Can Fingerprints Lie?: Re-weighing Fingerprint Evidence In Criminal Jury Trials

I. Introduction

"[Fingerprints never lie," was the statement of Iain McKie, a retired Scottish police officer, a thirty year veteran in law enforcement, and the father of Detective Shirley McKie. But when his daughter's fingerprint was unexplainably linked to a murder scene, and she was arrested and charged with perjury, Mr. McKie, for the first time, questioned the reliability of fingerprint evidence. He went on to say in an interview in 2002: "I love my daughter very much. But when they said the print was Shirley's I have to admit I assumed the worst. My entire career I had heard that fingerprints never lie."1 If it is the understanding of a seasoned law enforcement officer that fingerprints could never be wrong, how do average jurors perceive the reliability of fingerprint evidence?