smith and so couldn't possibly say that I had excluded him completely.

I think when you know without question which piece of friction ridge skin you are looking at, and the person you are comparing doesn't have the same ridge detail at that spot, you can exclude him completely.

(Some people, when they have identified the victim to a latent print, will say "The victim, Joe Schmoe, has been excluded as having made the impression" which is a whole 'nother can of semantical worms.)!

So then now I ask, how would you pharse a conclusion in which you have compared a latent to a known and have found there to be too much consistency between the two to exclude but not quite enough to allow you to identify? I believe we would all agree that this would be defined as 'inconclusive' but how would you phase it in a report?

Michele: I've seen agencies use report writing nomenclature that they will specifically define in their SOP's. However, I've discovered (which was the objective for my original question) that there are different interpretations of "no identifications effected/revealed". There are some (maybe even many) that interpret this phrase to mean 'exclusion'. So, I was curious to find out just how common this particular interpretation was.

I'm still hoping that anyone that reads this will choose to provide additional input as I am very interested in determining to what degree and scope this divergence in interpretation exists. Our active researchers/pioneers (you being one of them with your dictionary) have made significant contributions in establishing a common language amongst LP examiners but it appears that there are still some inconsistencies even in something as fundamental/basic as report writing conventions.

Like Sharon, I am not a fan of the word "effected"; however, I understand it is personal preference. The two statements mean the same to me and if I was not a latent examiner I believe I would completely understand the meaning of both. Other conclusions I've read have been "Subject X was excluded as the source of the latent(s)", and "the latent print(s) did not belong to subject X". Last but not least, "the latent print was not identified as subject X".

Carl,

Another thing that’s affected is the technical review process. I don’t have the ASCLD/LAB rules with me but SWGFAST says that a technical review should check to see that the reported results are clear and concise (does anyone know the ASCLD/LAB requirement off hand?). I wonder if this has been an issue in any inspections (that the results weren’t clear)? I’m with Dennis on this one (according to Sharon). If I saw ‘no match’, I wouldn’t assume the person was excluded. I’ve had plenty of prints where ‘no match’ was made but I could exclude the person (like when the latent is a palm print but I don’t have known palm prints).--(editing: this should have said 'couldn't exclude')

I’ve looked over our SOP’s and we have a section for appropriate conclusions (individualize, exclude, and inconclusive). We also explain what is meant by these conclusions but we don’t state the exact words examiners have to write in their reports. Someone could write ‘negative’ and then later claim that they didn’t mean it was ‘negative to that individual’ but ‘negative to the prints they had’. This may seem ridiculous to some people but we’ve had this discussion in our office and people do have different interpretations of very simple things. I really don’t see the need to make any changes to our SOPs right now but if we were ever to make other changes then it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to clarify this because as I already said, this discussion has come up in our office.

You asked how to phrase inconclusive for a specific case. I can think of a couple of different alternatives depending on the circumstances.

If the area needed wasn’t recorded:
-inconclusive to #6 SMITH – Need fully rolled impression

If the level of detail needed wasn’t recorded:
-inconclusive to #6 SMITH – need clearer rolled impression

If the print is of exclusionary value only (I know some agencies don’t recognize these kinds of latents):
-inconclusive to #6 SMITH - Characteristics between the latent and the exemplar are consistent but not sufficient to establish individualization. Additional exemplars won’t aid in changing the conclusion. This print is of exclusionary value only, but SMITH cannot be excluded.

Or if addition exemplars won’t help and you haven’t determined it’s of exclusionary value only then:
-inconclusive to #6 SMITH - Individualization or exclusion has not been established. (Sometimes additional time, additional consultation, additional computer enhancement may be needed to arrive at a conclusion but we don’t write this in the report).

Hi Michele,

The ASCLD/LAB (International) requirement that you were asking about is: 5.10 (Reporting the Results) and the specific reference to 'clarity' of reports is: 5.10.1 (General), first two paragraphs. Again, this references the ISO/IEC 17025 (International) document, I'm not sure about Legacy (it may have similar verbiage).

If there are no known exemplars to compare a latent print to, our agency uses "Not compared." You cannot say "inconclusive" as that implies a comparison was attempted. You cannot attempt a comparison if there is nothing to compare TO.
You do use "inconclusive" if you have exemplars, but they are crap. You DID attempt a comparison but were not able to come to any conclusion.