First Circuit Upholds Footwear Impression Testimony
The First Circuit has published an opinion upholding testimony from a footwear impression expert, over objections similar to those commonly raised against testimony on fingerprint and handwriting identification. See United States v. Mahone, No. 05-1492 (1st Cir. July 5, 2006) (Lipez, Howard, & Hug, JJ.).
The panel's opinion contains this interesting statement, on which the opinion does not elaborate: "[The footwear impression expert] offered a potential error rate of zero for the method, stating that any error is attributable to examiners." We're guessing that this statement, offered en passant, is not intended to announce a more general rule of law under which human error doesn't factor into a methodology's "error rate." The intended meaning, we take it, is that according to the expert, there exist objective standards governing the technique's application, such that if those standards are followed, there will be (again according to the expert) no false positives.
The panel's opinion contains this interesting statement, on which the opinion does not elaborate: "[The footwear impression expert] offered a potential error rate of zero for the method, stating that any error is attributable to examiners." We're guessing that this statement, offered en passant, is not intended to announce a more general rule of law under which human error doesn't factor into a methodology's "error rate." The intended meaning, we take it, is that according to the expert, there exist objective standards governing the technique's application, such that if those standards are followed, there will be (again according to the expert) no false positives.
1 Comments:
what a joke
The ACE-V method is bogus
"The method has been tested in published studies" Really? where? shouldn't you maybe cite at least one of those studies?
"Homer offered a potential error rate of zero" hmmm, no cite here either. Wonder where she got that number?
Post a Comment
<< Home