“The fingerprint discipline has 100 years of history,” Meagher said. “There is extensive documentation to the scientific basis, which has been published, peer-reviewed and challenged many times… It has withstood those challenges.” At least ten other such challenges have been filed since, but none has yet kept fingerprint out of a trail. As a result, Stephen Meagher suggested that judges have recognized fingerprint evidence as meeting Daubert criteria. Today, just about everyone, including attorneys, judges, and jurors, seem to think that fingerprint experts can reliably match latent prints to one and only one source finger. Based on all the evidence, it is a fact that human friction ridge skin is unique, that is to say, no two people now living, or who ever have lived, or who ever will live, can have exactly the minute details of the friction ridge skin across the whole surface of a finger. If we accept the fact that any area of friction skin is unique, then we must agree that each latent print or crime scene mark must also be unique. From this understanding one could correctly say the suspect could have made the unknown print or some other person could have made it. The bottom line is that only one person could leave the unknown print. It is the responsibility of the fingerprint expert performing a comparison to reach this conclusion. Therefore, fingerprint identification is based on sound scientific principles.
Ashbaugh, David R. “Ridgeology.” Journal of Forensic Identification, 1991.
Galton, Francis. Fingerprint, MacMillan and Co., London, 1892.
Herschel, William J. The Origin of Finger-Printing 1916. New York: AMS, 1974.
SCAFO Online Articles. Daubert and fingerprints: The United States of America v.
Bryan C. Mitchell. April- June 2000. http://www.scafo.org/1ibrary/15O4O2.html.
U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Expert Fingerprint
Witness. Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1981.
Bibliography
Ashbaugh, David R. “Ridgeology.” Journal of Forensic Identification, 1991.
Galton, Francis. Fingerprint, MacMillan and Co., London, 1892.
Herschel, William J. The Origin of Finger-Printing 1916. New York: AMS, 1974.
SCAFO Online Articles. Daubert and fingerprints: The United States of America v.
Bryan C. Mitchell. April- June 2000. http://www.scafo.org/1ibrary/15O4O2.html.
U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Expert Fingerprint
Witness. Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1981.