Lab’s forensic check failure sparks fingerprints retesting
By BRIAN STANLEY bstanley@stmedianetwork.com January 9, 2012 5:24PM
Updated: February 11, 2012 8:14AM
JOLIET — About two dozen local criminal cases could be delayed while fingerprints are re-analyzed.
The state police crime lab announced last week that work done by one forensic scientist failed a recent internal quality assurance check.
Spokesman Charles B. Pelkie confirmed Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow and the lab director met Jan. 3 to discuss the impact of the review.
“We don’t believe this will affect the prosecution of any of our cases,” Pelkie said.
Most of the Will County cases that the analyst checked prints on were burglaries, though there is also “one death investigation and one attempted murder case.”
State police said the scientist’s previous work “will be reviewed and re-analyzed as necessary (but) cases under review do not involve any fingerprint misidentification.”
Grundy County State’s Attorney John Bates said none of his cases would need to be re-tested.
