Milwaukee Criminal Defense Law Blog

Recently, a New Mexico newspaper and the Associated Press covered what sounded like a light-hearted story. Apparently, someone attempted an armed robbery a Pizza Hut store in Las Cruces.

The police reviewed surveillance tapes but were apparently unable to identify the suspect. Then, they noticed that the suspect "face-planted" into a locked exit door before pivoting and using another door. 

It may be true that no two sets of fingerprints are alike, although there is no actual study showing that. Even if it is true, however, the process of matching fingerprints found at crime scenes to prints from other sources is messy. Most often, crime scene prints are partial or smudged, and there are plenty of prints that are thought common enough to match these.

In 2004, an Oregon lawyer, Brandon Mayfield, was falsely implicated in a Madrid train bombing. This was based on a faulty fingerprint analysis performed by the FBI. The lawyer's fingerprints were found to be a "close non-match" in a search aided by the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, the FBI's fingerprint database.

In New Jersey as in most states, there is a sex offender registry that was created by a "Megan's Law." These laws were enacted after a 7-year-old girl, Megan Kanka, was raped and murdered by a man who had been convicted twice of sexual assault. The law requires all those convicted of qualifying sex crimes to register their whereabouts with the state and allows public disclosure of that information.

Sex offender registries may seem reasonable, but they suffer from a number of problems. For one, there is actually little evidence that being placed on a sex offender registry reduces a person's chances of reoffending. In fact, it might make reoffending more likely because it makes it harder for people to reintegrate into society. It also promotes vigilantism and collateral damage to the offender's family. 

Each year in the United States, about a million people are pulled over on suspicion of drunk driving. In virtually all of those cases, the driver is asked to blow into a breathalyzer-style machine that estimates their blood-alcohol content. If it's above a certain level, typically 0.08%, the driver is arrested and brought to the precinct for additional testing.

The preliminary breath tests drivers perform on the roadside are typically inadmissible as evidence. They are, however, used to support probable cause to arrest the driver and subject them to a test that will be admissible in court. Therefore, it's extremely important for the preliminary breathalyzer test to be accurate. It's even more important that the breath machines located in police stations be accurate, as those results are admissible in court.