The ‘Opinionization’ of Fingerprint Evidence
The ‘Opinionization’ of Fingerprint Evidence
复制标题
指纹证据的“意见化”
DOI：
10.1017/s1745855208006030
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发表时间：
2008
期刊：
影响因子：
1.6
通讯作者：
S. Cole
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
S. Cole
也许，从1997年到现在一直困扰着苏格兰的著名的雪莉·麦基指纹误认案的开创性时刻是在2002年，当时司法部长吉姆·华莱士告诉媒体，指纹识别“不是一门精确的科学”（BBC新闻，2002 a）。斯特拉斯克莱德警察局的一名警官雪莉·麦基（Shirley McKie）被指派调查马里恩·罗斯（Marion Ross）在基尔马诺克家中被谋杀的案件。麦基没有被授权进入犯罪现场，她否认她这样做。但是四名苏格兰犯罪记录办公室（SCRO）的潜指纹检查员确认她是在房子里的门框上发现的潜指纹的来源。一位名叫大卫阿斯伯里的建筑商最终被判有罪，主要是基于潜在的指纹证据。由于阿斯伯里的定罪取决于潜在的指纹证据，麦基最终被指控作伪证。麦基向其他专家寻求帮助，一名英国审查员和两名美国审查员得出结论，她不是印刷品的来源。这些专家和其他人后来得出结论，由同样的四名SCRO专家对阿斯伯里的鉴定也是错误的，对他的定罪被撤销McKie被无罪释放，但她和她父亲要求政府进行调查、道歉和赔偿，这使苏格兰卷入了一场长达十年的丑闻，几乎没有缓和的迹象（McKie和Russell，2007）。华莱士的言论引起了广泛的愤怒。一名苏格兰议会成员称华莱士为“科学文盲”，称他的言论是“地球平面理论的法医学等价物”（BBC新闻，2002年a），并说他已经把苏格兰司法变成了“全世界的笑柄”（BBC新闻，2002年b）。政府的批评者将华莱士的言论解读为丑闻管理的一种做法，这是一种玩世不恭的企图，试图最大限度地减少甚至原谅苏格兰犯罪记录办公室明显的无能，甚至渎职。另一方面，潜指纹从业者社区的成员将这句话解读为对他们最珍视的认知人工制品的直接攻击：指纹识别的感知“真实性”。一位英国的指纹鉴定专家回答说：“这不是意见。这是白色的事实。要么是，要么不是，要么是不确定的，没有别的了“（BBC新闻，2002 b）。然而，华莱士的评论也可以被解读为对他发现自己陷入的认识论陷阱的一种可以理解的回应。这个陷阱主要是由非常强烈的认识论主张组成的--对“真实性”、对“可靠性”，甚至是对“真实性”的要求。
Perhaps the seminal moment in the now celebrated Shirley McKie fingerprint misidentification case that has preoccupied Scotland from 1997 until the present came in 2002 when Justice Minister Jim Wallace told the press that a fingerprint identification is ‘not an exact science’ (BBC News, 2002a). Shirley McKie, an officer in the Strathclyde Police Department, had been assigned to investigate the murder of Marion Ross at her home in Kilmarnock. McKie was not authorized to enter the crime scene, and she denied that she did. But four Scottish Criminal Records Office (SCRO) latent print examiners identified her as the source of a latent print found on a doorframe inside the house. A builder named David Asbury was eventually convicted of the crime, based primarily on the latent print evidence. With the Asbury conviction hinging on the latent print evidence, McKie was eventually charged with perjury. McKie sought assistance from other experts, and a British examiner and two American examiners concluded that she was not the source of the print. The same experts and others later concluded that the identification of Asbury, made by the same four SCRO experts, was also false, and his convictionwas quashed (Jofre, 2002).McKie was acquitted, but her and her father’s demands for investigations, apologies and compensation from the government have embroiled Scotland in what is now a decade-long scandal that shows few signs of abating (McKie and Russell, 2007). Wallace’s remark prompted widespread outrage. One member of Scottish Parliament called Wallace ‘scientifically illiterate’, said his remark was ‘the forensic equivalent of the flat earth theory’ (BBC News, 2002a), and said that he had turned Scottish justice into ‘a laughing stock throughout the world’ (BBC News, 2002b). Critics of the government read Wallace’s remark as an exercise in scandal management, a cynical attempt to minimize or even excuse the apparent incompetence, and perhaps even malfeasance, on the part of the Scottish Criminal Records Office. Members of the community of latent print practitioners, on the other hand, read the remark as a direct attack onwhatwas perhaps their most cherished epistemic artifact: the perceived ‘facticity’ of fingerprint identifications. A British latent print examiner replied ‘It is not opinion. It’s a fact in black and white. Either it is or it isn’t or it’s inconclusive, nothing else’ (BBC News, 2002b). However, Wallace’s remark may also be read as an understandable response to the epistemological trap in which he found himself. This trap was composed primarily of the extraordinarily strong epistemological claims—to ‘facticity’, to ‘reliability’ and even