Grandfathering evidence: fingerprint admissibility rulings from Jennings to Llera Plaza and back again.

American Criminal Law Review, June, 2004 by Simon A. Cole

ABSTRACT

This Article treats post-Daubert rulings on the admissibility of forensic fingerprint identification as a "demanding test" of the courts' ability to apply Daubert consistently and coherently. The article begins with a discussion of early admissibility decisions in the United States, beginning with People v. Jennings (1911). It shows that courts did not demand, and fingerprint experts did not provide, evidence of the reliability of forensic fingerprint identification. It argues that courts were seduced by the "fingerprint examiner's fallacy," in which the uniqueness of all human fingerprints is taken as evidence of the accuracy with which human fingerprint examiners could attribute crime-scene prints to their correct source fingers. This fallacy also pervades...