R v Amatto, Martin

[2011] NSWDC 194

District Court

New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation:	R v Amatto, Martin [2011] NSWDC 194
Decision date:	07 December 2011
Jurisdiction:	Criminal
Before:	NICHOLSON SC DCJ
Decision:	Application to reject expert fingerprint identification refused.
Catchwords:	Criminal Law - Interlocutory application - Expert evidence - Fingerprint identification - argued jury capable of making its own comparisons - aspects of study and knowledge of fingerprint experts discussed - knowledge amounts to specialised knowledge - dangers of drawing comparisons in absence of specialised knowledge
Cases Cited:	Mundarra Smith v The Queen (2001) 206 CLR 650
Category:	Interlocutory applications
Parties:	Regina Martin James Amatto
Representation:	Defence: G Corr Crown: Mr C Bailey
File Number(s):	2010/103699

Judgment

Application to reject expert fingerprint identification

1. Martin James Amatto is on trial in relation to an alleged robbery of a person at the Flying Horse Truck Stop on 10 October 2009. The crown case is the robber is Mr Amatto. My understanding is the Flying Horse Truck Stop is a service station and the alleged victim was an employee or otherwise associated with the owners of the service station. The money taken the crown alleges belonged to the owners of the service station.

2. In the course of investigation fingerprints were lifted from the crime scene. The lifted fingerprints were passed onto a Sergeant Brian Worboys, who is presented by the prosecution as an expert witness, his field of expertise being, so far as this trial is concerned, the science of fingerprints. The effect of his statement is, to identify a lifted fingerprint as being the fingerprint of the right middle finger of the accused.

3. Mr Corr, acting Public Defender, on behalf of the accused, argues what I might call the rule in Mundarra Smith (see Mundarra Smith v The Queen (2001) 206 CLR 650) applies, namely that the Crown can tender the accused fingerprints and the image of the lifted fingerprint for the jury to make its own mind up on the question of fact whether the lifted fingerprint matches any of the accused fingerprints.

4. Put another way, he argues the opinion of Sergeant Worboys is not relevant on this occasion because the jury can make its own comparison of the lifted fingerprint with those of the accused.

5. With respect the argument does not appear to be well thought through. If prosecutors were not required to rely upon expert opinion evidence in respect of fingerprints, they could tender crime scene fingerprints and an accused person's fingerprints and invite a jury to come to its own view about the fingerprints even where the requisite number of identification points had not been reached. Indeed, the notion of a requisite number of identification points could now be abandoned.

6. Sergeant Worboys makes clear his comparison involved comparisons of pattern type, ridge flow, friction ridge characteristics, and their relative position to each other, and the number of intervening ridges between these characteristics. No doubt that is part of the science of fingerprints in operation in the course of his identification.

7. The identification of fingerprints also involves an understanding of the qualities of the compound initially dusted or sprayed, as the case may be onto the surface where the lifted fingerprint was obtained. In other words, in order to make the comparison he makes he has relied upon specialised knowledge to reach an opinion.

8. I am satisfied in the absence of such specialised knowledge any opinion formed about matching fingerprints would be dangerous to rely upon. For example, I would regard it as dangerous to allow any arresting or investigating police officer to be allowed to say "I saw the fingerprint on the counter and I later saw the accused fingerprints taken at an earlier point in time by police and I can safely say they are one and the same". Or alternatively, it would be dangerous to allow a police officer to say, "I recognised the accused fingerprint on the knife used in the robbery and I was able to recognise the similarity of them with the accused fingerprints we had at the station and I can safely say they are the one and the same."

9. Clearly, that is the equivalent of what is being proposed by the defence- that fingerprints are capable of lay comparison and lay recognition by an untrained eye. That cannot possibly be the case. The objection [by the defence] is rejected.

Decision last updated: 08 December 2011