by TChris

The good news for those accused of crimes in Boston is that they are less likely to be victimized by bad science: the Boston Police Department is shutting down its inept fingerprint unit.

[Stephen] Cowans spent six years in prison after the unit wrongly matched his print with a fingerprint from a glass mug found at the Egleston Square crime scene where Officer Gregory Gallagher was shot and wounded in 1997.

The two fingerprint examiners responsible for Cowans' wrongful conviction were placed on administrative leave. The error was blamed on a lack of training and standards, although a contributing factor appears to be the unit's institutional desire to make the facts fit the theories conconcted by investigating officers.

"I have never seen anything but problems with the Boston fingerprint lab," said [fingerprinting analyst James] Starrs, who worked for Cowans' defense team. "I've never seen quality work from them. ... They're police sergeants, not scientists, doing the work. That's a serious problem, because they don't have the scientific standards to abide by."

The state police will do the unit's work until it hires and trains competent individuals who are willing to place science ahead of preferred outcomes.