Document Category: Fingerprints

This motion describes social science research about the fallibility of fingerprint evidence (pp. 1-6); explains that jurors tend to perceive fingerprint evidence as infallible and over-rely on it (pp. 6-7); and discusses the effectiveness of jury instructions in countering this preconception of infallibility (pp. 7-15). The motion describes, links to, and argues for a short informational video that research shows enables jurors to evaluate fingerprint evidence properly (pp. 8-10). It also argues for a reason-based jury instruction with specific factors for jurors to consider when deciding how much weight to give fingerprint testimony (pp. 12-19).

Based on forensic reports on latent fingerprint matching, this motion argues that fingerprint analysts can only accurately testify in terms of exclusion, rather than that two prints are a “match,” from a “common source,” or that any individual is “the source” of a latent fingerprint.

p. 36 – 94 contain testimony about shortcomings of latent print identification

Explains process of latent fingerprint analysis, lack of uniform standards, false claims of “absolute certainty,” and why fingerprint analysis fails the Daubert standard.

Explains history of the ACE-V method, the risk of confirmation bias, and the lack of uniform standards in fingerprint matching.