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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 25, 2002)
AGGlfjmON THE BATliTHE BATTALION 5 Monday, February 25, 2002 Reliability of fingerprint evidence questioned ■ |BPHILADELPHIA (AP) ^ 1 '^HHicty-onc years after finger- Ini evidence was first present- Hin an American courtroom, its . s-iYQ reputation as an infallible foren- l it I C sic tool is under attack in a court challenge that could change how ^Lj^jLcri' linal cases are tried. (^(^MpHOn Monday, federal prosecu- MSs will try to persuade U.S. t " District Judge Louis H. Poliak , getting oe;to reverse his recent decision beginning ot ■• r i n g experts from testifying aterial on whether a fingerprint he's tnaterij Hen from a crime scene match- if the show es i defendant. If the judge does 1 to multipk not change his mind, the deci- sipn could change the way nanagemeni forensic evidence is gathered and ere,:*] presented in court. >aid creatingWhile prosecutors and some >f ihe mostrrforensic experts say Poliak’s lege career ruling could have grave conse- com, dew quinces, critics of fingerprint scene, lea:, analysis say it’s about time the ions. It ai prccess was reviewed, ion groups rpl Thcre are a lot of emperors out there testifying who have no the ideaul clothes,” said David L. Faigman ing. of University of California’s r Hall ni) Hastings College of Law. *ays heart:“Where’s the science behind it? S'orthgate. W1 re’s the data?” lat was jwfeplThe ruling, believed to be the esult 1 m;s fist of its kind, involves a death ands. fm penalty case in which three men n. but I »o.:H charged w ith operating a fexas mi.' mlltimilUon-dollar drug ring ew days h am are linked to four killings, only if r ■Lawy ers for Carlos Llera- plarcd Pla/a, Wilfredo Acosta and Victor Rodriguez asked the Tiled wiiht! judge to bar fingerprint evi dence. Under Poliak’s ruling, experts can testify about and show illustrations of similarities or dissimilarities between “latent” fingerprints from a crime scene and “rolled” finger prints on file, but they cannot testify that crime scene prints match a defendant’s fingerprints. Citing a 1993 U.S. Supreme Court decision requiring judges to take a more active role in There are a lot of emperors out there testifying who have no clothes. — David L. Faigman University of California’s Hastings College of Law deciding what scientific evi dence to admit, Poliak said that, unlike DNA evidence, finger print evidence has not been sci entifically tested, its error rate has not been calculated, and there are no standards for what constitutes a match. Prosecutors declined to com ment on the case, citing the upcoming hearing, but said in court documents that Poliak’s opinion, if left to stand, “would have grave consequences.” “It would deprive the govern ment of vital evidence in this case, in which latent fingerprints directly link defendants to heinous murders,” court docu ments stated. “If carried to its logical conclusion, the court’s reasoning would virtually elimi nate any expert opinion on the myriad subjects on which sub jective expert opinion has always been welcomed in the federal courts.” Since the first conviction in the United States on fingerprint evidence in 1911, the finger print classification system used in much of the world has changed little. A person’s fingerprint is classified by its arches, loops and whorls, then compared to latent fingerprints by design type and by locating certain fixed points and counting the ridges between the points. “The courts have recognized the validity and merit for finger print identification for 100 years,” said Joseph P. Polski, chief operations officer of the International Association for Identification. an industry group. “If fingerprint identifica tion was prohibited from being admitted in court, it would have far reaching effects in identify ing bad guys.” Although DNA evidence has become a highly prized eviden tiary tool, fingerprints can help track down criminals in ways DNA can't — in part because hundreds of millions of finger prints are on file, Polski said. entralized ■ Texas man kills 3 children, self S ' and ■THROCKMORTON. Texas (AP) — The dConcerK estranged wife of a man who fatally shot their three ike himsell children and then committed suicide in a car outside anists sir her home said he had threatened to kill the family target audi before. IC bands in ! |H 4 l told him I wanted a divorce and that’s when e the musi he pulled the gun,” Beth Smallwood, 33, said Austin." Sufiday of her husband, James D. Smallwood Jr. I spent c i ,;; |n an interview with The Associated Press, she summerc said her husband was supposed to return their duTlren — Corie, 10, Casey, 4, and Chase, 3 — to ieptember ter home Sunday evening. ?gan withiWinstead, police said, he shot the three children .•Mer the' is they sat in his car Saturday night, then drove to iits a week lislestranged wife's house, which she shared with b\ postiru lelparents, and shot himself, irtists tontCRjeth Smallwood said she and her mother were mlhe front porch when James Smallwood drove is his onlyUtpIhe gravel driveway in his mother’s Cadillac, 'rent. BShe called 91 I when he began honking the horn, > 30 hour'' ipparently trying to get her to walk out to the drive- o through vay, said Clay Gober, Beth Smallwood’s brother, he local v< ames Smallwood shot himself a short time later, ily's and tH* Beth Smallwood said she had filed for divorce cep me in n November but it had not been finalized. | Alter months of hearings following their sep- tair share Gralion, a judge granted her husband unsuper vised visitation rights in January, a decision she was critical of Sunday. “I begged him for his help because I was worried about the kids,” she said. A telephone message left at Judge Rae Leifeste’s home was not returned Sunday afternoon. In Throckmorton, a town of 1,000 about 120 miles west of Dallas, residents said they were shocked to hear of the killings. Ron Sadler, a dispatcher with the Throckmorton County sheriff’s department who took the 91 1 call, said the killings were the first for Throckmorton in the seven years he had worked for the sheriff’s office. At the First United Methodist Church that Beth Smallwood’s family attends, congregants recalled seeing her two daughters perform in a Christmas show, dressed in long white robes with white angel wings. “The thing I remember is her clutching those three precious children,” church member Elizabeth London said. Scott Hogue, principal of the Throckmorton schools, described Corey, who was a fourth-grader, as “a sweet little girl” who always had a smile on her face. The other daughter would have been in kinder garten next fall, he said. is no except^ when Rogei; d up on stall! NEWS IN BRIEF camera,” M- VcirfS Figurines deater disappears while police investigate fraud known artSl WHITE LAKE TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) - A ceram- is to net ptf IC figurines dealer has disappeared amid a police lion on thef an< ^ E ^ investigation of whether he defrauded at i on local M * eas f -*-00 eBay auction buyers, sure too”Mci The customers say their purchases from a December online auction were never delivered by the seller, Stewart Richardson, 60, who disap- I peared Jan. 17, police said. Lladro’s, Hummel and Wee Forest Folk ertones thaf ceramic figurines the customers bought were worth tens of thousands of dollars total. No >le at the '■ charges have been filed. nary dinnei Richardson left his White Lake business — Retired fter watchms Figurines Exchange — after reportedly withdrawing a pre-dawn more tp, an $200,000, police said. His wife filed a lo - . , missing persons report. JV h •t E ^ ay spokesman Kevin Pursglove said Richardson d with as" * la< ^ a Sood reputation at the auction service. One killed and 10 injured at Hellraiser Ball in New York PLAINVIEW, N.Y. (AP) — Rival motorcycle gangs armed with daggers, baseball bats and a machine gun clashed at an indoor motorcycle and tattoo expo called the Hellraiser Ball, authorities said. One man was killed and at least 10 people were injured. About 60 people were in custody Saturday night and the number could grow, said Nassau County Chief of Detectives Herbert Faust. Faust said four people were shot, one fatally, and others injured when the fight erupted around 4:15 p.m. at the Vanderbilt, a concert and catering hall in Plainview, N.Y. Faust said the fight broke out between members of the Hells Angels motorcycle club, whose Long Island chapter sponsored the event, and a rival gang, the Pagans. 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