Latent fingerprints can be utilized as investigative evidence when a body’s natural oils and substances are deposited onto another surface. The basic fundamentals in the science of fingerprint identification are permanence and individuality.

Permanence:

Fingerprint ridges are formed during the third to fourth month of fetal development. These ridges consist of individual characteristics called ridge endings, bifurcations, dots and many ridge shape variances. The unit relationship of individual characteristics does not naturally change throughout life.
 

Individuality:

In the over 140 years that fingerprints have been routinely compared worldwide, no two areas of friction skin on any two persons (including identical twins) have been found to contain the same individual characteristics in the same unit relationship.

While no two fingerprints have been found that are alike, there have been many human errors over the course of the years in forensic fingerprint identification. The most famous of these cases involved the 2004 Madrid train bombing. Studies have shown that examiner bias” is one of the leading causes of such errors. We employ a forensic latent print examiner with many years of experience in the field who can provide analysis of evidence and/or an unbiased evaluation of latent fingerprint evidence in your case.