Court Opinion

ID: 9745867
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 13:37:57.476263+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:05.509395
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE WOLFSON, dissenting: There is a disquieting paucity of detail to support examiner Cutro’s opinion that the defendant’s fingerprint was on the windshield of Officer Marcano’s squad car. I believe, however, Cutro’s testimony was sufficient, barely, to place his conclusions before the jury. That is, the lack of testimony concerning the number of points of comparison went to the weight of Cutro’s opinions, not their admissibility. Cutro testified at length about the comparison process he uses. In this case, Cutro compared inked print cards containing the defendant’s prints with the latent print found on the squad car. The exhibits were admitted into evidence. He uses the “analysis comparison evaluation and verification method.” It consists of three levels. He does not use a points of comparison test. In level one, Cutro looks at the flow or pattern type of fingerprint ridges. Then come the magnifying glass comparisons, “comparing the latent and going from the latent and looking at target individual characteristics or that level two and level three detail that I spoke about, and trying to find those ending ridges or bifurcations in sequence, and see if they match in sequence to the known standards.” The individual characteristics at level two can be ending ridges, bifurcations, and dots. He uses level three if needed. Somewhere between the second and third levels he looks at the breadth or width of the ridges. Cutro determines whether certain points of comparison are located in the same place. His notes reflect his conclusions, but not how he reached them. He identified the latent print as that of the defendant on two different occasions. Each time his conclusion was verified by other examiners. I have no desire to denigrate the importance of cross-examination. However, I find no authority that supports the proposition that the lack of detail we find here is devastating enough to bar a qualified and experienced fingerprint examiner’s opinions. It is clear that the inability of an expert to remember the method he used to arrive at his opinion does not offend the confrontation clause of the sixth amendment. See Delaware v. Fensterer, 474 U.S. 15, 88 L. Ed. 2d 15, 106 S. Ct. 292 (1985) (hair comparison expert could not recall the particular way he determined a hair had been forcibly removed). In this State, two decisions address expert opinions that were admitted without supporting details. In People v. Ford, 239 Ill. App. 3d 314, 606 N.E.2d 690 (1992), a fingerprint examiner testified that the fingerprint lifted from a jewelry box belonging to the defendant. He did not testify to finding any particular number of like characteristics. He said it was not his practice to make notations of the number of ridged characteristics he found to correlate between a latent print and an exemplar. The court held the lack of numbers was a matter of weight and credibility for the fact finder. The second decision dealt with a ballistics expert. In People v. O’Neal, 118 Ill. App. 2d 116, 254 N.E.2d 559 (1969), the expert testified to the procedure generally used to compare bullets and to the reasons why a comparison of bullets will reveal the identity of the gun which fired them. He told of test-firing the gun taken from the defendant and concluding the bullet that struck the robbery victim came from that gun. He did not testify to the particular similarities of the bullets. The court held the expert’s opinion was properly admitted. In this case it was made clear to the jury it was being asked to accept an opinion that was short of supporting details. Cross-examination on the point was vigorous. Obviously, that factual deficiency troubled the jury because it asked for a magnifying glass and had difficulty reaching a verdict. Still, this was a matter for the jury to decide and that is what it did. I respectfully dissent.