In the Mayfield case the FBI examiners increased the total minutiae they felt they had from 10 points of Level II detail to 15 total points utilizing level III detail. Level III detail can include a number of things from ridge shape and pores to scars and this information can be beneficial in individualization when properly used. It would appear that they continued the " circular reasoning " utilizing the level III detail. The examiners justified the the ten level II points based on the level III detail; ridge shape,pore placement and incipient dots. While I did not see the original images, from what I was able to see, the latent lacked clarity. On poor quality images it is very difficult to obtain reliable level III detail, the such small ridge characteristics are usually compromised by background clutter and distortion. The FBI had several different copies of Mayfields know prints and some of the level III detail was not present in all the copies, which should have caused the examiners concern. While level III detail can be helpful, it becomes less helpful as clarity decreases. I want to emphasize how important it is to utilizie multiple copies of an inked image if they are available when working poor quality images.
Bob McAuley
Dir. Operations/Training
Forensic Biometric Identification Solutions LLC.
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