CLPEX Chat Board

I've got a client convicted of homicide in a case where no body turned up. (Client was last person seen with a prostitute, who was not heard from since.) Case was mostly circumstantial, client pled to a lesser sentence out of concerns that he was going to lose at trial and get life.

Client remains hopeful that alleged victim will turn up and asked whether her records are likely flagged in AFIS in such a way that if she gets (or got) arrested for drugs/prostutition in the US, an AFIS search would flag that she's presumed dead and the arresting police would know to notify the prosecuting authority that she's alive and well and that the defendant has been falsely convicted.

Does AFIS flag deceased or missing persons?

Ms Steele, I'm a little confused about how your client got convicted of murder. He picked up a hooker and was seen with her, but the next day she's gone missing and nobody has seen or heard from her since. That's hardly enough to prove she's dead, much less to prove she was murdered. And it would be mighty slim evidence to prove your client murdered her. There must have been something more or there wouldn't likely have even been an arrest, much less a conviction.

But as for AFIS, the only national data base is the FBI system. I think only felony arrests go into that now, so a misdemeanor prostitution arrest may not even make it into the national AFIS. If she is in one state AFIS and is arrested in a different state, there won't be a hit on her, either. If she is in the state system and gets busted in the same state, it would hit unless they purged her fingerprints because she was declared dead, which I think some states do. If she was purged, then a new arrest may just go into the files as a first time offender.

But I'm not real familiar with the FBI system nor how it works, and I don't know much about the fifty different state systems and what gets entered or retained. The bottom line is that if the hooker decided to start over in another state and did not have any felony arrests, she may not get identified in a new entry in another state.

Thomas Taylor wrote: If she is in one state AFIS and is arrested in a different state, there won't be a hit on her, either. If she is in the state system and gets busted in the same state, it would hit unless they purged her fingerprints because she was declared dead, which I think some states do. If she was purged, then a new arrest may just go into the files as a first time offender.

Flagging a file as deceased, in regards to AFIS databases, commonly requires fingerprints to begin with for the same reason that we need the fingerprints for recording criminal history. I don't know if there are agencies that actively flag 'missing' persons.

Thomas Taylor wrote:Ms Steele, I'm a little confused about how your client got convicted of murder. He picked up a hooker and was seen with her, but the next day she's gone missing and nobody has seen or heard from her since. That's hardly enough to prove she's dead, much less to prove she was murdered.

I haven't filed the appellate brief yet, so I'm limited in what I can say about the facts. The State relied on a long-term jailhouse informant who claimed to have befriended the defendant (then in custody on a probation violation charge) and testified that the defendant made a series of inculpatory comments (none of which included information that wasn't in the newspapers at the time.)

Alleged victim had prior arrests in CT and MA for state prostitution and drug offenses.

Thomas Taylor wrote:If she is in one state AFIS and is arrested in a different state, there won't be a hit on her, either. If she is in the state system and gets busted in the same state, it would hit unless they purged her fingerprints because she was declared dead, which I think some states do. If she was purged, then a new arrest may just go into the files as a first time offender.

That's what I was afraid of -- there's no flag that would tell a booking officer in state A (or perhaps even elsewhere in CT) that the victim is allegedly deceased or was missing and would give them some reason to notifiy the prosecutors or original department that she's alive and well.

I'm assuming same problem with CODIS? (All they have is mitocondrial DNA from the mother -- nothing that would cause a flag if she did something more serious and got her DNA sample taken.)

I don't think is so much a matter of AFIS being "flagged" as it is of if she has been entered as missing and what information was entered. An adult can be entered as missing if there is reason to believe they are endangered. I would not think that would be a problem here, since she's believed murdered. I would have thought she would have been entered as missing by the original agency.

Assuming she is entered into NCIC as missing/endangered, and assuming she is alive, if she was to give her correct identifying information to an officer at some point, and if the officer were to check for warrants, it automatically checks for missing, and he would be informed. Being an adult, she would only have to assure the officer that she was in no danger. She would not be detained, unless of course she was arrested for something else. The officer would notify the originating agency that he had talked to her and that she did not appear to be in danger, and the originating agency would clear her entry. Adults are allowed to move about, even disappear, if they choose, so the individual who reported the person missing normally gets to know only that law enforcement had contact and found he to be okay. In the normal course of affairs in a case like this, the agency would be working on the presumption that she is dead and that if they ever find her, it will be as remains. Their local file for the NCIC entry would likely be notated to bring the matter to the attention of an investigator, and the Originating Agency Case (OAC) number of the missing person entry would likely be the same case as the murder investigation.

If she were arrested, no matter what name she used, the agency would, either immediately or eventually, be notified of the correct name and the missing hit. They might or might not follow up with the original agency.

Such entries stay in the system indefinitely, but the originating agency has to certify periodically that they have checked and that she is still missing. If they fail to do that, they are eventually purged. One would think that notification that such a missing murder victim had been in contact with an officer would trigger something vigorous, but things tend to fade over time. Unless she was arrested, they would probably not be certain it was her.

I have had a missing woman entered continuously since 1982. It's no longer really a criminal case, since I learned in the late 80's that she was murdered by her husband who had also died and likely buried within a limited area. The agency still gets hits on the entry when remains are found to be a close physical match. For someone to report encountering her alive would extraordinary and would attract some attention and effort. In other words, they would not casually clear her from the system merely on the basis of an officer saying someone identified themselves as her.

Lisa,

This may be a stretch, but can a material witness warrant be issued for the alleged victim?

That may provide a step beyond what Gerald mentioned regarding a missing/endangered person.

Thomas Taylor wrote: But as for AFIS, the only national data base is the FBI system. I think only felony arrests go into that now, so a misdemeanor prostitution arrest may not even make it into the national AFIS.

The FBI does accept non-felony arrests--DUI, prostitution, etc.