finger printing

Current Event #3

In The New York Times March 9, 2002 article, “ Will Fingerprinting Stand Up in Court?”, it seems that fingerprinting has become a very controversial issue in the court system. Fingerprinting has become known as “The bedrock forensic identifier of the 20th century,”1 Some courts have begun to question the accuracy of fingerprinting and feel that it may not be as foolproof a tool as it was once thought to be.
The basic fundamentals of fingerprint identification are permanence and individualism. Fingerprints are the individual grooves in the skin of the feet and hands. They can be obtained by dusting an object with fingerprints on it with a powdery substance or with ink on paper. Along with fingerprinting, microscopic hair comparison, bite mark analysis, and handwriting comparison may also be used by the courts in order to achieve identity.2 If fingerprinting were eliminated as a basis of evidence, who’s to say that hair comparison...