Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Hawkmoon on June 05, 2018, 09:27:14 PM
-
I accidentally stumbled across a story that's a real whodunit -- but it's a story without the final chapter (yet)
Part 1: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/23/magazine/joe-bryan-blood-forensics-murder.html
Part 2: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/31/magazine/joe-bryan-part-2-blood-spatter-analysis-faulty-evidence.html
-
There are an awful lot of forensics shows on TV lately (5 years?) and I don't know if it's just the TV hype or what, but I find myself cocking an eyebrow at a lot of this forensic so-called "evidence."
"Thereby proving this toothpick was the murder weapon" sort of stuff.
Terry
-
I became skeptical of forensics when I got fingerprinted the first time I applied for a Texas Concealed Handgun License - a certified LEO fingerprint tech using an official field fingerprint kit couldn't get "acceptable" prints from a co-operative subject (me) so I had to have my prints done at DPS HQ.
Makes me wonder how many people have been wrongfully convicted because of latent prints allegedly "recovered" from door knobs, vinyl upholstery, checkered stocks, etc.
-
I became skeptical of forensics when I got fingerprinted the first time I applied for a Texas Concealed Handgun License - a certified LEO fingerprint tech using an official field fingerprint kit couldn't get "acceptable" prints from a co-operative subject (me) so I had to have my prints done at DPS HQ.
Makes me wonder how many people have been wrongfully convicted because of latent prints allegedly "recovered" from door knobs, vinyl upholstery, checkered stocks, etc.
I have also wondered. I had the same issue when first getting an OK permit. After 3 tries at getting "acceptable prints" using ink at the local Sheriff's office I ended up going to Oklahoma City and having them done at the mothership on one of those fancy new digital fingerprint machines. Even using the digital scanner seemed to take quite a few tries to get them good enough. And like you said, I was also a very cooperative subject.
bob
-
I became skeptical of forensics when I got fingerprinted the first time I applied for a Texas Concealed Handgun License - a certified LEO fingerprint tech using an official field fingerprint kit couldn't get "acceptable" prints from a co-operative subject (me) so I had to have my prints done at DPS HQ.
Makes me wonder how many people have been wrongfully convicted because of latent prints allegedly "recovered" from door knobs, vinyl upholstery, checkered stocks, etc.
Happened to me when I had to renew my Florida non-resident permit. Dunno why, but FL required a new fingerprint card. I was working for a municipal government agency at the time, so their PD did the fingerprint card (FL required a card, none of that high-tech electronic stuff) for me. And Florida rejected it. I receoived a new, blank card and had to go back and have a different officer take the prints. Mercifully, the second set was accepted.
A couple of decades back I was a material witness in a federal white collar crime case. The federal agency investigating wasn't the FBI, it was the IG's office from another agency, and their nearest office was over two hours away. So, when I came home one afternoon to find a threatening note stuck in my screen door, I called my local PD. They sent an officer, who came to the house, took the note, and said he didn't know why he was there since it was a federal case.
But ... the locals weren't content with preserving the evidence for the feds. No, their "detectives" went to work on it, and reported that they couldn't get any usable fingerprints off it. The note did finally make it to the IG investigator, who subsequently told me he had no idea what the local PD had done to it but that, by the time he got it, there was no way anybody was going to get anything off it.
-
But CSI shows.us that they can run DNA in less than an hour. Finger prints are almost always in the AFIS database 'cause Abby always caught the bad guy.on NCIS.
-
Yah, but...Abby got so regretful about screwing up the prints and causing countless good guys to get shot and killed by her compatriots, she left the job and is now mentoring orphans to do penance.