Pilot Study: The Application of ACE-V to Simultaneous (Cluster) Impressions 1
John P. Black · 2006
In December 2005, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled that applying the ACE-V methodology to simultaneous impressions did not satisfy the requirements set forth in Daubert. Specifically, the Court stated that there was insufficient research on the topic of simultaneous impressions. This paper explores the hypothesis that an examiner can, after a thorough analysis, successfully determine whether two or more latent impressions were deposited at the same time. The study consisted of a series of thirty (30) latent impressions that were sent to volunteer latent print examiners around the world. Their task was to examine each impression and apply ACE-V to determine whether the impressions were truly simultaneous in nature. The data indicate that when making a definitive determination of either true or false, the participants were correct nearly 88% of the time.