Fingerprint Evidence
Learn how fingerprint evidence is gathered and used in court.
In this day and age of high-tech crime-solving methods, especially DNA typing, the lowly art of fingerprint identification sometimes seems lost. While the principles underlying fingerprint identification methods have never been scientifically validated, fingerprint evidence is generally considered to be highly reliable and is particularly accessible to juries: You don't need a Ph.D. or a scientific lecture on genetics to understand that your own fingers contain a contour map of ridges and whorls that is completely unique. And unlike the theories behind DNA matching, no one seriously doubts this assumption.
Matching Fingerprints
Fingerprint evidence rests on two basic principles:
Police officers can use fingerprints to identify defendants and crime victims if a print matches one already on file. (Today, the FBI has a collection of prints that numbers in the millions.) People's fingerprints can be on file for a variety of reasons. For example, people may be fingerprinted when they are arrested or when they begin certain occupations. And it is increasingly popular for parents to ask local police departments or schools to fingerprint their young children, a grim reminder that children who are abducted or are the victims of other heinous crimes often cannot be identified otherwise.
How Fingerprints Are Found
Friction ridges contain rows of sweat pores, and sweat mixed with other body oils and dirt produces fingerprints on smooth surfaces. Fingerprint experts use powders and chemicals to make such prints visible. The visibility of a set of prints depends on the surface from which they're lifted; however, with the help of computer enhancement techniques that can extrapolate a complete pattern from mere fragments, and laser technology that can read otherwise invisible markings, fingerprint experts increasingly can retrieve identifiable prints from most surfaces.
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