Misidentification Examples

1697 Words7 Pages
Discussing and using examples of misidentification of fingerprints has affected the fingerprint service. Exampling and discussing the case of Shirley McKie and Alan McNamara high profile fingerprint cases. Who both claim they suffered from miscarriage of justice and both suffered jail due to misidentification. The definition of misidentification is ‘An instance of misidentifying; an erroneous identification.’ There are several definitions of the word fingerprint ‘A mark left on a surface by a person's fingertip.’‘An inked impression made of a person's fingertip and used for identification.’ A fingerprint begins forming during the 12th week of gestation, and barring surgical or accidental removal of the finger itself, will remain permanent…show more content…
The dermis lies protecting under the epidermis and contains the sweat, sebaceous glands. Fingerprints can be visible when our fingerprints are dirty, oily or latent. The latent fingerprints are difficult to see but can be made visible. To make these visible there are several techniques to use to recover these prints these are; lasers, powders and alternative light sources. If there was a fingerprint left at a crime scene and the suspect had never been convicted before there would be no record of their prints for comparison. For ever suspect who is charged they have to have their fingerprints taken. When identifying a suspect using fingerprints there has to be 16 points or more of similarities to use the evidence in court. In 1892 the first fingerprint bureau was set up by Juan Vucetich and the first criminal identification using fingerprints was back in 1892. The fingerprint department first opened in Scotland (The new Scotland Yard) in 1901 this was a recommendation by Sir Edward Henry. They recalled him back in 1903 to become the commissioner of the metropolitan police. The first fingerprint which was recovered at a crime scene in 1902 was by Henry Jackson. In the mid-1960s the
Open Document