LAPD blames faulty fingerprint analysis

[Steve James]

An audit finds shoddy work by specialists and cites two cases in which charges had to be dropped. The total number of such instances is unknown and officials say they lack the money to determine it.

By Joel Rubin and Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

October 17, 2008
The Los Angeles Police Department has acknowledged in a confidential report that people have been falsely implicated in crimes because the department's fingerprint experts wrongly identified them as suspects.

The 10-page internal report, obtained by The Times, highlighted two cases in which criminal defendants had charges against them dropped after problems with the fingerprint analysis were exposed. LAPD officials do not know how many other people might have been wrongly accused over the years as a result of poor fingerprint analysis and do not have the funds to pay for a comprehensive audit to find out, according to police records and interviews.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-fingerprints17-2008oct17,0,603858.story

Sad that they're just finding this out now, and that they don't have the cash to find out much more.

[Michael]

This is so common across the country: LA, Houston, FBI crime lab, etc.

They don't have the money? They have money for armored personnel carriers and tasers, but not to find their own mistakes? Messed up priorities.

[Darthwing Teorist]

This is so common across the country: LA, Houston, FBI crime lab, etc.

They don't have the money? They have money for armored personnel carriers and tasers, but not to find their own mistakes? Messed up priorities.

Yeah. It is really sad, especially today, where there is a huge surge in investment in various security agencies. I imagine it to be very maddening to get wrongly accused AND then convicted because the experts either intentionally or unintentionally screwed up. These people should be brought to justice and if proved that they intentionally falsified the proofs, then they should get the maximum of time that all their victims were supposed to serve together.

[ashe]

there's a case here in the valley where a local detective has gone out of his way to pursue a case against someone even after the evidence of toxicology reports and years worth of suicidal journal entries. he basically lied outright to a grand jury panel, badgered witnesses into changing there story to match his, etc.

the story was in this weeks new times.