[Freedom2specul8]

Are you watching courttv? A dude just said that there is a case before the Supreme court...trying to decide whether or not finger print evidence CAN BE USED (in FBI investigations). Oh man, just thinking about the consequences of that decision if reversed. (finger prints on weapons etc)

[bvw]

That's been discussed here on FR in recent weeks. The main problem is that forensics only collects partial prints and poor quality ones sometimes -- some subjectivity enters in how those partials are coded, and sometimes a coding errors occur, in addition to chain of custody, recording keeping issues. A related problem is that courts and people tend to take fingerprints and fringerprint experts as gospel without continual testing and extrenal certification -- lack of rigor has caused the system to sag.

[Jaded]

Alot of that has to do with the LACK of standards in fingerprinting and the lack of qualified ridgeologists. There appears to be a signifcant number of ridgeologists who fail tests annually and are permitted to continue their work. There have been threads about it, as a matter of fact, Miz posted one.