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Breaking NEWz you can UzE... |
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by
Kasey Wertheim |
Fingerprints rarely make case
Muskogee Daily Phoenix, OK - Oct 26, 2008
...Over the last 25 years, I personally only had a couple of cases where a print linked a suspect to the scene...
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__________________________________________
Recent CLPEX Posting Activity |
Last Week's
Board topics
containing new posts
Moderated by Steve Everist and Charlie Parker |
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Public CLPEX
Message Board
Moderated by Steve Everist
The merits of putting Henry Faulds on a Pumpkin
1, 2 by Boyd Baumgartner on Tue Oct 21, 2008 11:17 am 15 Replies 364
Views Last post by Gerald Clough
on Sun Oct 26, 2008 8:38 am
An intern solves a cold case homicide?
by ltorres on Fri Oct 24, 2008 12:07 pm 1 Replies 98 Views Last post
by Gerald Clough
on Fri Oct 24, 2008 1:53 pm
Evidence Fabrication in South Africa
1 ... 19, 20, 21by Pat A. Wertheim on Fri Nov 30, 2007 12:48 pm 305
Replies 34422 Views Last post by Truthseeker
on Fri Oct 24, 2008 1:36 pm
Bayesian Statistics
by Dan Perkins on Fri Oct 24, 2008 10:22 am 1 Replies 57 Views Last
post by Gerald Clough
on Fri Oct 24, 2008 11:24 am
Carbon paper??
by nlarsen on Thu May 01, 2008 11:15 am 10 Replies 922 Views Last
post by sharon cook
on Fri Oct 24, 2008 9:54 am
RUVIS focusing issue
by MitchVFL on Wed Oct 22, 2008 10:11 am 2 Replies 79 Views Last
post by antonroland
on Fri Oct 24, 2008 9:36 am
The merits of photographing a latent at 1000 ppi
1, 2, 3 by antonroland on Fri Oct 17, 2008 8:27 am 33 Replies 464
Views Last post by antonroland
on Fri Oct 24, 2008 5:54 am
T-model (statistical approach)
by D. Tivin on Wed Oct 22, 2008 5:00 pm 2 Replies 114 Views Last
post by D. Tivin
on Wed Oct 22, 2008 8:09 pm
Photoshop CS3 Class
by Phyllis on Wed Oct 22, 2008 4:10 pm 0 Replies 79 Views Last post
by Phyllis
on Wed Oct 22, 2008 4:10 pm
Microwavable Fingerprints?
by josher89 on Wed Oct 22, 2008 7:37 am 1 Replies 132 Views Last
post by sharon cook
on Wed Oct 22, 2008 3:26 pm
McKie/Y7 Public Judicial Inquiry under way
by Outsider on Tue Oct 21, 2008 8:36 am 5 Replies 242 Views Last
post by Iain McKie
on Wed Oct 22, 2008 3:02 pm
Fingerprint Fraud in Hartford CT?
by L.J.Steele on Mon Oct 20, 2008 6:24 am 7 Replies 374 Views Last
post by Gerald Clough
on Tue Oct 21, 2008 9:11 am
LAPD Fingerprint Mistake
by Dennis Degler on Fri Oct 17, 2008 7:40 am 6 Replies 647 Views
Last post by Dennis Degler
on Tue Oct 21, 2008 7:39 am
Is Latent Print Evidence Infallible
by Big Wullie on Thu Aug 28, 2008 7:40 pm 8 Replies 643 Views Last
post by kevin
on Tue Oct 21, 2008 12:12 am
Fingerprint Fraud in Hartford CT?
by L.J.Steele on Mon Oct 20, 2008 6:24 am 0 Replies 88 Views Last
post by L.J.Steele
on Mon Oct 20, 2008 6:24 am
___________________________________
IAI Conference Topics -
Louisville, Kentucky 2008:
Moderator: Steve Everist
No new posts
___________________________________
Documentation
Documentation issues as they apply to latent prints
Moderator: Charles Parker
No new posts
___________________________________
History
Historical topics related to latent print examination
Moderator: Charles Parker
No new posts
(http://clpex.com/phpBB/viewforum.php?f=2)
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UPDATES
ON CLPEX.com
Updated the Fingerprint Interest Group (FIG) page
with FIG #67; a really neat example of Post Deposition Destruction (PDD) of
ridge detail by a shoe impression; submitted by Sandy Siegel of TX. You can send your example of unique distortion to
Charlie Parker:
Charles.Parker@ci.austin.tx.us.
For discussion, visit the CLPEX.com forum FIG thread.
Updated the forum Keeping Examiners Prepared for
Testimony (KEPT)
thread with KEPT #41; Weight of Characteristics - Do some characteristics
have more weight than others?;
submitted
by Michelle Triplett. You can send your
questions on courtroom topics to Michelle Triplett:
Michele.Triplett@kingcounty.gov
Updated the Detail Archives
_________________________________________
we looked at how IAFIS searches are returning close
look-alikes that can get uncareful examiners in trouble.
we look at an interesting thread on the CLPEX.com
forum._________________________________________
The Merits of Putting Henry Faulds on a
Pumpkin
Thread started by Boyd Baumgartner on Tue Oct 21, 2008 11:17 am
fauldspumpkin.jpg (113.16 KiB) Viewed 758 times
Boyd Baumgartner
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Re: The merits of putting Henry Faulds on a Pumpkin
by Ann Horsman on Wed Oct 22, 2008 5:05 am
Neato! Did you carve it?
~Ann
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Re: The merits of putting Henry Faulds on a Pumpkin
by Boyd Baumgartner on Wed Oct 22, 2008 8:18 am
No, I didn't carve it. Let's just say that I got a lot out of George Reis'
book "Photoshop CS3 for Forensics Professionals"
Boyd Baumgartner
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Re: The merits of putting Henry Faulds on a Pumpkin
by Gerald Clough on Wed Oct 22, 2008 9:00 am
Somehow, not as appetizing as the traditional baked goods...
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Re: The merits of putting Henry Faulds on a Pumpkin
by sharon cook on Wed Oct 22, 2008 11:54 am
Is it real or is it Photoshopped? You know the old saying, "Believe half of
what you see and none of what you hear"? Well, they didn't know about
Photoshop, did they? If it's real...COOO-UL!
sharon cook
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Re: The merits of putting Henry Faulds on a Pumpkin
by Pat A. Wertheim on Wed Oct 22, 2008 1:21 pm
If Faulds was a punkin' head, what did that make Galton? (Come on, Boyd,
show us!)
Pat A. Wertheim
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Re: The merits of putting Henry Faulds on a Pumpkin
by Boyd Baumgartner on Wed Oct 22, 2008 4:16 pm
GS.jpg (40.74 KiB) Viewed 398 times
Boyd Baumgartner
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Re: The merits of putting Henry Faulds on a Pumpkin
by Pat A. Wertheim on Wed Oct 22, 2008 4:57 pm
DOOH!!!
Pat A. Wertheim
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Re: The merits of putting Henry Faulds on a Pumpkin
by antonroland on Fri Oct 24, 2008 5:55 am
I get the idea that Sir Francis is not liked by all
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Re: The merits of putting Henry Faulds on a Pumpkin
by Pat A. Wertheim on Fri Oct 24, 2008 9:49 am
Henry Faulds speculated on the individuality of fingerprints, and on the
possibility of developing marks at scenes of crimes that could be identified
to the criminals. He approached Charles Darwin with his ideas and sought
Darwin's advice. Darwin was busy working on his theory of evolution and
passed on Faulds' ideas to his (Darwin's) cousin, Francis Galton. Galton
combined Darwin's theory with Faulds' ideas and developed his own bizarre
hypothesis -- Galton believed fingerprints could be used by eugenicists to
select the best breeding stock for developing a superior strain of humans.
There are those who doubt that Galton ever fully comprehended the concepts
that we use today for personal identification. But Galton was an English
aristocrat and Faulds was a Scottish commoner. Galton could publish and his
work would gain immediate acceptance. Faulds, by virtue of his birth, could
never enjoy such credibility. Galton's ideas on eugenics have been largely
forgotten and his contribution to modern fingerprint useage has been
cleansed by history. Faulds deserves credit for the idea that lead to our
science, not Galton.
Pat A. Wertheim
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Re: The merits of putting Henry Faulds on a Pumpkin
by Gerald Clough on Fri Oct 24, 2008 12:13 pm
On the other hand, Galton gets spattered with bile in retrospect for
pursuing a line of inquiry that, for many reasons, seemed reasonable at the
time and amenable to application of emerging knowledge, certainly not
bizarre, given the breadth of speculations of implications spun around
Darwin's work. Along the way, he established the basis for even the current
attempts to quantify issues that become increasingly important and made him
rather the go-to guy for research supporting Fauld's correct conclusions and
practical demonstration of how fingerprints could be used in criminal
matters. His social status meant he had the opportunities to acquire a broad
education and the leisure to apply it. It's remarkable that he carried out
his inquiries to the point of developing means of researching so many
different aspects of issues and doing far more than merely pushing
prospective conclusions by the weight of his standing. Social position
ultimately had a lot to do with credibility, but Galton's credibility was
far from entirely on account of his class. Nor was Fauld's credibility with
regard to practical application entirely due to his class. We could not
reasonably denigrate Faulds because he was busy making a living as he made
astute observations and proposed practical applications or that he wasn't
the shear intellectual equal of Galton, but nothing diminishes Galton - not
the fact that he didn't spontaneously focus on identification nor for not
concluding eugenics was a false trail or that it would one day fall so far
on the negative side of social issues that were beginning to be explored.
Nor is Fauld's credit for observation and insight reduced by his wrangling
with Herschel over the petty issue of who made first official use of
fingerprints or his bitterness over lack of social or monetary payday for
it.
Gerald Clough
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Re: The merits of putting Henry Faulds on a Pumpkin
by antonroland on Sat Oct 25, 2008 1:23 pm
Gerald
I have always liked the balanced and well considered arguments you pose
(even here) but I must admit to siding with Pat on this one.
It is indeed also a pity that Fauld turned out to be the bitter
disillusioned man he is said to have been but at least Galton also got what
he had coming thanks to Henry who worked Galton over in turn.
We could nearly turn some of this into a soapie mind you
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Re: The merits of putting Henry Faulds on a Pumpkin
by Charles Parker on Sat Oct 25, 2008 3:42 pm
Anton, what did Henry do to work Galton over?
Charles Parker
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Re: The merits of putting Henry Faulds on a Pumpkin
by Gerald Clough on Sat Oct 25, 2008 10:06 pm
I can't imagine. Henry made it into he Athenaeum Club well before Galton, of
Darwin, for that matter, and was dead before either was inducted. Unless it
means that Henry got his name more firmly attached to practical fingerprint
work than did Galton.
The whole argument over the roles of the players, Herschel, Henry, Galton,
and Faulds, is peculiar for drawing partisan supporters, then and now. They
all played roles. Faulds made some remarkable observations, recognizing that
fingerprints on pottery suggested one potter had left his impressions on
many pieces, something that's now being used with good effect to deduce
trade patterns from examinations of fingerprints on ancient pottery found in
different areas. At least one of his "cases" was misunderstood early and
later corrected by him to explain that the comparison was made by hand
shape, not fingerprint patterns, the mark having none. Faulds himself,
writing in his later years for publication (see 1911 article in Scientific
American), explains the intent of his letter to Darwin, the one Darwin
passed to Galton. His intent was that Darwin help him obtain prints of other
primates to help in settling questions of man's descent, nothing more. It no
doubt struck him as potentially important evidence through which he would
make a contribution to Darwin's field. It shows an active interest in
Darwin's ideas, not unexpected in someone who was clearly possessed of an
active mind.
Faulds' lack of success in exciting the police about fingerprints is
entirely understandable, with no need to cite relative social status. His
proposal could not but be something like the idea of ear prints put forth
today. Lack of science, making it unlikely it would pass legal muster. (Tunbridge
specifically told Faulds fingerprints would likely require new legislation.)
In that same article, Faulds says that when he wrote to Darwin he had found
no biological or anatomical literature on the subject. But Perkinje had
described friction ridges in 1823 as an anatomical feature. Faulds, being an
intelligent observer but not a member of the scientific community would have
no way of knowing this. And being neither a formal scientist nor a legal
practitioner, he would not have been aware of what was required, even then,
to bring fingerprints into the justice system. The ear print idea has met no
better success. With this perspective, it may well have seemed to Faulds
that Tunbridge was merely making excuses.
When you read their own words, no matter what one may think of Galton
otherwise, Faulds demonstrated a bitter small-mindedness when he pretended
to recount the history of the progress of fingerprints from notion to legal
evidence. His only mentions of Galton are to cite 1888 as the year Galton
began his researches and to quote Darwin's reply to his letter to put the
smoking gun in Galton's hand.
One cannot take Faulds out of the development of fingerprints as a criminal
justice tool. It had to be a factor in Galton's interest. Not just the
letter passing through Galton's hand. It's return to him by the Royal
Society, which apparently surprised him, since he had nearly forgotten it,
would have helped bring the idea to mind. There's a fashion in casting
Faulds as a poor victim, which by implication makes others the villains.
It's easy to think of him as the fingerprint pioneer who was so denied
credit that no memorial was, until recently, maintained. But Henry was never
denied as a major player, and his grave went untended until the Society
acted in the 1990's. No one can be credited with "inventing" fingerprinting.
It's not even an interesting plot to deny credit, except in the minds of
inventive authors. And, of course, in the mind of poor Faulds. There have
been enough issues raised about Beavans' account to at least reserve
judgment.
Gerald Clough
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Re: The merits of putting Henry Faulds on a Pumpkin
by antonroland on Sun Oct 26, 2008 2:01 am
It has been a while since last I read the books I am now referring to but
having read Colin Beavan's book, Cole's Suspect identities and a few others,
I got the idea that when Henry finally proposed the idea to implement
fingerprints at Scotland Yard, Lady Francis was waiting in the wings on
Henry to give all credit as yet another accomplishment of the dandy old FRS.
This did not happen. Henry got his post and recognition for "his" great work
and Lady Francis felt cheated...Must admit to this being heavily fueled by
personal opinion but I quite frankly don't have much regard for either
Galton or Henry.
Henry also worked over Inzamaam ul-Haque and Mahem Chandra Bose in claiming
that their work came to him in a great flash of inspiration at night whilst
en-route on a train in India(?)
He had no way but to write it on his sleeve in fear of forgetting...yeah
right.
It was this basic primary, secondary and sub-secondary that made the "Henry"
classification" system practical in the sense of it being a workable
collection rather than a huge collection of useless information.
If Henry could do this to ul-Haque and Bose, why would he not do it to
Galton?
Slightly O/T but relevant methinks...who was REALLY first to reach the
summit of Everest? The great explorer, Sir Edmund Hillary or the lowly
guide, Tensing Norkay?
Why the deafening silence on that point all these years since?
As said, I admit to being ever so slightly subjective here but I don't think
I am that far off the mark.
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Re: The merits of putting Henry Faulds on a Pumpkin
by Gerald Clough on Sun Oct 26, 2008 8:38 am
I suppose that's why it's hard to sort out in retrospect. People worry so
much about "firsts." And, so often, it's nothing more than who had something
named for them, happened to write the first paper, or as on Everest, just
happened to be taking one's turn in the lead when the next ridge turned out
to be the peak. And it does take some work to try to warm up to a lot of
Victorian figures. When you combine the general neurotic rigidity, the lack
of the sort of automatic time-marking that today tends to settle issues of
precedence, the first existence of a science-aware, significant, and
competitive press to air controversy, and the feeling that scientific
discovery was now terribly important to the common man who would eventually
benefit in practical ways, you get an environment just made for wrangling.
It might be interesting to compile a list of named places, processes, and
things named not for the person who discovered them but for whoever brought
them to attention. Very often, the person whose name attached never claimed
credit or even disavowed credit but was stuck it.
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The conversation continues on the CLPEX.com forum...
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KEPT
- Keeping Examiners Prepared for Testimony - #41
by Michele Triplett, King County
Sheriff's Office
Disclaimer: The intent of this is to
provide thought provoking discussion. No claims of accuracy exist.
Question – Weight of Characteristics:
Do some characteristics have more weight than others?
Possible Answers:
a)
No, equal weight is given to each characteristic.
b)
Yes, some characteristics do occur less often than others.
Even though some characteristics are less common than others they may be
very common in some people or families. As an example,
many people have no incipient ridges but people who have incipient ridges
seem to have a large number of them.
c)
Yes, some characteristics are rarer than others.
d)
Yes, some characteristics may be rarer than others and some
may be rarer in certain areas of a print. For example,
multiple enclosures are fairly rare to see but if did see them then I’d
expect it to have come from the bottom part of a whorl.
Discussion:
Answer a: Some agencies have
an administrative point standard and others don’t. While
we know that there’s no scientific support behind using any specific number
of characteristics, it’s not always bad for agencies to implement this type
of quality assurance measure. If an agency does implement
a point standard it’s important for the examiners not to confuse this as
meaning that all characteristics are given the same weight.
Some characteristics are very rare and other times just the shape of
a certain characteristic may be rare. The rarity of the
characteristic or the rarity of the shape can add or subtract from the
weight given to this characteristic.
Answer b: We commonly use
characteristics to identify or eliminate someone as leaving a latent print
but it’s interesting to note that we may also use common or rare features as
a searching tool.
Answer c: There’s nothing
wrong with the simple answer to this question.
Answer d: This is another
example of how we use certain characteristics in searching and orienting a
latent print, not only to identify who left the image.
_________________________________________
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Until next Monday morning, don't work too hard or too little.
Have a GREAT week!
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