Social Sciences and the Law

Have fingerprints been challenged as evidence?

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There has been some recent controversy over the admission of fingerprints in criminal cases. At least 40 challenges have been filed against the admission of fingerprints in courts, most of them in the past 10 years, and one was upheld. U.S. District Court Judge Louis Pollak ruled against the use of fingerprints in a murder trial in Philadelphia in 2002, but reversed himself two months later. A book questioning the reliability of fingerprints, Suspect Identities: A History of Fingerprinting and Criminal Identification by Simon Cole, was published in 2001.

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