How reliable is fingerprint evidence? - Theodore E. Yeshion

• On October 17, 1902, a significant breakthrough in forensic science occurred in Paris.
• Fingerprints have remained a crucial piece of evidence in criminal cases for over a century.
• The unique nature of fingerprints sets them apart, but they are not without their challenges.
• Advances in forensic techniques continue to evolve for better accuracy in fingerprint analysis.
• Brilliant offers courses to enhance your critical thinking and investigative skills.

On October 17, 1902, Paris detectives arrived at a grisly scene. Joseph Ribl had been murdered at his workplace. With no eyewitnesses, the officers had little to work from until they discovered a shard of broken glass with several bloody fingerprints.

An investigator manually searched the police stations fingerprint records and eventually found a match. Henri Chefer, who had been arrested for theft the year before, was detained and later confessed to the murder.

This marked the first time in Europe that investigators solved a crime using fingerprints alone. Over a century later, fingerprints remain one of the most common types of evidence in criminal courts.

But just how reliable are they? Humans, like other climbing species, are born with patterns of raised ridges and recessed furrows, not only on their fingers, but also along their hands and feet. These friction ridges help provide a firmer grip, especially on wet surfaces, and increase our sensitivity to touch.

They begin to develop in the womb at about seven weeks, when the skin on the hands and feet swell to form smooth, raised pads. At around 10 weeks, deeper layers begin to grow faster than the upper layers, causing the pads to buckle and fold.

This folding is guided by genetics and environmental factors and continues over the next several months. Scientists have yet to fully understand the exact environmental factors at play, but it's their randomness that leads to the formation of unique fingerprint patterns.

In fact, many experts believe it's improbable that any two fingerprints, past or present, are exactly alike. They're even different among identical twins. People have likely known about the individual nature of fingerprints for centuries, but it wasn't until the late 1800s that scientists began studying and classifying their different features.

By the early 1900s, prosecutors began utilizing fingerprints in courts, forever changing how detectives approach and analyze crime scenes. Today, investigators often begin by searching for visible prints.

These include patent prints left by transferable substances like blood or dirt, and plastic prints, which are impressions in soft, malleable materials like caulking wax or even a newly painted fence. However, most fingerprints aren't visible to the naked eye. These are called latent prints, and they’re composed of the water, oils, proteins, and salts that ridge patterns leave on surfaces.

They can be revealed by dusting with a fine powder, which sticks to the water and oil trail. If surfaces are porous or difficult to dust, investigators use chemical developers like ninhydrin, which reacts with proteins left by fingers.

Forensic scientists continue to develop more sensitive and surface specific tools. For example, one experimental technique uses an electrical charge to capture the corrosion that fingerprint salts leave on metals, even if they have been wiped down.

Once investigators have collected prints, then they get to work matching them with potential suspects. In certain cases, investigators will use automated computing systems that can narrow down potential matches found in national fingerprint databases.

Certified experts then compare minor fingerprint details, such as how the ridges branch and intersect and the spacing of oil pores. Any result must be blindly verified by a second expert before information is handed over to justice departments.

The fact that fingerprint patterns are unique for every individual makes them particularly strong evidence in criminal cases. However, the system isn't infallible.

Prints are often smudged, distorted, or overlapped with other prints, which can make matching more challenging and it's prone to human error. One 2011 study found that fingerprint experts falsely identified two different fingerprints as a match 0.1% of the time. While this may seem low, the stakes are high for a wrongly accused defendant.

Furthermore, there's no universal standard on the number of ridge details that experts must analyze to make a match. Many investigators stress that no conviction should be made on fingerprint evidence alone.

For these reasons, forensic experts continue to work to improve and standardize the fingerprinting process. After all, when it comes to investigating crime, fingerprints have certainly left their mark.

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