Questionable Qualifications
In recent twenty-first century rulings, fingerprinting's scientific validity as evidence in the courtroom has been called into question. Under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and the 1993 Daubert standard, the admissibility of fingerprints, formerly established in People v. Jennings, is now facing challenges.
"Rule 702. Testimony by Expert Witnesses "Under this standard, the factors that may be considered in determining whether the methodology is valid are: (1) whether the theory or technique in question can be and has been tested; (2) whether it has been subjected to peer review and publication; (3) its known or potential error rate; (4) the existence and maintenance of standards controlling its operation; and (5) whether it has attracted widespread acceptance within a relevant scientific community. [Daubert v. Merrell Down Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993)]" |
Photo and caption from Steven Berk's "Zurn Pex, Inc v. Cox: Could Daubert Keep Plaintiffs Out of the Courthouse?" (Aug. 20, 2012)
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"Last year, in a burglary case in Montgomery County, Md., where fingerprints were the only evidence, prosecutors offered a 6-year plea agreement on theft charges, rather than the 10 years the defendant was facing for burglary, after the public defender challenged the admissibility of fingerprinting...Law enforcement officials recognized soon after the Daubert ruling that fingerprinting could be vulnerable to challenges. In early 1999, the Justice Department's research arm, the National Institute of Justice, started putting together a call for studies to come up with standardized, statistically tested procedures for comparing fingerprints that 'produce correct results with acceptable error rates.'" |
"The accuracy of making identifications from dusted or latent prints, which are often smudged, distorted or fragmentary, has never been scientifically tested. And while fingerprint examiners are trained to testify only to 'absolute certainty' about their work, defense lawyers point out that examiners do make mistakes, that training standards vary widely and that most examiners have either failed or never taken the main certification test." |
In October 2007, Baltimore County Circuit Judge Susan M. Souder refused to allow a fingerprint analyst to testify that a latent print was made by the defendant in a death penalty trial. In her ruling, Judge Souder found the traditional method of fingerprint analysis to be “a subjective, untested, unverifiable identification procedure that purports to be infallible. |
"Because no two people have the same patterns, fingerprint evidence has been nearly irrefutable in courtrooms for decades — until now. A federal judge in Philadelphia has become the first to question the scientific soundness of fingerprint evidence. U.S. District Court Judge Louis H. Pollak last week ruled that such evidence does not meet standards of scientific scrutiny established by the U.S. Supreme Court, and said fingerprint examiners cannot testify at trial that a suspect's fingerprints 'match' those found at a crime scene." |