SJC to hear arguments on banning fingerprint evidence By Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff | September 5, 2005
For more than a century, a fingerprint match has been considered nearly unimpeachable evidence in a criminal case. Trace a latent print at a crime scene to the fingertip of a suspect, goes the conventional wisdom, and you've got the bad guy. But the bedrock forensic science has been under intense scrutiny recently as a result of a series of high-profile errors by fingerprint examiners around the country, one of which led to the imprisonment of an innocent Boston man after a false match tied him to the shooting of a police sergeant. Some critics say fingerprint analysis isn't even a science. Now the controversy is coming before the highest court in Massachusetts. The Supreme Judicial Court is scheduled to hear arguments Wednesday about whether to quash key fingerprint evidence in the case of Terry L. Patterson, who is being retried in the 1993 slaying of a Boston detective. In addition, Patterson's lawyer in the case, John H. Cunha Jr., wants the SJC to do what no other state supreme court has done: bar fingerprint analysis from being presented in all criminal trials until it is subjected to rigorous scientific scrutiny and proven reliable. Cunha, who has enlisted 15 scientists and scholars to bolster his argument, said fingerprint analysis has never been systematically studied for its reliability. It lacks uniform standards for how many characteristics must be present in a latent print before analysts can declare a match, he said, nor are there statistical models to calculate how often analysts err. Instead, its reputation for infallibility approaches an article of faith. ... http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/09/05/sjc_to_hear_arguments_on_banning_fingerprint_evidence/ Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _______________________________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
