Opinion ID: 172432
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Defendant's argument.

Text: Defendant discusses each of the Daubert factors. First, defendant asserts that fingerprint identification lacks objective standards and so must rely largely on the subjective impressions of the individual examiner. Agent Meagher admitted that the FBI does not use any objective standard for the number of similarities between a latent print and a known print necessary to make a match, and also that the subjective views of the individual examiner play a significant role in the process. Meagher identified only two standards, both of which involve subjective determinations, defendant contends. First, Meagher testified that the examiner must not find any discrepancy between the two prints. But Meagher explained that no discrepancy really means no discrepancy without a viable or plausible or valid explanation, and whether an explanation meets that amorphous standard is a subjective judgment by the examiner. III R. 103-04. Second, Meagher testified that there must be agreement of sufficient friction ridge details in sequence, but again it is up to the examiner to determine what is sufficient. Defendant cites one scholar who opines that the fingerprint community has been unable to answer the crucial question of where the boundary lies between insufficient and sufficient correspondences. Simon A. Cole, More Than Zero: Accounting For Error in Latent Fingerprint Identification, 95 J.Crim. L. & Criminology 985, 993-94 (Spring 2005) [hereinafter Cole, More Than Zero ]. Indeed, one appellate court that held the evidence admissible found that this factor weighed against admissibility. See United States v. Mitchell, 365 F.3d 215, 241 (3d Cir.2004). Turning to the other Daubert factors, defendant contends that the government failed to show that the process for latent fingerprint identification has been tested. As one judge said, there have not been any studies to establish how likely it is that partial prints taken from a crime scene will be a match for only one set of fingerprints in the world. United States v. Crisp, 324 F.3d 261, 273 (4th Cir.2003) (Michael, J., dissenting). [5] Defendant then turns to attacking the one survey and one study that the government, through Agent Meagher, proffered as evidence of reliability. In the survey, the FBI polled law enforcement agencies in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Canada and the United Kingdom and learned that none of these agencies had ever found two different people with the same fingerprints and that none of the agencies had ever found that a latent fingerprint had been identified with two different people. [6] But, defendant says, this is not the same as saying that latent prints had never been misidentified. The government also relied on a statistical study commissioned by the FBI and conducted by Lockheed Martin. Studying 50,000 prints and comparing each by computer against every other one, this study confirmed to an extremely high degree of probability that no two persons' fingerprints are identical. [7] Again, defendant responds that is not at issue here. In the second part of this study, an attempt was made to simulate latent prints by extracting about 20% of the data from each print and then comparing these partial prints to every other print in the database. [8] The study concluded, with a very high degree of certainty, that there is almost no chance of ever finding two persons to have the same print, even when based on such partial prints. But defendant points out that a leading case found these pseudo-latent prints are poor approximations of real latent prints. Mitchell, 365 F.3d at 237. Because the study did not adequately model real-world conditions, it does not provide significant support for the government's position, Mitchell held. Id. at 238. Nor has fingerprint identification been subject to peer review, defendant continues. The government claimed that the verification step in the ACE-V process is peer review, but defendant insists this is not accurate. The Court in Daubert referred to a process that serves to assess the scientific validity of the methodology, which is not accomplished merely by having two persons apply the same technique, defendant argues. Consistency of results does not prove that the results are valid. Moreover, the verification at issue here is not truly independent. In fact, it fails to show independence in two ways. Often, as here, the reviewer is associated with the first examiner and both are employed by the same agency. Second, unlike true peer review in the scientific process, the reviewer in this system is not independent in that he receives all of the examiner's work product, rather than perform the analysis himself. Indeed, Mr. Fullerton admitted in his testimony that this was not an independent identification and that giving his work product to the verifier was suggestive. In a truly independent verification process, the reviewer should not even know the conclusion of the first examiner, much less all the steps taken on the path to that conclusion, defendant asserts. Next, defendant contends that the government failed to show a meaningful rate of error for latent fingerprint identification. Mr. Meagher testified that the rate of error for latent fingerprint identifications is zero, yet he admitted that innocent people have been convicted based on misidentification of their fingerprints. Defendant cites one study that describes 22 cases of latent fingerprint misidentification. Cole, More Than Zero, 95 J.Crim. L. & Criminology at 985-987, 1001-16. Those include the much-publicized recent case where the FBI identified a Portland lawyer as a suspect in the terrorist bomb attack on the Madrid train station that killed 191 people, in spite of the fact that the Spanish authorities insisted, correctly, that the fingerprints did not match. [9] Defendant criticizes Agent Meagher's attempt to distinguish between methodological error and practitioner error. Defendant argues that this is a false and meaningless distinction. One scholar, expressing the same view, said that because the method depends so heavily on subjective human judgment ... the method literally is the people who employ it. Jonathan J. Koehler, Fingerprint Error Rates and Proficiency Tests: What They Are And Why They Matter, 59 Hastings L.J. 1077, 1090 (May 2008). In any event, defendant goes on, the purported distinction is irrelevant under Daubert. The government produced no evidence, defendant says, about error rates in real-world cases. Mr. Meagher admitted that the FBI's only actual error rates are based on proficiency tests the examiner candidates take under controlled conditions. The FBI does not compile error rates for examinations in real cases. As Judge Michael observed in his Crisp dissent, where tests have attempted to imitate actual conditions, the error rates have been alarmingly high. 324 F.3d at 275. [10] In sum, defendant contends that the error rate is not zero, and the government failed to establish an actual error rate. Moreover, Baines argues that the effort by fingerprint examiners to create an aura of infallibility has the potential to seriously mislead jurors. Finally, Baines argues that the government failed to show that fingerprint identification has been generally accepted in any unbiased scientific or technical community. It is not enough, according to him, that courts have accepted the technique.