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#156 Wrongful Conviction: Junk Science - Fingerprint Evidence · Wrongful Conviction

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Speaker 1: It's Friday night. You hop in the shower, then put
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Speaker 1: on your favorite blue button down shirt. You look at
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Speaker 1: yourself in the mirror and hype yourself up a bit.
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Speaker 1: You're forty years old, but you've taken good care of
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Speaker 1: yourself over the years and still look pretty damn good.
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Speaker 1: You head out, and when you get to the club,
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Speaker 1: you see your friend Alvin standing outside on the corner
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Speaker 1: waiting for you. You smile because Alvin's always a good time.
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Speaker 1: He might be the only person who can keep up
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Speaker 1: with you when you dance all night. You both head
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Speaker 1: inside and grab a drink, catch up a little bit,
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Speaker 1: and then hit the dance floor. The place is all
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Speaker 1: bass and flashing lights. Neither one of you stops moving
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Speaker 1: until they turn off the music and the DJ tells
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Speaker 1: everyone it's closing time. Time to get out of here.
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Speaker 1: When you get outside the club, you say goodbye to
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Speaker 1: Alvin because you have to get up early in the morning.
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Speaker 1: You're not going to go back to his place tonight.
1:00
Speaker 1: You give Alvin a call the next weekend, but there's
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Speaker 1: no answer. You don't think much of it because Alvin
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Speaker 1: sometimes just doesn't answer his phone. He's the kind of
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Speaker 1: guy that does his own thing. But then a few
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Speaker 1: days later, you get a call from another friend. He
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Speaker 1: tells you he passed by Alvin's house and there were
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Speaker 1: police officers surrounding it. They said that Alvin had been murdered.
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Speaker 1: You hang up and immediately head to the police station.
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Speaker 1: You want to help figure out who did this. You
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Speaker 1: meet with detectives and you find out that Alvin was
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Speaker 1: murdered on the night you went dancing with him, but
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Speaker 1: he wasn't discovered until nine days later. His landlord found
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Speaker 1: him on the floor of his apartment, and you hear
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Speaker 1: all this, and you're just immediately nauseous. If you had
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Speaker 1: stayed at his house that night, maybe you could have
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Speaker 1: protected him. You tell the police everything you can remember
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Speaker 1: that night. You want to do anything you can to
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Speaker 1: help them find out who did this to your friend.
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Speaker 1: The police call you in four times over the next
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Speaker 1: two weeks as they investigate Alvin's murder. One day, they
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Speaker 1: tell you they're taking fingerprints of everyone who had been
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Speaker 1: around Alvin in the days preceding his death. They tell
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Speaker 1: you that by allowing them to take your prints, it'll
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Speaker 1: help them figure out who committed the murder. Part of
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Speaker 1: you feels like you're in an episode of some detective
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Speaker 1: show when they press the tips of your fingers and
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Speaker 1: the palms of your hands on a cold inkpad, then
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Speaker 1: roll the tips of your fingers one by one on
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Speaker 1: a piece of paper. You've seen this process what seems
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Speaker 1: like hundreds of times before on TV and in the movies,
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Speaker 1: but you've never actually done it yourself. You have no record.
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Speaker 1: You've never been fingerprinted before. Not long after that, the
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Speaker 1: police call you into the station one more time, but
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Speaker 1: something has shifted. They bring you into an interrogation room.
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Speaker 1: The first thing they do is show you a polaroid
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Speaker 1: of Alvin's body. You immediately feel fluid bubble into your
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Speaker 1: esophagus and you quickly scan the room for a garbage can.
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Speaker 1: Your mind quickly computes shit if IPU in front of
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Speaker 1: these cops, they'll think I did this. You manage to
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Speaker 1: swallow the vomit and there's a sharp burn in your throat.
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Speaker 1: Then they show you another picture and Alvin is flat
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Speaker 1: on his back. There's blood everywhere, on his clothes, the
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Speaker 1: carpet next to him. You can't even see his face.
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Speaker 1: Whoever did this? Put Alvin's big white box fan over
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Speaker 1: his head and shoulders, so you can't see the top
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Speaker 1: portion of his body. You used to make fun of
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Speaker 1: Alvin for that fan. You were always telling him just
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Speaker 1: to invest in a damn ac unit. Already the whole
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Speaker 1: thing seems so surreal. And now the office are pointing
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Speaker 1: at the fan in the picture and they say, you
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Speaker 1: see those bloody smudges on the fan, Those are fingerprints
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Speaker 1: and the prince we took from you the other day.
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Speaker 1: We've collected over a dozen fingerprints of people who were
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Speaker 1: in Alvin's apartment before he was murdered, and only yours
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Speaker 1: matched the prints on that fan. There were no signs
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Speaker 1: of break in at his apartment, but you didn't have
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Speaker 1: to break in, did you. Alvin let you in after
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Speaker 1: your night out together. Then you got in an argument
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Speaker 1: with him. You got jealous that he was dancing with
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Speaker 1: other men, and you stabbed him to death, didn't you.
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Speaker 1: You stare at the officer and disbelieve no. You say,
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Speaker 1: what are you talking about? Why would I come here
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Speaker 1: willingly to help you guys out if I had anything
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Speaker 1: to do with this. They don't listen to a word
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Speaker 1: you say. They put handcuffs on you and put you
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Speaker 1: in custody at your trial. Prosecution calls a fingerprint expert
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Speaker 1: to the stan. He says, before we're even born as
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Speaker 1: fetuses in the womb, human beings develop ridges on their
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Speaker 1: fingers and hands. In addition to those ridges, we have
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Speaker 1: glands that secrete oils, so that when we touch objects,
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Speaker 1: the whorls, loops, and swirl pattern of those ridges are
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Speaker 1: left behind. Fingerprint analysis has been around for over one
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Speaker 1: hundred years, and we know that each of our fingerprints
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Speaker 1: are unique. The fingerprints were covered from this crime scene
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Speaker 1: were visible to the naked eye because they were left
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Speaker 1: as impressions in the victim's blood. I analyze these prints
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Speaker 1: and compare them to defining characteristics of the defendants prints.
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Speaker 1: The bloody prints found near the victim's body clearly belonged
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Speaker 1: to the defendant. I am one hundred percent certain about this.
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Speaker 1: The prosecution calls two more fingerprint experts to the stand,
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Speaker 1: and they all agree these are your prints. But your
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Speaker 1: attorney calls two witnesses to the stand, fingerprint experts that
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Speaker 1: claim it isn't even close. There's no way these prints
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Speaker 1: belong to you. The jury isn't phased by the conflicting
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Speaker 1: opinions of the expert witnesses. They are convinced by the
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Speaker 1: impassioned story that the prosecutor laid out. They convict you
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Speaker 1: of first degree murder and abuse of a corpse. Your
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Speaker 1: sentenced to life without parole. There is shouting in the
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Speaker 1: courtroom as you're escorted out by cops with your hands
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Speaker 1: cuffed tightly behind your back. You can't understand why this
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Speaker 1: is happening. What is going on? Those are not your fingerprints.
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Speaker 1: You feel totally and completely helpless, But lucky for you,
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Speaker 1: this isn't the end. The fingerprint experts that testified in
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Speaker 1: your defense call this conviction a gross miscarriage of justice.
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Speaker 1: They demand that the evidence be reevaluated. A panel of
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Speaker 1: experts do just that and find that the prosecution's evaluation
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Speaker 1: was clearly wrong. The prints at the crime scene clearly
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Speaker 1: do not match your fingerprints. One of the experts for
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Speaker 1: the prosecution admits he made a mistake. You're afforded a
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Speaker 1: new trial and you are found not guilty. But this
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Speaker 1: process takes two agonizing years, and after serving that amount
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Speaker 1: of time in prison for a crime you never committed,
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Speaker 1: the murder of your friend, you're released. The story you
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Speaker 1: just heard is based on the true story of Richard Jackson,
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Speaker 1: who was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life without parole
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Speaker 1: for the murder of his friend Alvin Davis in nineteen
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Speaker 1: ninety eight. While fingerprint analysis has been proven to be
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Speaker 1: purely subjective, it still holds a firm place in the
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Speaker 1: public imagination and therefore enjures minds as reliable science. I'm
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Speaker 1: Josh Dubin civil rights and criminal defense attorney, an innocent
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Speaker 1: ambassador to the Innocence Project in New York. Today, on
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Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction Junk Science, we examined fingerprint evidence. Contrary to
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Speaker 1: what pop culture has ingrained in the American conscience. Matching
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Speaker 1: known prints of a suspect the prince left at the
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Speaker 1: scene of a crime is not an exact science. It
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Speaker 1: is entirely subjective, up to the eye of the examiner.
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Speaker 1: So how did fingerprints become so widely accepted and thought
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Speaker 1: of as the gold standard as full proof evidence. It
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Speaker 1: turns out that the first time fingerprints were admitted into
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Speaker 1: evidence was almost one hundred and ten years ago, and
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Speaker 1: the methods used to match prints to individuals hasn't changed
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Speaker 1: much since.
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Speaker 2: The Pacers Foundation is a proud supporter of this episode
9:05
Speaker 2: and of the Last Mile organization, which provides business and
9:08
Speaker 2: tech training to help incarcerated individuals successfully and permanently re
9:13
Speaker 2: enter the workforce. The Pacers Foundation is committed to improving
9:17
Speaker 2: the lives of Hoosiers across Indiana, supporting organizations dedicated primarily
9:22
Speaker 2: to helping young people and students. For more information on
9:25
Speaker 2: the work of the Pacers Foundation or the Last Mile Program,
9:28
Speaker 2: visit Pacersfoundation dot org or the Lastmile dot org.
9:39
Speaker 1: As Clarence Hiller painted the railing outside his home in
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Speaker 1: the early evening of September eighteenth, nineteen ten, he couldn't
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Speaker 1: stop looking over his shoulder. It seemed like the entire
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Speaker 1: South Side of Chicago was on edge. There had been
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Speaker 1: a number of robberies in the area, and everyone was
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Speaker 1: worried that they could be the next victim, And so
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Speaker 1: in the the middle of that night, when Clarence heard
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Speaker 1: the screams of his wife and daughter, he was prepared
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Speaker 1: to launch into action. He confronted the stranger in his house,
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Speaker 1: and as Clarence tried to force the man out, both
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Speaker 1: the robber and Clarence fell down the stairs. Three shots
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Speaker 1: were fired, the intruder fled, and his neighbors came outside
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Speaker 1: and their slippers and robes to see what had happened.
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Speaker 1: They found Clarence bleeding just outside his front door with
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Speaker 1: his daughter standing over him. The police were called and
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Speaker 1: a suspect, Thomas Jennings, was found just eight blocks away.
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Speaker 1: His coat was torn and bloody, and he was carrying
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Speaker 1: a revolver. Thomas Jennings was ultimately convicted, but this wasn't
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Speaker 1: the only evidence used in his prosecution. When Thomas Jennings
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Speaker 1: climbed into the Hiller's home that night, he grabbed onto
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Speaker 1: the railing that Clarence was painting the night before, leaving
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Speaker 1: a fingerprint behind in a semi wet coat of paint.
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Speaker 1: The prosecution cut off the piece of the rail with
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Speaker 1: the fingerprint that Jennings left behind. At his murder trial,
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Speaker 1: jennings defense attorney argued that this new forensic method of
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Speaker 1: lifting and comparing fingerprints couldn't be trusted. There were no
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Speaker 1: tests that could prove that it was reliable. But then
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Speaker 1: the prosecutor got in front of the jury and pressed
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Speaker 1: his finger onto a piece of paper. He then demonstrated
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Speaker 1: how he was able to lift his own print off
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Speaker 1: of it. By proving that he could collect the evidence
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Speaker 1: he was able to convince the jury that it was
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Speaker 1: also possible to accurately analyze and match it to a suspect.
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Speaker 1: The judge ruled that fingerprint testimony was admissible and Jennings
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Speaker 1: was convicted. The precedent of admitting fingerprints has been upheld
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Speaker 1: again and again, despite the fact that numerous men and
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Speaker 1: women have been falsely identified through fingerprint evidence. For example,
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Speaker 1: on March eleventh, two thousand and four, there were a
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Speaker 1: series of explosions in Madrid during rush hour. Ten bombs
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Speaker 1: went off, all within two minutes of each other. One
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Speaker 1: hundred and ninety three people died in almost two thousand
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Speaker 1: were injured. Upon investigation, Spanish authorities found a fingerprint on
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Speaker 1: one of the plastic bags that contained a detonator. They
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Speaker 1: photographed it, then reached out to countries around the world
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Speaker 1: to help find the culprits of the attack. The US
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Speaker 1: authorities ran the print through a database of fingerprints. Twenty
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Speaker 1: possible matches appeared. One of them was Brandon Mayfield, but
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Speaker 1: Brandon Mayfield hadn't left the country in ten years. He
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Speaker 1: didn't even have a valid passport. FBI analysts had no
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Speaker 1: idea how Mayfield would have been able to fly to
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Speaker 1: Spain and back completely undetected, and yet they pursued him
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Speaker 1: as a suspect. It turns out that Brandon had converted
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Speaker 1: to Islam after marrying his Egyptian wife, and so American
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Speaker 1: authorities must have seen him as a convenient suspect just
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Speaker 1: a few years after nine to eleven. In fact, despite
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Speaker 1: evidence that showed that it was extremely unlikely that Brandon
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Speaker 1: had left the Prince on that back, three different FBI
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Speaker 1: agents testified that the prince found in Spain matched Mayfields.
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Speaker 1: They said that it matched with one hundred percent certainty.
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Speaker 1: They arrested Mayfield, and while he sat in jail, the
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Speaker 1: FBI tried to convince the Spanish authorities that these prints
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Speaker 1: were Mayfields, but the Spanish police didn't see what the
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Speaker 1: FBI saw. The prince didn't seem to match it all,
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Speaker 1: from their perspective, a far cry from a match with
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Speaker 1: one hundred percent certainty. They said that when they compared
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Speaker 1: Mayfield's prince to the ones on the bag, it was
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Speaker 1: quote conclusively negative. They eventually did find a match for
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Speaker 1: the fingerprints and apprehended the man who left them behind
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Speaker 1: during the attack. The FBI admitted that they made a
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Speaker 1: mistake in pursuing Mayfield and let him walk free. Mayfield
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Speaker 1: is now probably the best known case of mistaken fingerprints,
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Speaker 1: but he certainly isn't the only one.
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Speaker 3: And we probably can guess if the Spanish police hadn't
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Speaker 3: been involved, or if they didn't have DNA, imagine this
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Speaker 3: case in the United States. Mister Mayfield would have been convicted.
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Speaker 3: How would his defense lawyer have attacked three FBI agents
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Speaker 3: with all of this experience, who claimed with one hundred
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Speaker 3: percent certainty that this print belonged to mister Mayfield. But
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Speaker 3: here's the point here. You could assume that three fingerprint
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Speaker 3: examiners with decades of experience who were certified, followed the
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Speaker 3: process and they were all wrong.
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Speaker 1: Joining us today is Mary Moriarty, the chief public Defender
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Speaker 1: of Hennepin County in Minnesota, and I'm really excited to
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Speaker 1: have her as a guest. She is a staunch defender
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Speaker 1: of the rights of the accused, an outspoken one of that,
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Speaker 1: and we need more public defenders like that in our country.
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Speaker 1: She has worked to challenge the admission of fingerprints. So, Mary,
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Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about how you first became
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Speaker 1: interested in fingerprints.
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Speaker 3: So it goes back to when I as a child. Actually,
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Speaker 3: if you notice, my last name is Moriarty, and I
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Speaker 3: had a particular interest in Sherlock Holmes, and I got
15:08
Speaker 3: for Christmas one year the Hardy Boys book that talked
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Speaker 3: about how to collect evidence, and one of the things
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Speaker 3: I had in there was a recipe for fingerprint powder,
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Speaker 3: and so I would go take my parents' glasses, wineglasses,
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Speaker 3: that kind of thing, and I would dust them for prints.
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Speaker 3: I would put tape over it and I would lift
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Speaker 3: the print. But I never really thought, well, what do
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Speaker 3: you do after that? It was just an interesting exercise
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Speaker 3: in taking items that I knew my parents had touched
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Speaker 3: and actually trying to lift the prints from them.
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Speaker 1: Well, I think I was like screwing around with a
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Speaker 1: Rubik's cube and playing with Gi Joe figures. So this
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Speaker 1: makes me feel a little bit insecure about what I
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Speaker 1: was doing as a kid. But it certainly sounds like
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Speaker 1: you were headed towards a career involving forensics in the law.
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Speaker 1: For a while.
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Speaker 3: My father was actually a public defender, and some of
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Speaker 3: my dad's clients were actually my classmates, and I got
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Speaker 3: to know them as individuals. There's an attempt to otherwise
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Speaker 3: people who become public defender clients. And you know, the
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Speaker 3: age old question that public defenders get asked is how
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Speaker 3: can you represent those people? And it's very easy because
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Speaker 3: those people are our brothers, our dads, our sisters, our cousins.
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Speaker 3: And you look at what those clients have been through,
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Speaker 3: and so many of them have a history of trauma,
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Speaker 3: you can understand why they find themselves in these particular situations.
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Speaker 3: And I think growing up my parents fostered a really
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Speaker 3: strong sense of justice in my life. In every situation,
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Speaker 3: they would sit me down and say, you know, what
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Speaker 3: is the right thing to do here? So fast forward
16:54
Speaker 3: when I went to law school. Once I finally made
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Speaker 3: that decision, I knew that there was only one thing
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Speaker 3: that I wanted to be and that was a public defender.
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Speaker 3: I wanted to be in a courtroom representing the same
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Speaker 3: people that I got to know through my father's practice.
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Speaker 1: All Right, so you became an attorney and got a
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Speaker 1: chance to right some of the wrongs that you saw
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Speaker 1: the system. But what were your thoughts about fingerprints when
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Speaker 1: you first started out?
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Speaker 3: I have to acknowledge. So I've been a public defender
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Speaker 3: for thirty years and I certainly had fingerprint cases, and
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Speaker 3: I also accepted without questioning that they were based on
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Speaker 3: science and that an expert could actually testify that a
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Speaker 3: single finger made this print from the crime scene. And
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Speaker 3: fingerprints have been accepted as evidence in courts for over
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Speaker 3: one hundred years, and people assume that it's reliable.
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Speaker 1: So this is something that always fascinated me. I don't
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Speaker 1: even know when it was that I began to believe this,
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Speaker 1: but even I had come to the belief that fingerprints
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Speaker 1: were sort of the gold standard, and that seems to
18:11
Speaker 1: be sort of a consistent, you know, collective thought in
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Speaker 1: the American psyche that fingerprints are regarded as being just
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Speaker 1: really reliable. Why do you think that is?
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Speaker 3: They're in popular culture. We've all grown up being given
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Speaker 3: a certain perspective on what fingerprints are. When I started
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Speaker 3: getting an interest in fingerprints, I would say to people
18:32
Speaker 3: outside the legal system, my friends, I would say, you know,
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Speaker 3: when you think about how a fingerprint from a crime
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Speaker 3: scene is compared to the known print of somebody, what
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Speaker 3: does that look like in your mind? And they will
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Speaker 3: always say, well, I envision the crime scene print on
18:50
Speaker 3: a screen right next to the known fingerprint, and then
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Speaker 3: I see a computer merging them and bells going off, going.
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Speaker 2: Ding ding ding.
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Speaker 3: It matches, and that makes sense. It makes sense that
19:02
Speaker 3: people would think that. When I tell people that that's
19:04
Speaker 3: not at all what happens, they are shocked. Lay people
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Speaker 3: hear that there are these databases and they tend to
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Speaker 3: think that everybody's fingerprints are in it. And so I
19:14
Speaker 3: think what people believe is that, Okay, you get a
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Speaker 3: fingerprint off a gun and you put it in a
19:22
Speaker 3: database and the computer comes up with the match and
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Speaker 3: that's it. So that's not true at all. So of
19:29
Speaker 3: course we're all entrenched in popular culture. We've been told
19:33
Speaker 3: for many, many years fingerprints are fantastic, and you know,
19:37
Speaker 3: why would anybody take the time to actually look to
19:41
Speaker 3: see what they do?
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Speaker 1: So tell us a little bit about what they actually do.
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Speaker 1: Practically speaking, how does it actually work? What if fingerprint
19:50
Speaker 1: examiners look at.
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Speaker 3: The way fingerprint examiners actually look at fingerprints is through
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Speaker 3: what they call a methodology called ACE. So it's a
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Speaker 3: C E slash V, which is analysis, comparison, evaluation and verification.
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Speaker 3: So here's a description of what they actually do. Let's
20:13
Speaker 3: say a person is shot with a gun. They will lift,
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Speaker 3: and by lift, I mean they'll look for a fingerprint
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Speaker 3: on that gun and then they will try to remove
20:26
Speaker 3: that fingerprint so that they can compare it. So the
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Speaker 3: a part is analysis. They are supposed to look at
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Speaker 3: that fingerprint to see whether there is enough detail in
20:38
Speaker 3: it to go any further. People have seen these pictures
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Speaker 3: of somebody rolling their finger over a pad of ink,
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Speaker 3: and that's how you get the print. That's not what happens.
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Speaker 3: When people touch objects. You get a fragment, and sometimes
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Speaker 3: it's smeared, and sometimes there's dust on it, sometimes there's oil.
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Speaker 3: There are a lot of different facts. And so here's
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Speaker 3: the deal. It's not that you're comparing a fully rolled
21:04
Speaker 3: fingerprint to a fully rolled fingerprint. You are first looking
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Speaker 3: at a fragment of the print, and it is totally
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Speaker 3: within the subjectivity, the subjective discretion of a fingerprint analysis
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Speaker 3: or examiner to decide whether there is enough information on
21:21
Speaker 3: that print to even go ahead and compare it. So
21:25
Speaker 3: just think about.
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Speaker 1: That, right, That's kind of scary because it's up to
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Speaker 1: the judgment call of one analyst on that particular day,
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Speaker 1: and I'm quite sure that another analyst looking at the
21:38
Speaker 1: same portion of a print might come up with the
21:42
Speaker 1: opposite conclusion. So it turns out that the A in ACV,
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Speaker 1: the very first step is problematic and pretty flawed. So
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Speaker 1: the next letter is the C for comparison. Where you're
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Speaker 1: taking a print left at a crime scene and comparing
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Speaker 1: it to a suspects print. Tell us a little bit
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Speaker 1: about what that process entails.
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Speaker 3: Mary, So once you make the decision to go forward,
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Speaker 3: then you are onto the sea or comparison, and you're
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Speaker 3: comparing the fully rolled print to the fragment of a print.
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Speaker 3: So Josh, you might look and compare those two fingerprints
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Speaker 3: and say, you know, I see enough here. I see
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Speaker 3: twelve points of comparison. That's enough for me to say
22:27
Speaker 3: that this is the same person. I might look at
22:32
Speaker 3: it and say, oh, I see five points of comparison.
22:36
Speaker 3: I think that's enough to declare that it's a match.
22:39
Speaker 3: So once again, it is completely subjective.
22:44
Speaker 1: Right and saying, well, sometimes we think ten points that
22:48
Speaker 1: look the same between a rolled print and a fragment
22:52
Speaker 1: of a print are enough similarities to declare a match,
22:55
Speaker 1: and sometimes we think five is enough. And that just
22:58
Speaker 1: doesn't seem scientific and seemed very reliable, and so Mary,
23:03
Speaker 1: something we've been addressing a lot on this podcast is
23:06
Speaker 1: the two thousand and nine NAS Report. Tell us a
23:10
Speaker 1: little bit about what the NAS report said about fingerprints.
23:15
Speaker 3: The National Academy of Science is the most prestigious scientific
23:19
Speaker 3: body in the United States and they advise Congress on
23:25
Speaker 3: issues of science, medicine, pretty much anything you can think
23:29
Speaker 3: of when it comes to sciences, and the National Academy
23:33
Speaker 3: of Science was asked to examine the comparative forensic sciences.
23:39
Speaker 3: It was a groundbreaking report and it was very in depth.
23:43
Speaker 3: They took testimony, they solicited research, and it rocked the
23:49
Speaker 3: forensic science community. One of the things that you realize
23:52
Speaker 3: when you look at the report, if you are a scientist,
23:55
Speaker 3: you know that there are certain tenets of science, like
23:58
Speaker 3: you have to be able to replicate the process. When
24:01
Speaker 3: a scientist does an experiment, they document what they do.
24:07
Speaker 3: And the National Academy of Science was very clear that
24:10
Speaker 3: fingerprint examiners, as well as any other comparative forensic examiners,
24:14
Speaker 3: do not provide documentation. And I found this to be true.
24:17
Speaker 3: You would order, you would ask for a fingerprint examiner's file,
24:22
Speaker 3: and you wouldn't really see many notes. You wouldn't know
24:26
Speaker 3: what they were actually looking at. You might have a
24:28
Speaker 3: picture of a fingerprint with some circles on it, but
24:31
Speaker 3: you wouldn't know what they were looking at. So there
24:34
Speaker 3: was no way to replicate the process that they actually used.
24:38
Speaker 3: There was no basis for saying that it came from
24:41
Speaker 3: the same source. And most of the people who did fingerprints,
24:45
Speaker 3: and probably still do in some places, are not scientists.
24:49
Speaker 3: They are not recruited because of their scientific background. They
24:51
Speaker 3: are often police officers who were apprenticed into this position
24:56
Speaker 3: because the police officer who examined the print was going
24:59
Speaker 3: to retire. And then there's the evaluation where you're actually
25:04
Speaker 3: making the decision about whether this comes from the same source,
25:08
Speaker 3: and there's a lot of controversy there. Fingerprint examiners used
25:12
Speaker 3: to come in and say that they had one hundred
25:15
Speaker 3: percent certainty, they were one hundred percent certain that this
25:19
Speaker 3: print from the crime scene came from this particular client,
25:24
Speaker 3: and there was no basis for that. In fact, that's
25:26
Speaker 3: not even allowed anymore. And why is there no basis
25:29
Speaker 3: for it? You would have to have population statistics, right,
25:34
Speaker 3: I mean, that's what DNA has, That's why they come
25:36
Speaker 3: up with these numbers. It's one in a million that
25:39
Speaker 3: it came from this person. There are no population statistics
25:43
Speaker 3: regarding fingerprints.
25:56
Speaker 1: Okay, so we're seeing that there are a lot of
25:57
Speaker 1: flaws with both analyzing and comparing prints, the A and
26:01
Speaker 1: the C and as that neither of these steps are
26:04
Speaker 1: actually rooted in the scientific methods. And now we're onto E, right, ACE.
26:10
Speaker 1: So the E is evaluation where they decide if it's
26:14
Speaker 1: a match or not. And so it seems that if
26:16
Speaker 1: analyzing and comparing the prints aren't scientifically proven to work,
26:20
Speaker 1: the evaluation of those prints and deciding whether or not
26:24
Speaker 1: it's a match can't be done to any degree of
26:26
Speaker 1: certainty either. That just seems like common sense. So this
26:30
Speaker 1: is purely subjective. But there's one last letter in these
26:35
Speaker 1: steps that examiners follow, and that's the V for verification. Right,
26:39
Speaker 1: it's ace V. And I'm already skeptical because the first
26:44
Speaker 1: three steps of the process are flawed, So how could
26:46
Speaker 1: the results be verified?
26:48
Speaker 3: Imagine this, A fingerprint examiner would decide that this fragment
26:53
Speaker 3: of a print came from this particular person, and then
26:57
Speaker 3: they would hand it off to another fingerprint examiner for verification.
27:01
Speaker 3: But the issue was it was never blind. So, Josh,
27:05
Speaker 3: let's say you and I were fingerprint examiners in the
27:07
Speaker 3: same office, and I would make a decision about a print,
27:11
Speaker 3: and then I would ask you to verify what I
27:14
Speaker 3: had done. And the problem with that is you already
27:17
Speaker 3: knew what I had done. It wasn't blind. In science,
27:21
Speaker 3: they do blind verification, so that the person who's actually
27:25
Speaker 3: attempting to verify or replicate what the first person did
27:29
Speaker 3: it doesn't know what the result was actually, So the
27:33
Speaker 3: fact that the verification wasn't blind led to what people
27:38
Speaker 3: call confirmation bias, which is a huge problem.
27:41
Speaker 1: All right. So, once the NAS basically said that the
27:45
Speaker 1: ACEV process is really a recipe for wrongful convictions, this
27:49
Speaker 1: should have been an explosion in the criminal justice system
27:53
Speaker 1: in the courts, and it just wasn't. And that's I guess,
27:55
Speaker 1: a different issue altogether. We have to keep pushing in
27:59
Speaker 1: that regard. But you are still trying to push and
28:03
Speaker 1: challenge the admissibility of fingerprints in the criminal justice system,
28:07
Speaker 1: and I have to tell you, it just seems like
28:09
Speaker 1: it must be so difficult, Mary, because this is not
28:14
Speaker 1: like any kind of scientific analysis. But it just feels
28:18
Speaker 1: to me that everyone believes fingerprint evidence works. It's so
28:24
Speaker 1: ingrained in pop culture, and just like the intrinsic belief
28:29
Speaker 1: that people have that we've grown up with. So tell me,
28:33
Speaker 1: what are some of the problems you've run into when
28:36
Speaker 1: trying to call and question this so called science.
28:40
Speaker 3: When you're in court litigating this. You're absolutely right, that
28:44
Speaker 3: is one of the things you hear from prosecutors and
28:46
Speaker 3: you hear from judges. Of course, this is reliable. It's
28:50
Speaker 3: been coming into court for decades and decades, and nobody
28:53
Speaker 3: has ever challenged it before. So that is a big
28:56
Speaker 3: hurdle to get over, much more so than other things
29:00
Speaker 3: like bite marks, blood spatter and that sort of thing.
29:03
Speaker 3: The court system always lags behind science, and it was
29:08
Speaker 3: an uphill climb to convince judges and prosecutors that there
29:13
Speaker 3: were problems with fingerprints, or if you could convince them
29:17
Speaker 3: that there were problems, you certainly couldn't convince them that
29:20
Speaker 3: they should exclude that evidence. In fact, judges and I
29:23
Speaker 3: heard this quite a bit. It's like, well, you know,
29:25
Speaker 3: let's just let the jury decide. But then you get
29:28
Speaker 3: back to the problem of jurors thinking that fingerprints are
29:33
Speaker 3: you know, they've been with us forever. They're embedded in
29:35
Speaker 3: popular culture, and you have to get over all of
29:38
Speaker 3: that history to convince durors that there are indeed issues. Essentially,
29:43
Speaker 3: the presumption is that prints are infallible. In a case
29:48
Speaker 3: where your client is supposed to be presumed innocent and
29:51
Speaker 3: the prosecution or the government has to prove their case
29:54
Speaker 3: beyond a reasonable doubt, a significant piece of evidence is
29:57
Speaker 3: presumed to be infallible. You have a lot of work
30:01
Speaker 3: to do to try to educate them that that's not
30:04
Speaker 3: the case.
30:05
Speaker 1: Right, because it turns out that judges are really no
30:07
Speaker 1: different than jurors. I mean, in some instances they're more sophisticated,
30:12
Speaker 1: not always. They certainly have less time and frankly sometimes
30:17
Speaker 1: less patience, but they're sort of not immune to the
30:22
Speaker 1: impact of pop culture and precedent. But look, some people
30:25
Speaker 1: may be listening to this and thinking, I don't have
30:28
Speaker 1: a law degree, but I want to help. I want
30:30
Speaker 1: to do something about this. So do you have any
30:33
Speaker 1: ideas for what our listeners can do to help I do?
30:37
Speaker 3: And I wanted to go back, just for a moment
30:40
Speaker 3: to talk about precedent because where I went in my
30:43
Speaker 3: mind are courts saying that actual innocence of a client
30:48
Speaker 3: on death row doesn't matter because procedure was followed. So
30:53
Speaker 3: that should alert your listeners how much courts adhere to
30:59
Speaker 3: press and are deferential to previous findings to the point
31:05
Speaker 3: where they would authorize that somebody received the death penalty
31:09
Speaker 3: because the process was followed. Anyone in the public wants
31:13
Speaker 3: the law enforcement, the system to get things right. And
31:18
Speaker 3: the only way we can get things right is if
31:20
Speaker 3: we understand the limitations of these forensic sciences, so people
31:25
Speaker 3: can be writing letters, calling their prosecutors, their policymakers, county commissioners,
31:31
Speaker 3: city council members. What are you doing to make sure
31:35
Speaker 3: that police officers, that crime lab examiners understand this information?
31:41
Speaker 3: And that would be really helpful because people really do
31:44
Speaker 3: listen more to constituents and people in the public than
31:49
Speaker 3: they do potentially defense lawyers.
31:53
Speaker 1: You know, I've said this before, and I really do
31:56
Speaker 1: think it bears repeating. Pressure breaks pipes. What you all
32:01
Speaker 1: can do as listeners of this podcast is take action.
32:06
Speaker 1: You're on here because you want to learn something, but
32:08
Speaker 1: you also want to do something about it. The way
32:12
Speaker 1: that we stop this junk signs from making it into
32:15
Speaker 1: our courts is to shine a bright light on it.
32:18
Speaker 1: Google the NAS Report that we've continually talked about during
32:22
Speaker 1: this season. That report details how so many of these
32:26
Speaker 1: disciplines of forensic science, including fingerprints, are really problematic. The
32:32
Speaker 1: problem is judges don't know about it. Find out who
32:36
Speaker 1: your local criminal court judges are and send them the
32:40
Speaker 1: NAS Report. Highlight this section on fingerprint analysis and send
32:44
Speaker 1: to your local criminal court judges. It's only by educating
32:48
Speaker 1: our judges and speaking truth to power that we can
32:51
Speaker 1: really make change happen. And if you don't think that
32:55
Speaker 1: your voice matters, just take a look around the country
32:58
Speaker 1: right now. It's the collection the voice that is causing
33:01
Speaker 1: change to happen, and we can do it one step
33:04
Speaker 1: at a time in our criminal justice system. Thank you
33:15
Speaker 1: for listening to Wrongful Conviction Junk Science. We're going to
33:18
Speaker 1: be taking a little break, but our next episode will
33:21
Speaker 1: be out on October seventh. In the meantime, we will
33:25
Speaker 1: be keeping a critical and close eye on our criminal
33:28
Speaker 1: justice system. We would love to hear how you're doing
33:32
Speaker 1: that along with us, so please leave us a comment
33:34
Speaker 1: and let us know what you've been up to, and
33:36
Speaker 1: stay on the Wrongful Conviction podcast feed as Jason Flamm
33:40
Speaker 1: will continue to release episodes between now and October seventh.
33:47
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction Junk Science is a production of Lava for
33:50
Speaker 1: Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One. Thanks
33:54
Speaker 1: to our executive producer Jason Flamm and the team at
33:57
Speaker 1: Signal Company Number One, ducer Kevin Wardis and senior producers
34:02
Speaker 1: Kara Kornhaber and Britz Spangler. Our music was composed by
34:06
Speaker 1: Jay Ralph. You can follow me on Instagram at dubin Josh.
34:11
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34:15
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