NOVA

There is a crisis in forensic science.

The most trusted crime fighting tools

responsible for hundreds of thousands of convictions,

may not be as bulletproof as once thought.

There's a laundry list of forensic techniques

that are now scrutinized.

Fingerprints may not be as unique as we thought.

Nobody's ever questioned fingerprints before.

And decades-old techniques

like blood spatter analysis and bite mark comparisons

are being exposed as more art than science.

Killers are walking free,

and innocent people are going to prison.

I don't belong here.

I'm innocent.

Can new technologies

help put the science back in forensic science?

Now, researchers and crime scene investigators

venture into the not-so-distant future

where avatar detectives enter murder scenes

to witness the moment of death.

We can see the body on the floor.

Forensic engineers

make identifications from fingerints of glass.

And coroners conduct virtual autopsies,

peeling back layers of 3D victims,

exposing once undetectable evidence of murder.

Now, NOVA puts forensics under the microscope

to see how good science can go bad

and how to make getting away with murder a thing of the past.

Right now on NOVA-- "Forensics on Trial."

== sync, corrected by elderman ==

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March 11, 2004.

7:30 a.m.

Rush hour.

Ten bombs rip through Madrid's crowded commuter trains.

191 people are killed, more than 1,800 wounded.

It is the worst terror attack in Spain's history

and bears the hallmarks of Al Qaeda.

The scale of these attacks has horrified Spain.

Soft targets chosen, no warnings given.

The international manhunt that follows

triggers a crisis in forensic science

that will shake it to its very foundation.

...knew about the shoddy work of the FBI special agent.

Forensic techniques trusted by police for over 100 years

are shown to be dangerously flawed.

...served 18 years in prison

for a murder he did not commit.

Killers are walking free

while innocent people are sent to prison, and even death row.

This was a gross perversion of justice.

The investigation to find the Madrid bomber

sends shockwaves through the forensic community.

And it all starts here.

In a commuter parking lot ten stations away

from where the bomb went off, Spanish police find a van.

Inside is a blue plastic bag

containing bomb-making materials.

It could be a huge break.

It's possible fingerprints have been left behind

on the bag itself.

The idea that every person's fingerprint is unique

has been a foundation of forensic investigation

for over 100 years.

But this case poses a potential challenge.

The lines and ridges that form the distinctive patterns

of fingerprints left on evidence are created from sweat and oil.

A print left on plastic, like the bag recovered in Madrid,

can be easily wiped off or distorted.

Mark Acree is a former FBI fingerprint analyst.

Plastic bags by their very nature are nonporous.

The fingerprint is sitting on the surface,

and it's very vulnerable to being smeared or smudged.

But there are established ways

to recover prints from nonporous surfaces.

Evidence ranging from gun handles to keys to plastic bags

are placed in an airtight chamber.

Inside, a chemical called cyanoacrylate,

more commonly known as superglue, is heated up.

Its vapors coat the sweat and oil of the print

with a sticky white residue, making the print visible.

But it does have limitations.

Superglue chemically alters the lines of sweat and oil

and can even obscure details of a print's unique pattern.

Using this method,

Spanish investigators recover a partial print on the bag.

They rush digital photos to forensic labs across the globe,

including the FBI.

Examiners first need to determine

if there are enough lines and details in the ridges

for a clear comparison.

Ridge details are broken down into distinctive shapes,

like dots, that look like islands,

endings, where ridgelines terminate,

and intersecting lines called bifurcations.

From the Madrid bomber's print, the FBI is able to zero in

on seven unique traits for comparison.

Now they look for a match.

They take the image, they encode it,

and then it's launched against this database.

From over 47 million criminals, federal employees,

military personnel and people of national security interest,

the FBI's supercomputer identifies 20 prints

that contain some of the same distinctive traits

as the Madrid print.

Examiners require that 12 unique traits correspond

to declare a match.

The FBI identifies one of the 20 prints

that actually shares 15 traits in common

with the one found in Madrid.

It comes from the left index finger of this man,

a 37-year-old former U.S. Army lieutenant...

and a convert to Islam,

Brandon Mayfield.

As a lawyer now living in Portland, Oregon,

Mayfield recently represented a convicted terrorist.

The FBI sneaks into his home while he's at work...

taps his phones, collects samples for DNA

and watches his wife and children.

On May 6, 2004, just two months after the bombing,

the FBI moves in.

They pushed their way into my office.

They took my hands behind my back, and they handcuffed me.

I didn't know what they were searching and arresting me for.

They never told me.

This fingerprint match

sparks the arrest of American Brandon Mayfield

as the bomber responsible for the murder

of nearly 200 people-- Spain's 9/11.

A fingerprint top counterterrorism officials

now tell Newsweek magazine is a, quote,

"Absolutely incontrovertible match"

to Portland attorney Brandon Mayfield.

Mayfield insists on his innocence.

He hires his own fingerprint analyst

to testify at a pretrial hearing.

The expert's testimony is not what Mayfield expects.

He sd, "It's a match."

That's when I knew the train to a death penalty

had just pulled out of the station.

Federal agents take Mayfield back to jail to await trial.

Hours later, half a world away,

Spanish investigators make a stunning discovery

that changes Brandon Mayfield's life.

I was told that the Spanish police had found

that this fingerprint belonged to an Algerian;

that it wasn't me.

Spanish police determine

that the fingerprint belongs to this man--

Ouhnane Daoud, a known terrorist.

News from Spain.

A fingerprint found on a bag

linked to the Madrid train attacks

belongs to an Algerian national, not Brandon Mayfield.

Mayfield is released from jail after 15 days.

Now the question on everyone's mind is,

how could this misidentification happen?

It's a question that will eventually make its way

to the United States Congress.

The similarity between Mayfield's print

and the bomber's is undeniable.

It challenges a century-old pillar of forensic science--

that no two prints are identical.

We always assumed that fingerprints

are very, very unique.

But what the Mayfield case demonstrates

is that parts of a fingerprint can be so similar

that it's possible for two people

to be identified to one latent print.

The U.S. Congress

calls on the National Academy of Sciences,

the nation's most prestigious research institution,

to conduct an investigation

into all forensic technologies and techniques.

In July 2009, they release their report.

In short, they find

there's not enough science in forensic science.

The big news was that forensic science was fractured.

Jessica Gabel is a professor of law

and frequently lectures on the NAS findings.

It lacks the rigors, the standards,

the quality controls and procedures

that we find usually in science.

And in that light,

forensic science actually can sometimes contribute

to wrongful convictions.

The Madrid bomber case

is a perfect storm of forensic flaws.

Only a partial print is recovered on a plastic surface,

and that is eventually distorted.

There is also a surprising similarity

between parts of Mayfield's print and the real bomber's.

Together these could have led

to the conviction of an innocent man.

Can modern science prevent this from happening again?

The answer is deceptively simple--

examiners need a way

to expose more of fingerprints' unique details.