Snowflakes and Fingerprints

Snowflakes and Fingerprints
By: Eric Metaxas|Published: October 29, 2012 7:00 AM

"Don’t you just love those crime scene investigation shows . . . where science is the key to catching the bad guys? Well, it’s not so simple. I’ll explain next, on BreakPoint.

According to conventional wisdom, fingerprints have one thing in common with snowflakes: No two are exactly alike. Well as it turns out, neither snowflakes nor fingerprints are as unique as we believed them to be.

While being wrong about snowflakes might take some of the fun out of winter, being wrong about fingerprints can ruin an innocent person’s life.

That’s what almost happened to Brandon Mayfield, an attorney in Portland, Oregon. His story was part of a recent episode of NOVA on PBS. Following the March 11, 2004, attacks in Madrid that killed 191 people, investigators found a plastic bag containing bomb-making materials near the crime scene.

Using the best available techniques, they were able to obtain a partial fingerprint. The FBI ran it through its system and found that Mayfield’s print was, in forensic parlance, a fifteen-point match, more than good enough for a definite identification.

Mayfield was arrested and facing prison time. What saved him was that Spanish police matched the same print to an Algerian jihadist who was in Spain at the time of the attacks.

These kind of things aren't supposed to happen. Apart from DNA, fingerprint evidence is as good as forensic science gets. Yet in this case it almost cost an innocent man his freedom.

In response to Mayfield’s ordeal, Congress asked the National Academy of Sciences to study America’s crime labs. The NAS report found, as one expert on NOVA put it, that there wasn't enough “science” in forensic science.

Much of what goes by the name of “science,” such as fingerprint, ballistic, hair and fiber analysis, is highly subjective, often more art than science. Even when the science, as in the case of DNA analysis, is solid, poorly-run labs filled with poorly-trained and, occasionally, dishonest technicians, can call the results into question."

Read on in the link:  http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/20634