EVIDENCE PLANTING:
YOUR FINGERPRINTS BORROWED FROM THE DATABASE TO CONVICT YOU
The following is from the Association to Stop Unconstitutional
Fingerprinting website. While the cases cited are clearly rare exceptions,
they might nonetheless give pause to those who see no reason not to submit
to fingerprinting. From the ASUF website:
"Two recent cases of evidence planting by the police are particularly
noteworthy.
In New York, special prosecutor Nelson Roth examined thousands of cases
dating from 1984 to 1992 and found 36 in which officers produced false
evidence. He found that evidence tampering, including the planting of
fingerprints, had become routine among some state troopers. 5 of 6
officers charged pleaded guilty and served prison terms. Most of the
officers charged worked in Troop C in rural New York; another worked in
Troop F. For more information, the reader should refer to the New York
Times article of February 4, 1997 or the 345 page report produced by Mr.
Roth.
In Garden City, Georgia, a sergeant with 11 years on the police force
planted fingerprint evidence in a 1995 armed robbery case. The officer was
convicted after a jury trial and sentenced to three years in jail. Expert
testimony in the officer's case proved that he had taken the fingerprints
of the accused from records at the police station, copied them and
presented them as
fingerprint evidence taken from the crime scene. The man accused of the
armed robbery was convicted and spent a year in jail. He was released
after it became apparent that evidence had been planted.
Cases like this demonstrate that, while evidence planting is the exception
rather than the rule, it does occur. The danger exists that putting
massive fingerprint databases under the control of police officers and
state attorneys will result in even more evidence planting."
And for those who would say, "but that's New York and Georgia; this is
Maine," be reminded that twice in the past year the Chief of Maine State
Police appears to have been caught involved either in twisting the
truth--the unfounded claim passed to the Legislature through Rep. Mike
Brennan in the spring of 2000 that the FBI would not accept the "new hires"
amendment--or in illegally leaking confidential data gathered as a result
of the fingerprinting law.