Cases in which fingerprint evidence misled juries and judges
Simon Cole, a professor of criminology at the University of California, Irvine, and critic of fingerprint analysis, recently identified 20 known cases of fingerprint misidentifications in the United States and United Kingdom dating back to 1918, some of which resulted in wrongful convictions. Among the most recent:
Brandon Mayfield, an Oregon lawyer who was erroneously arrested in May 2004 in connection with the March 11 terrorist train bombing that killed 191 people in Madrid. The FBI, which assisted Spanish authorities in the investigation, said a latent print found on a plastic bag in Madrid matched a fingerprint in its database of Mayfield, who had been arrested in 1984 for burglary and had served in the military. Weeks later, the FBI acknowledged that its examiners had goofed.
Stephan Cowans of Boston was convicted in 1998 of shooting police Sergeant Gregory Gallagher in a Roxbury backyard. He was implicated by the officer and another eyewitness and a fingerprint found on a cup. In January 2004, after new DNA evidence raised doubts about Cowans's guilt, authorities re-examined the print lifted from the cup and found that Boston fingerprint analysts had misidentified it as belonging to Cowans. He was freed after 6 1/2 years in prison.
David Valken-Leduc was charged in 2001 with the murder five years earlier of a motel clerk in Woods Cross, Utah. A latent print examiner testified at a hearing that Valken-Leduc was the source of two bloody prints found at the crime scene. After the examiner died, the crime laboratory reviewed his findings and found that the victim was the actual source of the prints. Valken-Leduc was still convicted of the murder in 2004.
Richard Jackson was sentenced to life in prison in 1998 for the murder in Delaware County, Pa., of his former lover, Alvin Davis. Three latent print examiners testified for the state that bloody fingerprints found on an electric fan belonged to Jackson, although two defense examiners disputed that. After Jackson's conviction, the FBI agreed to review the prints and concluded they did not belong to Jackson, who was freed.
Shirley McKie, a detective with the Strathclyde Police Department in Scotland, was charged with perjury after she denied that a fingerprint found on a murder victim in 1997 in Kilmarnock belonged to her. McKie was not a suspect but was accused of having left her post outside the house, where she helped secure the crime scene. At her trial in 1999, she was acquitted after American fingerprint examiners testified that the print could not have come from her.
Andrew Chiory was charged in 1996 with the burglary of the London home of Miriam Stoppard, a writer who was the ex-wife of playwright Tom Stoppard. Police linked Chiory to two prints found at the scene. Both matches were repeatedly checked and conducted under the requirement for 16 corresponding ridge characteristics in force in the United Kingdom at the time. Chiory served two months in prison before the match was exposed as erroneous. 