## Facts

- A masked, armed robber entered a bank in Durham, North Carolina, demanded money using a note, and fled with cash that included bait bills and a tracking device.
- Police soon located a purple Ford Probe linked to the getaway; it was later determined to have been stolen the day before the robbery.
- A tipster informed police that Patrick Leroy Crisp and an accomplice committed the robbery and had attempted to recruit the tipster.
- Investigators recovered the demand note used in the robbery.
- The government linked Crisp to the note through (1) a latent palm print and (2) forensic handwriting comparison to known exemplars.
- Over defense objections under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert, the district court admitted expert testimony on latent print identification and handwriting analysis; the jury convicted Crisp of bank robbery, armed bank robbery, and brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court abused its discretion under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert by admitting expert testimony on latent palm/fingerprint identification.
2. Whether the district court abused its discretion under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert by admitting expert testimony on forensic handwriting comparison.

## Decision

- The Fourth Circuit affirmed the convictions.
- The court held the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the fingerprint (latent palm print) and handwriting expert testimony under Rule 702 and Daubert.
- The court treated critiques regarding limited empirical validation and the absence of universal standards as matters for cross-examination and competing proof, rather than categorical grounds for exclusion.

## Legal Principles

- Under Rule 702 and Daubert, reliability is assessed through flexible, nonexclusive considerations (e.g., testing, peer review, error rates, standards, and general acceptance), and trial courts have broad latitude in applying them.
- On appeal, Daubert gatekeeping rulings are reviewed for abuse of discretion.
- Longstanding judicial and professional acceptance of a forensic identification discipline may support admissibility, even where formal validation studies and quantified error rates are limited.
- Disputes about the degree of reliability or the presence/absence of uniform standards generally go to weight, not admissibility, and may be addressed through cross-examination and contrary evidence.

## Conclusion

The Fourth Circuit upheld the admission of fingerprint and handwriting identification testimony as sufficiently reliable under Rule 702 and Daubert and affirmed Crisp’s robbery-related convictions, emphasizing the trial court’s broad gatekeeping discretion and the role of adversarial testing in evaluating traditional forensic evidence.


United States v. Crisp, 324 F.3d 261 (4th Cir. 2003)