Opinion ID: 3014242
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Mitchell’s Experts

Text: experience and accreditation of the Mitchell’s first witness at the examiners who performed the Daubert hearing was Marilyn Peterman, comparisons for the agencies. an investigator with the Defender The first of Mitchell’s three major Association of Philadelphia who took experts was Dr. David Stoney, the statements from those fingerprint director of the McCrone Research examiners at state agencies who had Institute in Chicago, a not-for-profit failed to match the latent prints to organization engaged in teaching and Mitchell’s ten-print card in completing research in the forensic sciences. Dr. Part B of the FBI’s survey. 7 She Stoney was, in Mitchell’s counsel’s words at the Daubert hearing, offered as the box designated for one of the rolled an expert “with respect to whether a impressions. Consequently, one of the fingerprint examiner’s conclusion that a boxes for a rolled print actually latent fingerprint came from a particular contained a rolled print, plus a fair-sized individual is a scientific determination.” piece of a flat print of a different finger. App. 763a. The nucleus of Dr. Stoney’s As a result, the strong match found by opinion is summarized in a portion of his computer was actually a match between testimony at the hearing: the pseudolatent print and the stray The determination that a portion of the flat print. As with the fingerprint examiner . . . makes database error discovered in the first when comparing a latent stage of the 50/50 experiment, the fingerprint with a known experimenters found this mistaken match fingerprint, specifically the to be evidence of the robustness of their determination that there is computer system. sufficient basis for an absolute 7 identification, is not a scientific It appears that, in the interest of efficiency, the parties consented to introducing hearsay from the examiners who completed the FBI Meagher for the government, and survey—primarily through Agent through M s. Peterman for Mitchell. 12 determination. . . . It is a that it is wrong.” App. 781a. subjective determination Dr. Stoney also criticized the 50/50 without objective standards to experiment. He noted first the it. undisputed proposition that two Now, by “subjective” I mean impressions of the same friction ridges that it is one that is dependent on will not be identical—artifacts and the individual’s expertise, distortions will invariably appear.8 In training, and the consensus of that experiment, see supra page 10 and their agreement of other note 4, a fingerprint was compared individuals in the field. By “not against itself and 49,999 other scientific” I mean that there is not fingerprints taken from the FBI’s an objective standard that has database. Hence, Dr. Stoney explained, been tested; nor is there a the simulated task modeled by the 50/50 subjective process that has been experiment was that of matching Print 1 objectively tested. It is the and (the identical) Print 1 of Finger A. essential feature of a scientific In his submission, the task in real-world process that there be something to fingerprint identification is one of test, that when that something is matching Print 1 and Print 2 of Finger A. tested, the test is capable of Thus, Stoney reasoned, the 50/50 showing it to be false. experiment as executed assessed how much better a match is found between App. 765a. Dr. Stoney opined that the Print 1 and (the identical) Print 1 of evaluation phase of the ACE-V protocol Finger A than between Print 1 of Finger requires the examiner to make a binary A and Print 1 of Finger B. A more determination: Either two prints match meaningful version of the 50/50 sufficiently to make an absolute experiment, Dr. Stoney explained, would identification, or they do not. This Dr. Stoney contrasted to certain other forensic disciplines in which 8 This point also underpins Dr. intermediate determinations are Stoney’s more general criticism of the expressed in probabilistic terms. Dr. discipline of latent fingerprint Stoney further objected to any identification: Dr. Stoney agreed that characterization of fingerprint human friction ridges are unique and identification as having a “zero error permanent, including small areas, App. rate,” explaining that “something with a 914a, but suggested that this alone is zero error rate cannot be a science . . . . unhelpful on the question whether prints [I]f we start out saying fundamentally are identifiable, because fingerprints are something can’t be shown to be wrong, so subject to distortion and the forensic then it means that we can’t test it. If we identification process is so flawed, App. can’t test it, . . . there’s no way to show 917a-920a. 13 have asked how much better a match is opinion as to whether latent fingerprint found between Print 1 and Print 2 of examination meets the criteria of Finger A than between Print 1 of Finger science.” App. 813a-814a. Like Dr. A and Print 1 of Finger B.9 Stoney, Prof. Starrs testified that it was his opinion that “[the current practice of] Dr. Stoney further criticized the fingerprint comparison and analysis is method used to create the pseudolatent not predicated on a sound and adequate prints in the second part of the scientific basis for purposes of making experiment. Dr. Stoney explained that it an individualization to one person from a was established in the literature that fragmentary print to the exclusion of all simple masking, and even computer- other persons in the world.” App. 828a. generated blurring, of full prints cannot adequately simulate real latent partial To support his conclusion, Prof. prints. Dr. Stoney’s ultimate conclusion Starrs highlighted five aspects of was that these experimental defects fingerprint examination that in his rendered the probabilities derived by the opinion were inconsistent with a government experts meaningless. scientific discipline: (1) claims to “absolute certainty”; (2) “the failure to The defense’s second principal expert carry out controlled empirical-data- was James Starrs, a professor in the searching experimentation”; (3) a failure Department of Forensic Sciences and the to engage in error-rate analysis; (4) the law school at George Washington lack of uniformity, objectivity, University. Prof. Starrs has had a long systematization, and standards; (5) “a career at the intersection of law and failure to show a due regard to a forensic science; indeed, an article by vigorous and uncompromising Prof. Starrs was cited by the Supreme skepticism.” App. 828a-829a. In Court in Daubert. See Daubert, 509 U.S. elaborating on each of these points, Prof. at 591 (citing James E. Starrs, Frye v. Starrs gave illustrations. For example, he United States Restructured and briefly described a case of false Revitalized: A Proposal to Amend identification; he described some of the Federal Evidence Rule 702, 26 subtle and non-systematized aspects of Jurimetrics J. 249, 258 (1986)). Prof. analyzing Galton points, see supra page Starrs was offered as an “exert [sic] in 6, and he criticized some aspects of the forensic science qualified to provide an training of new fingerprint examiners. Prof. Starrs also explained that he viewed the government’s testimony and 9 We note, however, that such an experiments involving full-rolled prints experiment was beyond the immediate as irrelevant to the question of latent capability of the government because its partial print identification. However, database, by design, does not have under cross-examination Prof. Starrs was multiple prints from the same finger. 14 agnostic on whether the propositions he group, a notable difference, Dr. Cole challenged as unproven might, in the explained, between fingerprint end, be scientifically supportable. identification and, say, psychiatric diagnosis. Dr. Cole also opined that Mitchell’s final expert at the fingerprint identification was not Daubert hearing was Simon Cole, a post- scientific because, inter alia, the doctoral fellow at Rutgers University, fingerprint identification community had with expertise in “science and technology not engaged in studies that attempt to studies with particular expertise falsify the discipline’s premises; did not regarding the fingerprint profession.” engage in anonymous, critical (as App. 939a. Dr. Cole had no experience opposed to positive) peer review; and did in latent print examination. From his not recognize error rates. research, Dr. Cole identified four explanations for the widespread c. Mitchell’s Exhibits acceptance of fingerprint identification As part of the Daubert hearing, evidence: First, from the earliest days of Mitchell also introduced several hundred the discipline, fingerprint examiners have pages of documentary exhibits, developed an “occupational norm of principally journal articles and other unanimity,” i.e., examiners would not excerpts from the corpus of literature publicly disagree with one another about criticizing the practice and theory of an identification. Second, in terms of the latent fingerprint identification, authored way in which the fingerprint examination by his experts and by others. Also community handled the instances of introduced were the results of some known misidentification, such cases fingerprint proficiency tests, which would, Dr. Cole explained, be blamed on suggested that examiners were prone to practitioner incompetence or both false negatives (i.e., declaring a misconduct.10 Third was a simple lack of nonidentification where an identification judicial scrutiny— a sort of snowball should have been made) and false effect of string citations to cases and positives (i.e., making an incorrect treatises approving fingerprint identification). App. 3014a, 3063a. identification evidence. Fourth was a Finally, the defense introduced a survey lack of an organized counter-expert of jurors that found that 93% agreed with the statement “fingerprint identification 10 is a science” and 85% agreed with the Dr. Cole noted that both of these first statement “fingerprints are the most two explanations were well illustrated by reliable means of identifying a person.” the FBI’s survey: Agent Meagher App. 3047a-3048a. followed up with each agency until a match was agreed to, or otherwise d. The Government’s Rebuttal Witness identified inexperienced examiners as the To respond to defense testimony source of nonidentifications. 15 regarding the “occupational norm of specialized knowledge. unanimity” among fingerprint examiners,