Geeklawyer stumbled across the blawg of Mark Bennett, a Houston criminal defence lawyer, as a result of his comments on UK blawgers. He thinks us an ‘odd‘ lot which is certainly true of Ruthie and VM. Quite why this label should attach to Geeklawyer is unclear. But anyway, that is a digression.
Mark comments on the misuse of fingerprint evidence by forensic experts with an agenda. He makes the observation that they are not the be all and end all of identification since, e.g., smudged scene of crime prints can be confused with the clean print taken in controlled circumstances.
More importantly he questions the myth that, like snowflakes, no two are identical, noting that this unscientific assertion was made a century ago and has been embedded in popular belief by repetition and non-challenge. In truth it is unknowable since we do not have the fingerprints of everyone living nor those of everyone in history.
Of course if the sample size is very large and there are no demonstrably identical prints you can say that this methodology is good enough if an accusation is supported by other evidence and fingerprint evidence is treated properly.
The problem arises where many fingerprints are very similar, and many are, and the analysis is faulty or dishonest. If two similar fingerprints are very similar and one is smudged an erroneous match can occur. Or, as Mark Bennett points out, forensic examiners have an agenda and a lack of independence.
In the Madrid bombings fingerprints found were matched to those of an American citizen, a Mr Mayfield. Several FBI examiners (one of whom was an ex-FBI man still financially dependant on them) certified a match (as did a defence expert). Unfortunately the Spanish experts disagreed. The FBI went to Spain to bully explain it to the Spanish.
Why? Guess, go on. Mr Mayfield was a Muslim. So obviously there has to be a global Islamic conspiracy and the Spanish really aren’t helping the US by doing something so bourgeois as relying on the evidence.
The FBI has something of a reputation for interpreting forensic evidence in a manner helpful to prosecutors. Our own forensic service is supposedly, according to people who know better than I, better - being merely occasionally incompetent.
This is of course relevant to DNA which we are told is absolutely certain: millions of billions to one against it being wrong. Objections exists but which all counts for nought when the man in a white coat waves the magic science stick at the jury.
Ah… excellent… the maths is back - ergo - one may post…
GL I have given you a very good reference on the blog from Houston. Mark does not appear to be wearing a cowboy hat. Are you sure he is a Texan? Are we (UK Bloggers) odd? Has Mark heard of J Dan Hull?
Few UK blawgers actually post any law. I know you do your best with your IP stuff and VM does vignettes and the serious blogs do their bit of law…. but, it has to be said, I tend to prefer your posts when you are heading towards Pluto.
I taught Contract for years, at times a frustrating experience, when students, mitigating their loss from alcohol poisoning the night before, misrepresented their understanding to a point where I felt that it may be best for them to be discharged from the course. Being of a reasonable disposition, and not wishing to restrain their future trade, I let them continue to study by giving conideration in the form of a promise for a promise and that was my mistake - which, of course, few lawyers understand, let alone law students.
On that note I am off to buy myself a glass of Chateau High Trees, a rather fine wine, with just a hint of promise about it to ensure that I am not estopped in my tracks later in the day.
a piu tarde.
BTW… was not completely over refreshed t’other night when I sent my dispatch from the legless in Gaza strip…
You got the ‘Hume’s falacy’ part; you were a bit weak on the consequent scientism aspect of it all but what bugs me is that fingerprints are now trivial to plant.
Step 1 - I don’t like Geeklawyer
Step 2 - I follow him to a bar, pinch his empty glass upon which he has left his fingerprints.
Step 3 - I retire to a cubicle, develop one of the fingerprints (super glue in a bottle top in order to generate vapours, held over the print with blue-tack in order to create a seal).
Step 4 - Take a digital photograph of the print.
Step 5 - Go home and print off the image on to acetate paper (the stuff used for overhead projector presentations).
Step 6 - Form a square frame around the print with blue-tack.
Step 7 - Pour on wood glue (that white stick stuff).
Step 8 - After it has set, you can go take it to a scene of a crime and plant it (eg part of a bomb from, say, Lockerbie, Madrid, London, where-ever) by dabbing the mould in your sweaty palm and applying the stamp.
Step 9 - Call over the SOCO boys and tell them to test for dabs; making sure to give them a bollocking if they missed it the first time around.
Vital to all of the above is the lie that the only way for the fingerprint to get to where it was found, is that the person who has that fingerprint on the end of his fingers, had to have been there.
Broader aspect to all of this … technology reduces costs and hence the ability to do this sort of thing. The ability to forge and plant DNA will be next (if not here already).
And no; it’s not scary. The scary part is that people blindly accept nonsense as fact.
(Chap to read on the fingerprint stuff is Simon Cole - from memory. Although philosophically correct he’s just been trashed in some American court. Says more about the court than him, though).
Other fingerprint resource - google, ‘gummyfinger’.
Geeklawyer,
You write, “Of course if the sample size is very large and there are no demonstrably identical prints. . . ”
I’m not sure this describes fingerprints. The FBI fingerprint database allegedly contains cards for some 50 million people — about 500 million fingerprints. Out of the 12 billion or so people who have ever lived, 50 million may be a large enough sample — I’m not a statistician, so I don’t know — but I don’t believe the FBI has compared the fingerprints with each other to determine whether any pair of the 500 million fingerprints were “identical.”
ps I’m surprised that ‘babyBarista’ hasn’t already used this technique.
The fallacy of infallable forensics is disappearing fast.
Alliterative but also true.
See http://www.shirleymckie.com
Anon… I am not expert in Criminal Law, Anon, but I found your comment fascinating.
Reverting to type… just for a moment: Why don’t you like Geeklawyer?
CharonQC - everyone likes me - except MinorJunior. And I’m not sure about VM but that is mainly ‘cos I suspects he has aspirations to be a ‘lurv’ rival
Mark: yes that’s a fair point 500 million out of 120billion probably isn’t statistically significant!
Speculation as to whether the FBI has done some kind of database normalisation with respect to prints is an interesting one. I would have thought that when a print is entered afresh it would be compared with existing prints, if only to stop, e.g., someone trying to use an alias every time they get arrested. Dunno, interesting point though.
“Reverting to type…” - don’t dislike Geek lawyer, just thought the post would be more interesting if the misdeed was personalised. BTW I’m Zeph who’s posted on your blog a couple of times.
The fingerprint planting is old hat. What’s interesting is DNA stealing and planting. DNA synthesis has been reduced to something like USD1.00 per base pair. This puts a virus in the frame for building from knowledge of the code and the appropriate building block nucleosides (nucleosides are the DNA bases with the sugar on, if that means anything to you). A human DNA strand would be too large … but is it possible to use ‘fillers’ instead of the individual base pairs?
Zeph / Anon… I did not really think you disliked GL…. but I enjoyed your post
GL… VM… a love rival? Shome mistake shurely… Ed.
Zeph… please feel free to drop in to my blog whenever you wish….. I spend far too mucdh time on GL’s blog writing nonsense late at night… but… one must do what one can for the UK Blawging community, lest our cousins across the pond think that all we write is absolute nonsense.
I will try to shoehorn a bit of law in to my blog from time to time…
I love everyone. One for the cosmos–one with the road.
Aw gee Dan, we all love you too; getting all misty eyed - need to go and kick an orphan before I turn into a friggin’ hippy.
Dear Mr Greeklawyer,
A “love rival”? Oh, I am afraid not. Let me list the reasons:
1. I was unaware that you loved Mistress Ruthie. Perhaps that is because I have read your ouevre.
2. The overwhelming passion and dedication I feel towards Mistress Ruthie cannot be described as mere love. Whereas your rather dubious gifts demonstrate something closer to lust (or perhaps desperation/i>).
3. I am attempting to put this kindly, but rivalry - between you and I?
However, you may be assured that I am your friend. At heart you are clearly a good fellow.
3: Oh VM, you’re far too modest - I’m sure you’d have a slight chance at least
VM / GL : What about a joust?
I have been watching The Tudors on BBC. AJP Taylor must be rolling in his grave…. and that Simon chap who does history progs on the telly with a surname that sounds like a late night kebab…. is probably not too happy with the history - but I am thinking of taking up jousting…. If I can find a local jousting club on Google.
A joust between VM and Geeklawyer would be like the rugby between England and France:
C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre: (c’est de la folie”…as General Pierre Bosquet, of course, went on to say…The English tend to delete the final part of the aphorism.
But… that is how we do things in England n’est ce pas?
GL… afew typos today as usual… I find typing difficult at times… but this evening I am not even able to ‘pray in aid’ . a bit of dolce vita or vino rosso. I seem to have left one of my hands at The Bollo tonight.
GL - Would you be kind enough to do a bit of editing and correct my typos? I ask this in the hope that you are in a position of sobriety and are, in fact, able to spell and type this night.
the two matters of concern to me are:
(1) ‘In’ have been watching - Opening phrase, Para 1 is clearly not correct. It should be ‘I’ and, secondly, in the same place or (ibid) as we used to say… AJP Talor would not be ‘rololing’ in his grave…. but… hey… anything is possible these days.
Sorry GL… a few more typos in my request to correct the typos in my first post.
I am going to talk to that nice Sir Richard Branson, who wants to buy Blackpool Rock, if he can reserve a ticket for me on his first VirginSpace trip to outer space….
In the alternative… I’ll get my coat… or nick someone else’s coat…..
Planting finerprints? Why bother when one can simply plant a piece of electronic apparatus; as appears to have happened in the Lockerbie trial.
See http://i-p-o.org/IPO-Lockerbie-nr-28Aug2007.htm
What a shambles that was … at least the whisky doesn’t go off when it travels to the Netherlands.
[…] on the police national computer, the chances of two people having the same profile increase. Even fingerprints are not immune from the efforts of the determined planter and […]