Personality Identification by Fingerprints - Essay Example

Criminalists are currently facing a very serious problem connected with the interpretation of fingerprints. They doubt if they should believe this method. If genetic dactyloscopy can be considered an absolutely reliable method of personality identification provided that the selection was made correctly, plain analysis of fingerprints frequently leads to mistakes. During many decades dactyloscopy has been applied in criminology as an absolutely reliable method of personality identification: if experts find the fingerprints on the scene of a crime and then state about their bellowing to a concrete person, crime investigators and judges make a conclusion that this person was present there. However, the recent investigations show that the issue is much more complicated than it seems. The papillary lines of the skin on human fingers and palms are considered to be unique and unchangeable during all the life. “Fingerprint identification rests on a simple anatomical feature of primates. The skin of their soles, palms and, most importantly, fingers contains raised ridges and glands that secrete oil to keep the skin supple. Ridge patterns form in utero and do not change throughout a person’s life” (Faulty Fingerprints). Experts classify ridges based on their overall pattern, whether they form concentric circles, if they loop horizontally or vertically across the fingertip, etc” (). However, such hypothesis is not scientifically proved, notwithstanding that it is widely used in practice. Moreover, the serious evaluation of the credibility of personality identification by means of fingerprints has never been held. By default it is considered to be 100%, however, there are scientifically proved data, which state that such credibility is only 98%. It means that in average every 50th case of personality conviction based on fingerprints identification can be mistaken. It appears that widespread opinion about the uniqueness of the drawing on the fingers is supported not by all the scientists. If their doubts are relevant, the appropriateness of many established rules, which were considered unshakable, are also rather doubtful. At the same time the safety system of many states are based on the belief in absolute uniqueness of fingerprints. Since 2004 all the foreigners who enter the United States have to go through the procedure of fingerprinting in order to prevent territory penetration by criminals and evil-doers. Several years ago American specialists came to the conclusion that widespread belief in the uniqueness of papillary lines for each person is rather a product of intuition, but not of the scientific investigation. Such belief is not supported by any scientific method, theoretical model, and empirical evidence. If to compare fingerprinting with strictly scientific methods of DNA identification, it is possible to conclude that it dactyloscopy use as strict categories as t hose which applied for modern genetics, this method would stop to exist. “A more fundamental problem is the lack of underlying statistical evidence. The use of genetic evidence provides a good comparison. Scientists and lawyers subjected the technique, developed in 1984 and first introduced into a U.S. court in 1987, to years of scientific scrutiny and almost a decade of court challenges before it became accepted evidence. In DNA analysis, examiners identify and compare short segments of DNA—generally 13—to make a match. In addition to having established procedures for analyzing evidence, experts have calculated the odds that two people could share the same DNA in all 13 segments. These odds vary slightly based on the prevalence of certain DNA patterns among different ethnic groups but are in the tens of millions to one against two people sharing all 13 segments” (Faulty Fingerprints) . In February 1999 the investigators faced very serious problems and had to involve as many laboratories as possible to resolve the issue. All the US laboratories received the envelopes with the fingerprints found on the wheel and on the lever of the car and dactyloscopic card of suspected Byron Mitchell. This American was suspected in burglary. The accusation stated that he was a driver of a car the burglars transported the money in. Mitchell rejected his fault, but two fingerprints found on the wheel and lever were recognized as his. In response the defenders invited to court three professors, who doubted scientific credibility of the whole branch of criminology – dactyloscopy. In his letters the expert from FBI, Miger, asked the colleagues to determine if the fingerprints from the car belong to the suspected person. He respected the dactyloscopy and wanted to save its reputation believing in unanimous conclusion of all 50 laboratories. However, seven laboratories did not prove the identity of one of the fingerprints with the Mitchell’s fingerprints and five laboratories find neither the first nor the second fingerprint in the card of Mitchell. Then the expert sent to all the experts who had doubts the improved and enlarged photos of traces from the car and the fingerprints of not all the ten fingers of Mitchell, but of only the two suspected. Moreover, he marked with red the similarities. Only after such unacceptable and forbidden help all the experts who had doubts recognized that the fingerprints belonged to Mitchell. During the process the advocates insisted that dactyloscopy is not an exact science and it is not reasonable to recognize a person guilty basing only on the two fuzzy fingerprints. The juries had a long controversy, but still recognized Mitchell guilty. “Of the 39 labs that sent back their results, 9 (23%) concluded that Mitchell’s prints did not match those from the car. The judge nevertheless rejected the defense’s challenge and accepted the fingerprint evidence. Mitchell was convicted and remains in prison. The FBI has not repeated the experiment” (Faulty Fingerprints). In 1905 the brothers Strattons were accused in the murder of the owner of the shop and his wife who lived in the suburbs of London. The experts compared the fingerprint of one of the brother with the one near the cash desk and concluded that there were two many similarities. This conclusion was convincing for the juries, but not for the judge, who had to follow the solution of juries and sentenced the brothers to death. Certainly such case testifies that the fingerprints themselves are very vague evidence “when prosecutors first introduced them [fingerprints] as evidence, U.S. courts have routinely accepted fingerprints and juries have considered them incontrovertible evidence. But unlike DNA evidence, fingerprinting was adopted before the Supreme Court decided that attorneys and expert witnesses have to prove that evidence is scientific and reliable” (Faulty Fingerprints) . The reputation of dactyloscopy was seriously spoiled after the case, which happened in Scotland. It is called Shirley McKie fingerprint scandal. On January 8, 1997, in Scotland, Kilmarnock, Marion Ross, an old woman, who was a bank officer, was found killed. Having examined the scene of a crime, the police discovered 428 fingerprints, 18 of which were considered acceptable for identification. Basing on the fingerprints analysis made by Scottish Criminal Record Office (SCRO), a young man David Asbury, who worked in the house of the killed woman, was accused of a crime, though he refused to recognize himself guilty and had an alibi. Moreover, the same experts stated that there was a one more fingerprint, which was found in the bathroom, belonged to the police officer named Shirley Mackey, while she rejected the fact of visiting the flat. The case ended only in ten years when suspected in false evidence Shirley Mackey received a compensation for losing the job and the caused moral suffering. David Asbury, who was sentenced to life imprisonment, was discharged, because the accusation was based on the badly fulfilled fingerprinting analysis. Some experts even suspected deliberate falsification of evidences. “One known flaw in fingerprinting is that examiners may taint the identification process through bias and peer pressure. A panel of outside print examiners convened by the FBI to review the Mayfield case found that a supervisor made the initial identification and lower-ranking examiners, when asked to confirm or reject their boss’ work, felt pressured to confirm” (Faulty Fingerprints). The wide application of a method can’t guarantee its credibility. During many years the best European experts in the field of fingerprinting from different countries came to very different conclusions while analyzing the same fingerprint. Certainly, such identification can’t be called reliable. There are many cases, when the police had to recognize that fingerprinting analysis was done badly. There are many examples of wrong fingerprinting expertise, which can be found in the US practice. Susan M. Souder, a judge, states that though fingerprints identification has been widely used in criminology for many years, this fact can’t be considered a guaranty of the method’s reliability, because during many centuries humans were sure that the Earth is flat. Criminalists often use as evidences the fingerprints, which were not taken in the laboratory, but found on different objects and revealed with the help of special chemical substances. Such traces are usually fragmentary, fuzzy, often taken from rough surface and, consequently, perverted. It is not very easy to compare them with accurate, made in ideal condition finger prints from the police records. Thus, the results of such comparison are rather doubtful. “Everyone on the planet may have a unique set of prints, as examiners claim, but the real question is whether experts can accurately link the prints collected by crime scene investigators to the right person. Crime scene prints usually consist of only about 20% of the fingertip and they are often smudged. Examiners link a partial print from a crime scene to a whole one taken from a suspect by matching particular characteristics of the fingerprint. They compare the overall print pattern and other ridge characteristics, including width of the ridges and the spacing of oil pores, according to Ed German, a fingerprint examiner with the U.S. Army. But examiners primarily rely on matching points on both prints where ridges end, bifurcate, or change direction”( Faulty Fingerprints) . The main reason of wrong identification of fingerprints is the violations during the process of analysis. According to the American Academy of Science, the requirements to the credibility and relevance of criminological expertise are frequently violated in the everyday work of the experts. Thus, the instructions state that every result of the expertise should be thoroughly checked by the experts, but this is usually not done. Moreover, experts frequently start to compare the fingerprints on the scene of the crime, while this should be done in the laboratory. Speaking about the deliberate leaving of the fingerprints of other people on the scene of the crime by evil-doers in order to confuse the investigation is considered only by the authors of detective stories but not by the experts. At the same time, all the traces discovered on the scene of the crime should be considered in aggregate and the case of Shirley Marley proves that one more time. The experts from different countries were asked the question if one fingerprint found on the scene of a crime. The answers received are very disappointing. The experts demonstrate unprofessionalism. It appeared that the majority of the interrogated experts trust fingerprints analysis and even do not take into account the possibility of deliberate bringing to a scene of a crime different subjects with somebody’s fingerprints. Now it seems that the work of the police has nothing in common with serious scientific expertise. Many experts think that the identification by means of fingerprints can be considered as reliable as genetic dactyloscopy and if they never doubt the results of it, because they are sure in its credibility. It is a fully unprofessional approach. It is necessary to be more self-critical and remember about the possibility of mistakes, the price of which is too high. Read More