Computers, Court, and Fingerprints

Degrees writes "Should Law Enforcement be allowed to Photoshop fingerprints? That is the question posed in this article in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. The suspect is charged with murder, and the evidence was circumstantial before the fingerprint enhancment. At the end, the crime scene investigators say they want encrypted cameras. The implication is they want DRM-enabled digital cameras with software for full audit-trail capability. Would that make the Photoshoping more credible? Would DRM cameras be a good thing for Joe Citizen?"

Comments

"Enhanced" evidence

[russotto]

They've tried this with audio before, notably in the Waco cases. The court rejected it then. Hopefully they will keep rejecting it. Such digital enhancement might be useful for getting leads, but the result isn't evidence; it's just a computer-assisted guess.

Re:"Enhanced" evidence

[Alsee]

but the result isn't evidence; it's just a computer-assisted guess.

It seems real simple to me. Give someone the evidence to enhance all they want in absolutely any manner they like. Just don't give the person doing it a copy of the suspect's fingerprint, image, voiceprint, whatever.

If the result matches the suspect and does not match anybody else then it sounds like solid evidence to me. There is no way you can photoshop someone's fingerprint into an image if you don't know what his fingerprint looks like.

Even better make it a seperate person who checks for a match. Even better give that seperate person a dozen random fingerprints and don't tell him which one is the suspect's. If he says there is a definite match AND he says it to the print that happens to be the suspect then you have a pretty damn bulletproof system. It would be pretty serious event if the expert ever reported a "definite match" to one of the extra random prints he's given.

At that point I don't care if the image was "enhanced" by a chimpanzee twiddling an etch-a-sketch.

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