LOCAL WRITER SLEUTHS OUT PROOF THAT FINGERPRINT EVIDENCE CAN BE WRONG, SKEWED BY EXAMINERS’ BIAS

East County Magazine editor Miriam Raftery interviewed journalist/author Sue Russell, an East County resident whose latest article exposes evidence that fingerprint analysis is not infallible as we've always thought and may be wrong in as many as 1,000 cases a year in the U.S., according to one estimate. Russell's article, BIAS AND THE BIG FINGERPRINT DUST-UP, documents how unintentional bias on the part of examiners influences their findings.

MR: Sue, you're an East County writer so we're pleased to see your story breaking at www.Miller-McCune.com on the ways that human examiner bias can affect the interpretation of fingerprints. How did you get on to this important story?

SR: Thanks, Miriam. A light bulb first went off for me while watching a fingerprint examiner in an L.A. crime lab eyeballing images of prints to make a comparison. For all the technology, this is what it comes down to. The human factor is still very much part of fingerprint matching, something that many - CSI fans in particular - may not realize.

MR: They've been used in courts for about 100 years. We all think fingerprints are infallible.

SR: Exactly! They are the old gold standard of evidence and until recent years, rarely questioned. As I reported, even a Scottish police officer, accused of leaving her print at a murder scene she'd never visited, believed it must have been her print because the fingerprint experts said so. She believed it was hers but couldn't fathom how it got there. But it wasn't her print at all.

MR: So humans still make the final call on fingerprint matches that go into court?

SR: Yes, despite massive databases like the FBI's IAFIS which spit out a 'short list' of the closest matches.

MR: When did you realize examiner bias might interfere with fingerprint matching's accuracy?

SR: In February, I wrote for Miller-McCune.com about the release of the massive National Academies of Science report on forensics. The report gives the bias issue serious attention. It cited Dr. Itiel Dror's innovative scientific studies on the possible effects of contextual bias on fingerprint experts. In one study, Dror showed five international fingerprint experts prints they had called a match five years earlier, but with a different context. The results were startling. There's more, of course! But my editor, Michael Todd, was also very intrigued by Dr. Dror's work, and suggested the story.

MR: What else jumped out at you about this subject?

SR: That Dr. Dror and others, like UCLA law professor Jennifer Mnookin, an evidence expert, see the very enormity of fingerprint databases like the FBI's IAFIS increasing the statistical chance of finding very similar fingerprints by accident. Think about that! Technology helps, but also throws up new problems that demand further study.

For more information on Sue Russell, visit her website at http://www.suerussellwrites.com. Follow her on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/SRussellWrites. Read her full article, BIAS AND THE BIG FINGERPRINT DUST-UP, at: http://tinyurl.com/llvfa8.