‘Radical’ fingerprint decision challenged

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Calling a judge’s decision to eliminate fingerprint evidence in a death penalty case “stunning and radical,” Baltimore County’s top prosecutor contested the ruling Monday.

“This [judge] stands alone in American jurisprudence in ruling that fingerprint identification evidence is not reliable enough to be admitted,” Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger wrote in a motion for reconsideration.

In a groundbreaking ruling earlier this month, Baltimore County Circuit Judge Susan Souder disallowed prosecutors from using fingerprint evidence against Bryan Rose, 23, who is facing the death penalty in the 2006 carjacking and slaying of merchant Warren Fleming, 31, outside Security Square Mall.

In her ruling, Souder cited as evidence of fingerprints’ flaws the FBI’s “infamous, erroneous” 2004 misidentification of Oregon lawyer Brandon Mayfield as an Algerian terrorist.

Mayfield was falsely accused of the March 11, 2004, terrorist bombing of commuter trains in Madrid, after the Spanish National Police recovered fingerprints from a plastic bag containing explosive detonators, and the FBI misidentified him as a suspect.

But fingerprint evidence also cleared Mayfield, Shellenberger wrote in his filing Monday.

“Countless doctors misread X-rays, yet these errors would never be seen as a reason to prevent doctors from testifying about broken bones in court,” he wrote. “The isolated errors of the Mayfield case should likewise not be the reason for the exclusion of fingerprint evidence. In fact, it was another fingerprint examiner using the exact methods used in this case who exonerated Mayfield and identified the true bomber.”

Rose’s attorneys have praised Souder’s ruling and suggested other judges follow suit. They say fingerprints are a pseudoscience that can’t be trusted and lack “serious scrutiny,” according to Patrick Kent, the head of the Maryland Public Defender’s Forensics Division.

lbroadwater@baltimoreexaminer.com

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