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Criminals convicted primarily on the basis of fingerprint evidence could soon have grounds for appeal based on the comments of a leading forensic scientist.Fingerprint evidence has been employed to establish criminal involvement since forensic science was first used by the UK’s Scotland Yard back in 1901, but now Mike Silverman, who introduced the first automated fingerprint detection system to the Metropolitan Police, believes that this method of establishing guilt is not as reliable as previously thought.
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A researcher gave 96 male prisoners fMRI brain scans just before their release (he could have given them a spit test). Their brains were scanned during computer tasks during which they had to make quick decisions and control their impulses.

Four years later, Kent Kiehl found that most of the men who had lower activity in a region in the front of the brain that is involved in motor control and decision making were back in prison.
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A national registry has compiled a list of over 2,000 wrong convictions since 1989, since DNA testing became common. And reevaluation of old DNA testing is freeing innocent people from jail every day.

In the May 21st edition of the Los Angeles Times, David G. Savage quotes law professor Samuel Gross as saying, "The more we learn about false convictions, the better we’ll be at preventing them."

To the surprise of many prosecutors and judges, the new National Registry of Exonerations has revealed that a significant number of convicted rapists and murderers are innocent. The Innocence Project in New York says DNA alone has freed 289 prisoners since 1989.
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On TV cop shows, victims almost always identify the perpetrators correctly, but real life doesn’t work that way: DNA testing has revealed that witnesses often pick out the wrong person, while detectives, in the background, keep telling the person to "take your time." But new studies show that these witnesses should go with their snap judgments instead.
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