Innocent people have been wrongly accused because of poor fingerprint analysis by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), it was reported on Friday.
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) has acknowledged in a confidential report that the department's fingerprint experts have wrongly identified innocent people as crime suspects as a result of poor fingerprint analysis, according to the Los Angeles Times.
In a 10-page internal report, the LAPD highlighted two cases in which criminal defendants had charges against them dropped after problems with the fingerprint analysis were exposed, the paper said.
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 the lack of funds to pay for a comprehensive audit to find out, according to police records and interviews cited by the paper.
"This is something of extraordinary concern," Michael Judge, public defender for Los Angeles County, told the newspaper. "Juries tend to accord the highest level of confidence to fingerprint evidence. This is the type of thing that easily could lead to innocent people being convicted."
The two cases were used by investigators to illustrate broader problems with shoddy work and poor oversight that have plagued the department's Latent Print Unit, according to the paper.
Rhonda Sims-Lewis, chief of the LAPD's administrative and technical bureau, acknowledged the findings, but told the newspaper that changes to the unit's leadership and protocols were made last year after senior officials became aware of problems.
Internal discipline investigations led to the firing of one fingerprint analyst, who had been involved in both of the mishandled cases.
Three other analysts received suspensions, and two supervisors responsible for overseeing the unit were replaced, Sims-Lewis told the newspaper.
Source: Xinhua
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