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Brady violations by DPS fingerprint examiners? Is fingerprint examination even science?

There was an astonishing moment yesterday at a breakout session on fingerprint examination at the Texas Forensic Science Seminar, at which Department of Public Safety fingerprint examiner Bryan Strong (who seemed like a really nice guy so I hate to pick on him) was describing how his division implemented the ACEV method of fingerprint examination in ways that may violate the state and prosecutors' obligations under Brady v. Maryland.ACEV stands for Analysis, Comparison, Evaluation and Verification. That's bureaucrat-speak for looking at the fingerprints visually and subjectively deciding if they're the same based on "training and experience" (as opposed to any sort of objective standard), then having a second examiner look at them to "verify" the results...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on October 09, 2010 (boomark / email).