Dr. Henry Lee makes life interesting for the rest of us.

[Cindy Rennie]

I was watching a Forensic Science program on TV the other night (OK, so it's an obsession....but I'm dealing with it) Dr. Henry Lee was talking about a case where the culprit was one of two identical twins. The problem was - both twins confessed. The challenge was to determine which twin was the real guilty party.

Dr. Lee said that DNA could not help because both twins would have the same DNA.

He then said fingerprints might not help as well because (and I quote) "Eighty per cent of identical twins have the same fingerprints". Not 'the same patterns', but 'the same fingerprints'.

This is going to make life interesting for those of us to have to testify in the witness stand!

[Pat A. Wertheim]

Wow! This is interesting, Cindy. What was the name of the show? I remember an AAFS meeting years ago when he tried to defend his testimony at the OJ trial about a bloody footwear impression that turned out to be a shoe print in the concrete of the sidewalk that had been left when the sidewalk was poured years earlier. After that, I wouldn't disbelieve any story I heard about Henry. I think a lot of us would be interested in seeing that, especially those of us who know him personally.

[lpexaminer]

I have that episode on my tivo and i have given several copies on dvd to people. If anyone wants to have a copy, send me a dvd with your return address and i will copy it for you.

Kimberly Lankford
Fort Worth Police Dept.
Crime Lab
350 W. Belknap 4th floor
Fort Worth, Tx 76102

[Pat A. Wertheim]

Kim! Why does it completely fail to surprise me that you would have that program on tivo? Some of us just don't have a life outside of fingerprints, do we? My DVD will be in the mail to you in a day or two. Thanks a million!

[Danny Lamont]

Kim and Pat,

Kim, I too will be sending a DVD to you. It should make for a very interesting viewing. I am so glad that you brought this to everyones' attention.

Pat,

I am also surprised by this rather bold statement by Dr. Lee. I have held him in high regard for many years. I have also had the honor of meeting him and speaking with him on numerous occasions at the past Educational Conferences. It surprises me that he would make that remark, considering that I do not remember, ever, of having read a paper by him on this subject that proved this statement.

I always believed that to say such things that go against everything that we know about how fingerprints are formed would surely have included a very large study of identical twins, triplets, quadruplets, or any other version of identical, and then publish a paper on the findings to be peer reviewed. Even in the history of fingerprints, there was a study of, I believe, two hundred sets of identical twins, and the findings were that none of the fingerprints were identical. If you have seen such a study by Dr. Lee, please guide me to where I may study it.

Oh, and I have my work-shops all approved for Kentucky. It will be nice to see you and many of the other professionals again. I have missed the conferences over the past nine years because it is the only time that I can get together with others that feel the same way that I do about the Science of Fingerprints.

[Pat A. Wertheim]

Danny,

I, too, used to hold Henry in high regard. His involvement in the OJ case led me to question that regard. As I recall the situation, he used a photograph of a footwear impression from the scene of the murder to conclude that there was a different person at the scene. The footwear impression in the photograph was later shown to have been made in wet cement when the sidewalk was poured years earlier. It was a 3-D impression in the hardened cement. The photograph that Henry looked at had blood smeared across it. Rather than do any deeper analysis before rendering his opinion, Henry merely assumed the footwear impression had been left contemporaneously with the blood. When shown that he was wrong, he defended his original conclusion on the basis that it was reasonable, based on the image in the photograph. He never conceeded he maybe should have delved deeper into the case before rendering his opinion. His presentation about that footwear impression at the AAFS was especially pathetic. Henry is an esceedingly intelligent man, but he has said some really dumb things in his testimony and press interviews. Let's hope that, if he really said identical twins can have identical fingerprints, he is willing to retract that patently false statement.

I'll be doing a couple of talks in Louisville. It will be good to see you again, Danny.

[briano]

Cindy,
How about putting that portion of the video on YouTube?

[Ray Garrison]

Not surprising at all. I met him when we held a forensics conference at my dept. I brought a high school forensics class to hear him speak. Unfortunately, his lecture devolved into an explicit class on the many, many ways to use the "F" word. My chief was horrified.

In general he is a good speaker and he can be entertaining. We showed him photos from an unsolved case and his only comment was, "Yeah, that's a tough one." I guess he didn't see an open checkbook, thus, no need to offer an opinion.

Many of the big names have lost a lot of my respect in the years since the OJ case. Now the Phil Specter case has 'em all scrambling for a buck. Even Werner Spitz was made to look like a bumbler during the first trial. I refuse to watch any show involving Lee or Baden now.

Pat taught me an acronym years ago that I still use to this day to explain the "anything for money" crowd like those mentioned above - (W)itness (H)aving (O)ther (R)easonable (E)xplanation or WHORE. Thanks Pat!!

[Pat A. Wertheim]

Unfortunately, his lecture devolved into an explicit class on the many, many ways to use the "F" word. My chief was horrified.

Many years ago in a different lifetime when I was an officer in the IAI, we had to warn Henry not to use the F-word or tell dirty jokes in his presentations. He cleaned up his act a little after that. But you've got to watch him and as a warning to anyone else who is inviting him to speak as you did, talk to him about his language ahead of time or you may regret not doing so.

Ah, yes, the W.H.O.R.E.'s -- we all know them well, don't we? You know I do a lot of defense work on the side, but I give a caveat letter to prospective clients before I ever start work, telling them that I will render a scientifically verifiable conclusion. But if I find the police have done a correct job, I will not help defeat a good case. I do not work for the defense or the prosecution, but for the science. That said, I do not see any conflict with becoming an outspoken advocate for a client who has been the victim of injustice.

Back to the statement attributed to Henry, if he actually said that (not that I doubt Cindy, but I want to hear it coming from his lips with my own ears), I will see that it is brought to the attention of the Latent Print Certification Board, as he is a Certified Latent Print Examiner.

[Ray Garrison]

My Chief of Police at the time was aware of Lee's lecture issues. He specifically warned him that we would have a group of high school students present at the lecture and advised him to keep it clean. Lee ignored the request.

Now, I'm sure most of the high school students were not unfamiliar with the word, but it's the principle of the thing, IMO.

[Ann Horsman]

Back to the statement attributed to Henry, if he actually said that (not that I doubt Cindy, but I want to hear it coming from his lips with my own ears), I will see that it is brought to the attention of the Latent Print Certification Board, as he is a Certified Latent Print Examiner.

I too had wondered if this does turn out to be what Mr. Lee said, that the IAI should address his statement. I'll be sending a DVD as well. Thanks much in advance!

[Cindy Rennie]

Unfortunately, I didn't tape the program. (My VCR is flashing "12:00") and refuses to work. I think it wants to be hooked up or something.

HOWEVER, if one of you electronically accomplished individuals manages to post the program on a publically-accessible website, please let me know.

(And to think that I wasn't going to mention anything about this to anybody!).

[Kasey Wertheim]

This is a good place to have the 'real' question answered:

In what literary source is it cited that twins have the same pattern type on the same finger 80% of the time?

It seems to me that we are in a position to find the reference, bring this up to Mr. Lee, and solve the problem in the most non-confrontational way.

Surelely we have the collective expertise to root out the reference?...

-Kasey

[lpexaminer]

Cindy - I am so glad you decided to say something about this. I've been sitting on this for 2½ years. I've given DVDs out to certain people and i've played it for people at training seminars with the hope that, based on their position in the IAI, they would take it further. Most seemed shocked by it, but didn't think it was a big deal. The Henry Lee supporters just made excuses for him.

I will send the DVDs out to those that sent them, and I am also trying to get it onto youtube. The trouble I am having right now is editing the whole episode down to the 60 seconds or so that is of interest. I will let everyone know when its on youtube.

[Gerald Clough]

I don't find an 80% citation. I do find this one, that seems to be a decently designed study showing identical twins to have a very significantly higher correlation by Level I compared to others and fraternal twins to have a significant but smaller correlation. Nothing near 80%, though.

http://www.cedar.buffalo.edu/~srihari/p ... -twins.pdf

I suppose most studies are oriented to AFIS accuracy, so judgments have to be made about common algorithms to use to judge similarity. Working strictly by pattern class according to strict definition, it takes so little change to move a print from one pattern type to another that visual or overall similarity isn't considered. What we know about how ridges form on fingertips seems to me to suggest that if we were to consider similarity to mean two fingers either are the same pattern or could, if not having some minor divergence, have been the same pattern, and both having the close to the same ridge counts they would have had if they had been technically the same pattern, we might not be surprised to get closer to 80%.


Also, the statement that DNA is of no help in discriminating between identical twins is true only for the standard commercial and crime lab procedures. Chemical modification of gene expression as identical twins age and copy number variations do indeed present detectable differences. Which helps make twin studies so useful in studying the genetic basis of some diseases.