Criminology: The Constitutionality and Admissibility of Fingerprinting

Excerpts from the Paper

Criminology: The Constitutionality and Admissibility of Fingerprinting
Can fingerprinting stand up under cross-examination?
The following paper reviews the science of forensics and, particularly, explores the issues of constitutionality and admissibility as they pertain to fingerprint analysis. Initially, the focus of the ensuing essay was going to be chiefly upon the constitutionality of fingerprint analysis – but there exists an impressive body of literature out there that explicitly calls into question the admissibility of fingerprint analysis and compels us to examine the intersection between forensics and criminal proceedings with a larger lens. In any case, the essay shall highlight that this writer understands the science and...

.....poor regulation and insufficient quality control. This caveat should be insinuated from the start so as to relieve jurors of the idea that, simply because something professes to be science, this does not mean that it actually is science.
As we close, we can end simply by saying that, contrary to what many may believe, forensic science is not infallible and must be held up to the critical light of day. It is an aid, but it is not an oracle and defence attorneys should look carefully at the methodology, qualifications and inferences of expert witnesses and also employ the evidentiary threshold favoured by courts in both the United States and in Canada when it comes to what sort of science is permissible and what sort of science simply is not.