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    Finger-Prints Can Be Forged

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    Jeje
    The article discusses how finger-prints can potentially be forged through various techniques, such as using a collotype photographic emulsion to transfer prints or etching a negative metal plate to create a positive print. While forged prints may pass initial inspection, close examination can reveal tell-tale signs like differences in pore structure or ridge width that distinguish them from genuine prints. With skill, forged prints could be planted at a crime scene but would need to be placed naturally to simulate the touches one would expect from the crime being committed. Overall, finger-print evidence on its own is not conclusive proof of guilt but remains a valuable form of circumstantial evidence.

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    Finger-Prints Can Be Forged

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    Jeje
    78 views4 pages
    The article discusses how finger-prints can potentially be forged through various techniques, such as using a collotype photographic emulsion to transfer prints or etching a negative metal plate to create a positive print. While forged prints may pass initial inspection, close examination can reveal tell-tale signs like differences in pore structure or ridge width that distinguish them from genuine prints. With skill, forged prints could be planted at a crime scene but would need to be placed naturally to simulate the touches one would expect from the crime being committed. Overall, finger-print evidence on its own is not conclusive proof of guilt but remains a valuable form of circumstantial evidence.

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    The article discusses how finger-prints can potentially be forged through various techniques, such as using a collotype photographic emulsion to transfer prints or etching a negative metal plate to create a positive print. While forged prints may pass initial inspection, close examination can reveal tell-tale signs like differences in pore structure or ridge width that distinguish them from genuine prints. With skill, forged prints could be planted at a crime scene but would need to be placed naturally to simulate the touches one would expect from the crime being committed. Overall, finger-print evidence on its own is not conclusive proof of guilt but remains a valuable form of circumstantial evidence.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    78 views4 pages

    Finger-Prints Can Be Forged

    Uploaded by

    Jeje
    The article discusses how finger-prints can potentially be forged through various techniques, such as using a collotype photographic emulsion to transfer prints or etching a negative metal plate to create a positive print. While forged prints may pass initial inspection, close examination can reveal tell-tale signs like differences in pore structure or ridge width that distinguish them from genuine prints. With skill, forged prints could be planted at a crime scene but would need to be placed naturally to simulate the touches one would expect from the crime being committed. Overall, finger-print evidence on its own is not conclusive proof of guilt but remains a valuable form of circumstantial evidence.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as pdf or txt
    of 4

    Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

    Volume 25
    Article 16
    Issue 4 November-December

    Winter 1934

    Finger-Prints Can Be Forged


    C. D. Lee

    Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc


    Part of the Criminal Law Commons, Criminology Commons, and the Criminology and Criminal
    Justice Commons

    Recommended Citation
    C. D. Lee, Finger-Prints Can Be Forged, 25 Am. Inst. Crim. L. & Criminology 671 (1934-1935)

    This Criminology is brought to you for free and open access by Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for
    inclusion in Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology by an authorized editor of Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons.
    POLICE SCIENCE 671

    claimed ability to distinguish counterfeits would impose test condi-


    tions of utmost severity.8
    Conclusion

    The results of this test point against acceptance of the common


    dictum that a counterfeit finger-print would be inevitably recognized
    as such. The conclusion is conservatively phrased, so as to leave
    open the possibility that some experts (perhaps especially those hav-
    ing comprehensive experience in manufacture of counterfeits and their
    study9 ) may be able to make reliable judgments in at least some of
    the cases presented to them.

    FINGER-PRINTS CAN BE FORGED


    C. D. LEEf

    It is with considerable reluctance that finger-print experts have


    come to realize that finger-prints can be forged, and to have to admit
    as much when testifying in court. But we might as well face the
    facts, at the same time considering just how much harm is done by
    such admission.
    Webster defines forgery as "a false imitation of something
    which if genuine would import legal efficacy." Shorn of its legal
    aspect, then, a forgery implies merely a false imitation, on which
    basis anything susceptible of false imitation may be forged. This fact
    was recognized generally among the early researchers in this field,
    but many of us did not believe that finger-prints could be so perfectly
    imitated that the forged print could not be distinguished from the
    genuine. We had in mind the fact that a genuine finger-print is an
    impression from the living skin made with a natural secretion of the
    living tissue, and that the impression carries over a certain life-like
    appearance which would be difficult to simulate.
    8
    Dr. Erastus Mead Hudson, of New York City, has devoted special atten-
    tion to the subject of finger-print forgery during a period of some fifteen years.
    Experimenting with methods of forgery, he is convinced that counterfeit prints
    can be made with such success as to defy detection. His experience, however,
    enables him to find telling features of artificiality in at least some forgeries;
    lie correctly identified the counterfeit and genuine prints used in the present test,
    and submitted the diagnostic points. (From personal communications, referred
    to with
    9
    the permission of Dr. Hudson.)
    Supra note 8.
    tCaptain of Detectives, Police Department, Berkeley, California.
    672 POLICE SCIENCE

    Long before Wehde made his great discovery, some of us had


    experimented with finger-print forgeries, utilizing a collotype photo-
    graphic emulsion, by means of which an ink impression may be
    photographed and the ridges made to stand up a trifle on the plate or
    film. By oiling the ridges lightly, a forged impression of a latent
    print could be placed wherever desired. These were easily distin-
    guished from genuine impressions. Later we learned that a genuine
    latent impression could be picked up bodily and transplanted by
    means of a surprisingly simpld transfer material. This looked for-
    midable at first, but on examining the transferred impressions mi-
    croscopically it was discovered that they differed in two aspects from
    the genuine. First, the oil particles in the form of ellipsoids in the
    original were found to be divided into very minute spheroids in the
    transplant; and second, the relative width of ridge and interspace
    (normally approximately even) was unnatural due to the flattening
    and consequent widening of the ridge. Other distinguishing features
    of lesser importance were noted.
    Finger-print "lifters" soon came into general use to supplant the
    camera where photography was difficult on account of inaccessibility
    of the latent. By means of a lifter made of a slightly sticky material
    (transparent), the developed impression is picked up intact and taken
    to the dark-room, where as many photographic prints as needed are
    made by using the lifted print as a negative. This is a type of trans-
    fer forgery, inasmuch as the impression itself is picked up, but its
    evidentiary value has never been questioned by the courts so far as
    known to the writer.
    Now comes Whede who describes an etching process for making
    a negative in metal, from which a positive may be made with ma-
    terial approximating the texture of the skin. So far as the negative
    is concerned, there was nothing new or startling in that, since finger-
    print circulars bearing printed facsimilies had been in use some time
    before his so-called discovery. However, theretofore no one seems
    to have thought of making skin-like positives in this manner, possibly
    because those most interested in finger-prints were too busy with
    routine identifications, or perhaps because they lacked incentive or
    training for this type of technical research. Be that as it may, the
    fact remains that Wehde broadcast his discovery to the world in 1924,
    and in spite of it the courts are still admitting this type of circum-
    stantial evidence and will continue to do so.
    While the problem of planting forged finger-prints at the site of
    crime is probably not quite so simple as Wehde implies, we have no
    POLICE SCIENCE 673

    doubt that in practice it could be done so skilfully as to escape de-


    tection and permit the forgeries to pass for genuine. But it is com-
    mon experience that fabricated evidence is usually badly overdone.
    The plotter would need to guard against stamping his forged im-
    pressions around too generously, and the matter of position of, the
    impressions would require careful consideration, as the thief uses
    his fingers mostly for picking things up--perhaps more so than do
    honest people! So instead of just simply a stray impression here and
    there, the prints should be so placed as to simulate naturally the
    picking up of a jewel box, say, or lifting the lid; or manipulating the
    combination of a safe; or pulling a piece of broken glass from the
    window through which entry was made. To accomplish this, one
    would require stamps for at least two fingers, preferably three-the
    thumb, index, and middle fingers. One would need to have in mind,
    also, that in grasping some objects the thumb does not register ex-
    actly opposite the index and middle fingers; that it does not always
    lie fiat on the object so as to register the complete pattern; and that
    sometimes the index and middle fingers are impressed in exact juxta-
    position and at other times with the middle extended beyond the
    index, depending upon whether the object is round or fiat and upon
    other factors.
    Another small difficulty likely to be overlooked is the matter of
    sweat pores. In their physiological functioning the mouths of these
    pores are sometimes open, sometimes closed. This means that in suc-
    cessive impressions of healthy skin different pores may be open and
    active one moment and closed the next, whereas in stamped impres-
    sions there will be no such change. The resulting "fixed" expression
    of the forged prints might well serve to distinguish them as such,
    However, these are small matters, and as stated above in prac-
    tice, where original finger-prints are not immediately available for
    comparison, the planted forgery may pass muster as genuine, es-
    pecially if its authenticity is unchallenged. This brings to mind that
    in our twenty-six years' experience, in which many convictions have
    been secured largely on finger-print evidence, not a single case has
    been encountered in which the possibility of forgery was advanced as
    a defense.
    Finger-prints are not conclusive proof of guilt in any case, nor
    of the presence of their owner at the scene of crime. But just what
    single type of evidence, unsupported by other corroborative evidence,
    is absolutely conclusive? The testimony of eye witnesses is ordinarily
    given the greatest credence. Yet who has not experienced cases of

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