Concerned that a fin­ger­print iden­ti­fi­ca­tion error could lead to the exe­cu­tion of an inno­cent per­son, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is exam­in­ing all cas­es of state and fed­er­al pris­on­ers sched­uled for exe­cu­tion to deter­mine whether FBI fin­ger­print experts made mis­takes that led to death sen­tences. Eighteen months ago, the FBI dis­cov­ered that a fin­ger­print exam­in­er for the Bureau had mis­tak­en­ly matched a print found near the site of ter­ror­ist bomb­ings in Madrid to a lawyer in Portland, Oregon. The case embar­rassed the FBI and brought to light the poten­tial for inter­nal error. Since then, the FBI has imple­ment­ed a new pol­i­cy of reex­am­in­ing fin­ger­print evi­dence in cap­i­tal cas­es to ensure the finding’s accu­ra­cy before a sched­uled exe­cu­tion pro­ceeds. Since the pol­i­cy was imple­ment­ed, the FBI has exam­ined at least 92 death penal­ty cas­es and found 10 in which it had ana­lyzed fin­ger­prints. In each of the fin­ger­print cas­es, the FBI’s orig­i­nal con­clu­sions were con­firmed. Bruce Budowle, the FBI’s chief sci­en­tist, has respond­ed to recent crit­i­cisms of the sci­en­tif­ic val­ue of fin­ger­print analy­sis by call­ing for more spe­cif­ic ​“val­i­da­tion” to improve fin­ger­print ID techniques.

(USA Today, January 11, 2005). See Innocence.

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