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28 Okla. City U. L. Rev. 73 (2003)
Fingerprinting: The First Junk Science

handle is hein.journals/okcu28 and id is 79 raw text is: FINGERPRINTING: THE FIRST JUNK SCIENCE? SIMON A. COLE* A funny thing happened when Law and Order, Dick Wolf's astonishingly durable television crime drama which prides itself on the speed and efficiency with which its plots are ripped from the headlines, duly appropriated one scandal involving alleged exaggerated expert testimony by Oklahoma City Police Department crime laboratory chemist Joyce Gilchrist for one of its episodes.' In accordance with its usual practice of distorting true events or even twisting two or more real-life scandals into a single plot line (to ensure that any resemblance between the events depicted and any persons living or dead are strictly coincidental), Law and Order combined the Oklahoma story with another, less well publicized (at least at that time) forensic science story: The plot was based on the observation that defense attorneys have begun using the Supreme Court's Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc.2 standard to challenge fingerprint evidence, which has long been perceived as the least challengeable type of forensic evidence. In 1999, Byron Mitchell, a robbery defendant, launched the first challenge to the admissibility of forensic fingerprint evidence under Daubert.3 Mitchell argued that forensic fingerprint identification lacks the requisite scientific testing, standards, and calculated error rates to render it admissible expert evidence.4 Following a five-day Daubert hearing, the district court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, in an unpublished bench ruling, denied Mitchell's motion to exclude * Assistant Professor of Criminology, Law & Society, University of California, Irvine; Ph.D. (science & technology studies), Cornell University; A.B., Princeton University. 1. Jim Yardley, Inquiry Focuses on Scientist Employed by Prosecutors, N.Y. TIMES, May 2, 2001, at A14; Jim Yardley, Flaws in Chemist's Findings Free Man at Center of Inquiry, N.Y. TIMES, May 8, 2001, at Al; Jim Yardley, Oklahoma Retraces Big Step in Capital Case, N.Y. TIMES, Sept. 2, 2001, at 2; Jim Yardley, Police Chemist Accused of Shoddy Work is Fired, N.Y. TIMES, Sept. 26, 2001, at A16; Pierce v. State, 786 P.2d 1255 (Okla. Crim. App. 1990). 2. 509 U.S. 579 (1993). 3. United States v. Mitchell, No. 96-407-1 (E.D. Pa. Feb., 2000). 4. Memorandum of Law in Support of Mr. Mitchell's Motion to Exclude the Government's Fingerprint Identification Evidence, United States v. Mitchell, No. 96-407- I (E.D. Pa. 2000).

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