I. Introduction

In response to the misidentification of a latent print, senior management of the FBI Laboratory tasked a three-member review committee to evaluate the fundamental basis for the science of friction ridge skin impression pattern analysis and to recommend research to be considered to test, where necessary, the hypotheses that form the bases of this discipline. The committee's evaluation followed a proactive approach, identifying areas where research and development might provide enhancements to current analytical capabilities in the field of friction ridge pattern analysis. This committee was not able to find a single peer-reviewed publication that definitively addressed all of the basic assumptions of friction ridge impression analysis, nor was that expected. Science is built on many studies, and one needs to review the totality of data. Thus this task was greater than the time and resources provided. For practical reasons, the committee was able to review only a small portion of the literature to define the current practices, scientific bases, and philosophies of the discipline. Further assessments were gained by interviewing experts in fingerprint analyses, forensics, statistics, and legal matters, as well as by relying on the experiences of the committee members to understand the fundamentals and to derive recommendations for documentary and validation studies. The findings and recommendations that follow are therefore not exhaustive, but instead focus on the primary foundations of the science of friction ridge skin impression pattern analysis.

II. Basic Assumptions

The committee reviewed the scientific basis for comparing a latent print found at a crime scene with a reference print obtained by a more controlled process (inking method, live scan, etc.) and the ability to render an interpretation of whether or not the two originate from the same source. There is indisputable evidence supporting that such practices can be carried out reliably and that the general process should not be rejected.

All forensic analyses have a subjective component, in which the analyst decides whether or not to interpret the evidence and the thresholds to institute during the evaluation. The latent print ACE-V (Analysis, Comparison, Evaluation-Verification) process has a greater component of subjectivity than, for example, chemical analyses or DNA typing. Yet this does not in itself call into question the reliability of the latent print analysis methodology. However, at some level, the examiner might be considered a "black box." The examiner makes an interpretation, and one may not know, understand, or appreciate the machinations that the examiner made to arrive at a conclusion. One also may not be able to codify the data used to make that interpretation. But reliable results have been obtained, and thus there can be confidence in the process. Alternatively, some suggest that more objective criteria would be useful to set minimum criteria across the field, provide greater confidence in the process, and provide better evaluation criteria to review cases critically. Both of these positions (i.e., the black box and objective criteria) have merit and should be considered to address the scientific underpinnings of friction ridge skin impression pattern...