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United States v Baines

United States v Baines (Fingerprint Analysis)
Background
    Baines recruited two young women, whom he paid $1,000 each, and two male friends in order to travel with him from Pennsylvania to Arizona. The women admitted at trial to knowing that the purpose of the trip was to transport drugs but had no knowledge of any further details. The travelers used two vehicles, a “tannish” Ford Sedan and a minivan. On the way to Arizona, Baines and the two women rode in the Ford with the women taking turns driving and the other two males rode in the minivan.
    Upon arriving in Phoenix, Arizona the group spent the night in a motel and went shopping the next day, Baines then received a call from someone he claims to be named Felix and was given directions to somewhere in Tucson, Arizona. After spending part of the day in a place which the women believed to be Felix’s residence, the three men left in the Ford and returned some time later. Upon their arrival, the women were told they were returning to Pennsylvania. This time Baines would be riding in the minivan with the other two males and the women would drive the Ford. While the women were in the Ford, Baines approached the car with a blue bag and the woman in the driver’s seat unlatched the trunk. They could both feel the car move from things being loaded and rearranged in the trunk but couldn’t see exactly what was happening because of the open trunk.
    The women were then told to come up with a route to return to Pennsylvania. One of the women decided to go through Texas instead of returning through the same way they traveled. This route led them through Las Cruces, New Mexico and near there they unexpectedly entered a border checkpoint. When the trunk of the Ford was opened, the agent at the checkpoint immediately smelt fresh marijuana which led to the Ford being sent to secondary inspection along with the minivan when the women confirmed they were traveling together. After the inspection, agents found several bags with marijuana including a black duffle bag which also contained two pistols and ammunition. This led to the arrest of the women, Baines and the other two men. With the testimony of the two women about the involvement of Baines with the drugs and other evidence, the jury convicted Baines of the drug counts but Baines hadn’t been connected to the black bag. In order to convict him of the gun and ammunition counts, the state relied on fingerprint analysis of prints found on one of the magazines. The defendant filed to suppress the fingerprint evidence. (FindLaw's United States Tenth Circuit Case and Opinions)
Charges
Appellant Baines was convicted by a jury trial in federal district court on five counts
  • Conspiracy to possess marijuana with intent to distribute
  • Possession of marijuana with intent to distribute
  • Possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime
  • Possession of a firearm after former conviction of a felony
  • And possession of ammunition after former conviction of a felony
He was sentenced to 123 months in prison to be followed by 3 years of supervised release and an immediate payment of a special fee assessment of $500
Bases of Appeal
The sole issue the appellant raises is the admissibility at trial of fingerprint analysis as expert testimony claiming Daubert should classify fingerprint analysis as inadmissible in court.
Arguments
Baines’ main arguments was that the governments did not establish that the method used for analyzing his fingerprint was reliable and didn’t establish an error rate according to Daubert. This claim was combated by Agent Meagher, an FBI agent who specializes in fingerprints, by describing in detail the exact steps taken during fingerprint analysis. He continued by explaining how this whole process is called ACE-V. ACE-V stands for analysis, comparison, evaluation, and verification. Meagher claims that the verification stage covers the peer review segment of Daubert because a separate analyst looked at the prints and compared them.
The problem with the second analysis is, for one, that is wasn’t a “blind” comparison. The second analyst had all the notes from the first comparison and knew the outcome that the first analyst reached before they even looked at the prints. Also, what Daubert means by peer review is the fact that other specialists in your field have reproduced your findings that fingerprint analysis is truly infallible, not that your analysis of a particular pair of prints is correct. Bias is a major problem within this specific case because the second analyst may have had a predetermined outcome of the prints without even looking at them simply because his colleague had already determined the prints to match. Another bias may come simply by the fact that the two analysts work in the same lab and therefore follow the same rules on how to examine prints. This causes a lack of a second opinion from someone who looks at prints differently and might notice something the original analyst doesn’t.
When it came to defending the error rate, Agent Meagher answered by posting that there are two types of errors: practitioner error and methodological error. He claimed methodological error was the kind of error that pertained to this case and that the error rate for that was a zero. He went on by explaining that practitioners do make mistakes but it would be unfair to take the mistakes of other examiners and apply those to an error rate total for all examiners, especially if they themselves have never made a mistake. Even if Daubert had only required fingerprint analysis to how methodological error rates instead of practitioner error rates, practitioners are part of the methodology in analyzing fingerprints. The entire process of analyzing and verifying fingerprint ‘matches’ are done by practitioners who are the ones making the mistakes. The defendant argues that it is meaningless to separate practitioner and methodological error. Scholar Jonathan J. Koehler expresses the same view and said that because the method “depends so heavily on subjective human judgement, the method literally is the people who employ it” (Koehler, 59).
Overall, the government found ways in which to twist Daubert and what it could classify to such as peer review and error rates. This lead to the Tenth Circuit Court to agree with the federal district court’s decision and allow the fingerprint analysis into the trial. We will never know if the fingerprints truly were of Baines and if he actually owned guns and ammunition when he clearly wasn’t supposed to.
Decision
    Having found no abuse of discretion in admission of the disputed evidence, the only issue raised in this appeal, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court (United States v Baines).
Works Cited
"FindLaw's United States Tenth Circuit Case and Opinions." Findlaw. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2018.
Koehler, Jonathan J. “Fingerprint Error Rates and Proficiency Tests: What They Are and Why They Matter.”, Hastings L.J. pp. 59. May 2008
United States v Baines. Tenth Circuit Court. July-Aug. 2009. Print.

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