- Title
- A review of five international forensic reports : fingerprint evidence lessons for South African lawyers
- Creator
- Chiwara, Mercy
- Subject
- Fingerprints Criminal investigation Forensic sciences
- Date Issued
- 2018
- Date
- 2018
- Type
- Thesis
- Type
- Masters
- Type
- LLM
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10353/10918
- Identifier
- vital:35963
- Description
- For more than a century fingerprint evidence has been used as a tool for the forensic identification of offenders, and has generally been accepted without being tested, challenged or scrutinized because the courts were convinced that no prints look alike or are the same. Fingerprint evidence has been used and accepted on the basis that each person’s friction ridges are unique, that the ridges are permanent and can be transferred to a surface. However, the transferability of the uniqueness raises issues that are very significant in relation to the reliability of fingerprint evidence because only a partial impression is typically transferred. Furthermore, the print can be distorted as a result of pressure and this inevitably affects the impression. Nevertheless, in recent and authoritative Reports from the United States and Scotland, criticisms are being raised against fingerprint evidence. These challenges include the fact that to date there has not been a study to validate the reliability of fingerprint individualisation, the fact that there is no specific requirement with regard as to how much constant or uniform detail between latent print and known print suffices to reach a decision of identification and the fact that there are no objective standards coupled with the problem that there is a lack of scientific validity of the method used for comparisons. This study reviews the law relating to fingerprint evidence in the light of the reports produced by the Office of the Inspector General, United States Department of Justice, Reviewing the Mayfield Case (US) in 2006, the National Academy of Sciences (US) Report in 2009, the Fingerprint Inquiry Report by Lord Campbell in Scotland in 2011, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and National Institute of Justice (US) Report in 2012, and the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology Report (US) in 2016, so as to establish lessons for South African lawyers in as far as reliability, weight and admissibility of fingerprint evidence is concerned. Finally, this study concludes that South Africa’s norm of accepting fingerprint evidence as unquestionable is problematic in law and in science and that there is a need for reform regarding the manner in which fingerprint evidence is evaluated by the courts.
- Format
- 189 leaves
- Format
- Publisher
- University of Fort Hare
- Publisher
- Faculty of Law
- Language
- English
- Rights
- University of Fort Hare
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UFH Nelson R Mandela School of Law
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | SOURCE1 | FINAL CORRECTED LLM for mercy to be printed.pdf | 1 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |