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Canadian DNA Jurisprudence and Changing Forensic Practice 117
lack of information about its error rates. 22 This lack of information, coupled with
fingerprint examiners’ claims of a zero error rate, a claim the Committee
considered untenable, represent the greatest challenges facing fingerprinting as a
discipline. 23
None of these problems were considered unsolvable, and the approach to
solving this problem that was suggested in the Report was to mobilize scientific
research to fill in the gaps in fingerprinting methodology. 24 The Committee
proposed research into the variability of fingerprint ridges themselves, research
into the means used to discriminate fingerprint ridges, and into the means by
which latent prints may be made and such prints deformed. 25 Appropriate
statistical modeling of fingerprints themselves and of errors made by fingerprint
examiners, along with the development of better, formalized, practice guidelines
were seen as the appropriate approach to improving fingerprinting. 26 In the case
of fingerprinting, the Committee was bullish on the likelihood that a proper
statistical analysis of the underlying variability of fingerprints would support the
use of them for forensic purposes. 27 It was less positive on the sorts of natural
variability that underpin other forms of pattern evidence: “there is consensus on
regarding the number of individual characteristics needed to make a positive
identification, and the committee is not aware of any data about the variability of
class or individual characteristics that must match in order to have any particular
degree of confidence about the source of the impression.” 28
The preference for non-statistical reporting of probability by most shoe-print
and tire track examiners was noted along with European studies that found that
different examiners did not reach identical conclusions, and the FBI has
recommended the use of a series of descriptive terms to indicate the degree of
reliability of a particular conclusion. 29 The Committee's proposed solution to
these problems lies in more scientific research to provide the statistical descriptors
and standards need to better understand the limits of these techniques. The
Committee makes clear that questions about what kind of research needs to be
done and by whom have not been addressed by the forensics community. 30 This,
coupled with the criticism of the existing research being conducted in forensics
laboratories and published in trade journals presents the clear implication that a
more scientific normative approach, one that is compatible with the norms of
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Supra note 1 at 142-145.
Ibid at 142-143.
Ibid at 143-144.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid at 149.
Ibid at 147-148.
Ibid at 148-149.