Monday, July 21, 2003

The Fingerprint Argument Continues

The CBS News site has this Sixty Minutes retread on whether fingerprint evidence is really reliable. The story makes no explicit mention of Daubert, but it does explore such questions as whether fingerprint identification techniques can pass experimental muster.

It probably strikes most people as contrarian to suggest that the reliability of fingerprint evidence could be open to serious question. But some very smart folks have been wondering lately.

posted by pn at 12:03 AM  

Fed. R. Evid. 702: If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise, if (1) the testimony is based upon sufficient facts or data, (2) the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods, and (3) the witness has applied the principles and methods reliably to the facts of the case.