Fingerprint Fallability
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James Joyner | Saturday, May 29, 2004 |
Law professor Jennifer Mnookin argues that, as our database of fingerprints grows, we’re finding that identification based on fingerprints is not nearly as foolproof as we once thought.
What is truly remarkable is that we simply do not know how often different people’s prints may significantly resemble one another, or how good examiners are at distinguishing between such prints. DNA profiling provides what is called a “random match probability” — the odds that the DNA of someone picked at random would match the profile in question. With fingerprinting, we entirely lack the information to provide an equivalent statistic. Yet without this knowledge we cannot accurately evaluate the evidentiary value of a supposed fingerprint match.***
Fingerprint identification as it is now practiced is not like a double-blind scientific study. Examiners, typically law-enforcement employees, are frequently privy to outside knowledge about a case, which creates a genuine risk that their examination will inadvertently be contaminated. There is simply no excuse for failing to develop internal procedures to protect examiners from extraneous knowledge.
Until now, many people in the field of fingerprinting have defensively resisted calls for additional research and investigation of fingerprinting. Because experts are permitted to testify about “100 percent positive” matches and to claim in court an error rate for the technique of zero, they have little incentive to support any research.
Interesting.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.
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