Innocence by David Hosp

Author:David Hosp [Hosp, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: David Hosp
Published: 2010-11-23T12:05:45.269000+00:00

Chapter Twenty-four

“You sure this is the way you want to handle this?”

Finn glared at Kozlowski as they drove the short distance from Charlestown to downtown Boston. “I’m sure,” he said. “Full-frontal assault. Try to shake them and see what falls out of the trees.”

Kozlowski grunted. “Cops usually don’t shake. Not without some serious pushing, anyway. And it doesn’t feel like we’ve got a hell of a lot to push with.”

“You want me to pull over and you can get out?”

“That’d be a good way to get you killed. Send you into a police station by yourself to start throwing accusations around. You think we got a chilly reception from Maddy Steele? She was the fuckin’ welcome wagon compared to the reaction you’re likely to get here.”

“We don’t have any options. They tried to kill him.”

“Who tried to kill him?”

“I guess that’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, isn’t it?”

“And you act like you’ve got the answer all worked out. Maybe it’s not the real question. Maybe the real question is why even our own fingerprint expert says Salazar’s prints are on the gun. You seem unwilling to consider the possibility that the man actually did what he got himself convicted of.”

Finn shook his head. “After my talk with Smitty, I did some research on my own. He said there were no real consistent standards for fingerprint identification. Turns out that was the understatement of the year. In England, examiners are required to find at least sixteen points of similarity to declare a match between two sets of prints. Here in the States, some identifications are made with as little as six. Plus, there’s no official standard for what constitutes enough ‘similarity’ to have a point match. The so-called experts aren’t required to pass any tests to prove they know what they’re doing, and lots of them have never even had any formal training other than being on the job for six months. Seems like it’s far more opinion than science.”

Kozlowski shrugged. “Let’s assume that’s all true. So what?”

“So what?”

“Yeah, so what?”

Finn sat in silence, clenching and unclenching his jaw. “Do you realize that there have never been any studies done to determine exactly how accurate fingerprint identification is? No studies. No tests. Nothing that even remotely qualifies as science. Anytime anyone has suggested that might be a good idea, the law enforcement community bands together to fight it tooth and nail. You know why?”

“Maybe because it would waste a bunch of taxpayer money to test a method of identification that has proved reliable for over a hundred years?” Kozlowski suggested.

“No. Because they know any studies testing the accuracy of fingerprint evidence might just show that it’s bad science. And then what would you do with all the people who’ve been convicted based on it?”

“Again, even assuming everything you say is true—and I’m guessing at least half of it is nothing more than bleeding-heart-liberal bullshit— so what? Smitty said he had a nineteen-point match on these particular prints. And he’s on our side. So

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