District of Columbia Court of Appeals Delivers Coup de Grâce to "Unqualified" Pattern-matching Testimony

Earlier this year, the highest court for the District of Columbia indicated that it was not disposed to testimony that “that when a bullet i...

Traditional forensic pattern-matching testimony in Williams v. United States

The opinion of the District of Columbia's highest court in Williams v. United States , 130 A.3d 343 (D.C. 2016), is straightforward, but...

SWGFAST on "a decision to reach a conclusion" of individualization for latent fingerprints

Before SWGFAST (the Scientific Working Group on Friction Ridge Analysis, Study, and Technology) dissolved to make way for OSAC (the Organiza...

Is OSAC Painting Itself Out of the Picture? Time to Comment on ASTM E1640-14

The Organization of Scientific Area Committees (OSAC) started on the wrong foot with the first standard it chose to place on its blue-ribbo...

Approximating Individualization: The ASTM's Standard Terminology for Digital Evidence

Forensic scientists portraying existing standards for evidence testing and evaluation have been known to praise the “rigorous standard devel...

Latent Fingerprint Identification in Flux?

Two recent articles suggest that seeds of change are taking root in the field of latent fingerprint identification. I. The Emerging Paradigm...

Marching Toward Improved Latent Fingerprint Testimony at the Army's Defense Forensic Science Center

The U.S. Army’s Defense Forensic Science Center (DFSC) has announced a change in its practice of reporting a positive association between a...

Can Forensic Pattern Matching Be Validated?

An article in the latest issue of the International Statistical Review raises (once again) fundamental questions for forensic scientists: ...

No Relief for Jeffrey MacDonald After FBI Declares It “Exceeded the Limits of Science” with Hair Analysis

It was not yet 3:30 a.m. on February 17, 1970, when tragedy struck Captain Jeffrey MacDonald’s family at 544 Castle Drive, Fort Bragg, North...