Don't Call Me Shirley

The History of Fingerprints Updated 10 February 2006 Why Fingerprint Identification? Fingerprints offer an infallible means of personal identification. That is the essential explanation for their having supplanted other methods of establishing the identities of criminals reluctant to admit previous arrests. The science of fingerprint Identification stands out among all other forensic sciences for many reasons, including the following: Has served all governments worldwide during the past 100 years to provide accurate identification of criminals. No two fingerprints have ever been found alike in many billions of human and automated computer comparisons. Fingerprints are the very basis for criminal history foundation at every police agency. Established the first forensic professional organization, the International Association for Identification (IAI), in 1915. Established the first professional certification program for forensic scientists, the IAI's Certified Latent Print Examiner program (in 1977), issuing certification to those meeting stringent criteria and revoking certification for serious errors such as erroneous identifications. Remains the most commonly used forensic evidence worldwide - in most jurisdictions fingerprint examination cases match or outnumber all other forensic examination casework combined. Continues to expand as the premier method for identifying persons, with tens of thousands of persons added to fingerprint repositories daily in America alone - far outdistancing similar databases in growth. Outperforms DNA and all other human identification systems to identify more murderers, rapists and other serious offenders (fingerprints solve at least ten times more unknown suspect cases than DNA in many jurisdictions). Other visible human characteristics change - fingerprints do not. The foregoing I lifted from this website - http://onin.com/fp/fphistory.html The Lord Advocate's entry into the Shirley McKie fray, via his letter to the Presiding Officer of the Parliament at Holyrood is most curious. The Advocate makes considerable play of, as the newspapers put it, 'defending' his decision to prosecute Shirley McKie - but I don't think any serious critic is suggesting that the initial decision to prosecute her was anything other than correct. The fact is that there was quite obviously a sufficiency of apparently incontrovertible evidence against her. I myself wouldn't know the difference between a loop and a whorl - bifurcated forks, short ridges, spurs, islands and bridges are all a mystery to me - and perhaps the Lord Advocate is in the same boat - but my ignorance of the science did not prevent me from accepting the reliability of the scientific evidence given by experts -at least not until the McKie case. So, I don't think that anyone either is, or could be, seriously critical of the decision to prosecute her. Therefore why 'defend' a decision that no-one is attacking? The decision on whether or not to prosecute anyone from the SCRO or elsewhere in relation to alleged criminality is also one which is entirely within the Lord Advocate's sole discretion, and I really don't understand why the Advocate feels the need to explain or 'defend' his decision on that matter either. Where, however, I feel that the Lord Advocate misses the point entirely is when he supports the decision of the Executive not to hold a public inquiry. Does the senior law officer in Scotland not think that the public are entitled to know why we've paid a huge sum of money to a lady in settlement of her allegation that she was framed by the SCRO for a crime she didn't commit? It is one thing to say that there is insufficent evidence to prosecute anyone now. It is quite another thing altogether to then say that that should be an end of the matter. In effect, what is happening here is like saying "there's insufficent evidence to prove who murdered Mr Bloggs THEREFORE Mr Bloggs was not murdered". Somebody, somewhere, has made a total arse of this. It is a matter of considerable public concern because, regardless of McKie's guilt or otherwise, the question remains as to whether fingerprint evidence is reliable or not in Scotland in 2006. There is a fingerprint shown above - that is the actual print in question taken from http://onin.com/fp/problemidents.html#second_case Was the print Shirley McKie's? If not, how was the mistake made, and in particular how was it made by so many people independently? If the print was hers, why have we paid her three-quarters of a mill? If no-one can tell whether the SCRO witnesses are correct or the contradictory defence experts are correct, then where does that leave the 'science' of fingerprints? Mr Boyd and Mr McConnell should think about answering these questions before they glibly decide there should be no public inquiry.