Girod A, Ramotowski R, Lambrechts S, Misrielal P, Aalders M, Weyermann C
Ecole des Sciences Criminelles, University of Lausanne, Batochime, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
United States Secret Service, Forensic Services Division, 950 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20223, USA.
Forensic Sci Int. 2016 May;262:212-26. doi: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2016.03.021. Epub 2016 Mar 17.
The question of the age of fingermarks is often raised in investigations and trials when suspects admit that they have left their fingermarks at a crime scene but allege that the contact occurred at a different time than the crime and for legal reasons. In the first part of this review article, examples from American appellate court cases will be used to demonstrate that there is a lack of consensus among American courts regarding the admissibility and weight of testimony from expert witnesses who provide opinions about the age of fingermarks. Of course, these issues are not only encountered in America but have also been reported elsewhere, for example in Europe. The disparity in the way fingermark dating cases were managed in these examples is probably due to the fact that no methodology has been validated and accepted by the forensic science community so far. The second part of this review article summarizes the studies reported on fingermark dating in the literature and highlights the fact that most proposed methodologies still suffer from limitations preventing their use in practice. Nevertheless, several approaches based on the evolution of aging parameters detected in fingermark residue over time appear to show promise for the fingermark dating field. Based on these approaches, the definition of a formal methodological framework for fingermark dating cases is proposed in order to produce relevant temporal information. This framework identifies which type of information could and should be obtained about fingermark aging and what developments are still required to scientifically address dating issues.
在调查和审判中，当嫌疑人承认他们在犯罪现场留下了指纹，但声称接触发生在与犯罪不同的时间且出于法律原因时，指纹形成时间的问题常常被提出。在这篇综述文章的第一部分，将引用美国上诉法院案件的例子来说明，美国法院对于提供指纹形成时间意见的专家证人的证词的可采性和证明力缺乏共识。当然，这些问题不仅在美国出现，在其他地方也有报道，比如在欧洲。在这些例子中，处理指纹年代测定案件的方式存在差异，这可能是因为到目前为止，还没有一种方法得到法医学界的验证和认可。这篇综述文章的第二部分总结了文献中报道的关于指纹年代测定的研究，并强调了这样一个事实，即大多数提出的方法仍然存在局限性，阻碍了它们在实际中的应用。然而，基于随着时间推移在指纹残留物中检测到的老化参数的演变的几种方法，似乎对指纹年代测定领域具有前景。基于这些方法，提出了一个用于指纹年代测定案件的正式方法框架的定义，以便产生相关的时间信息。这个框架确定了关于指纹老化可以且应该获得哪种类型的信息，以及在科学解决年代测定问题方面仍然需要哪些进展。
