Latent Print Identification Scores Partial Success with Massachusetts Supreme Court

From Bob Ambrogi, we learn of the Massachusetts Supreme Court's decision in Commonwealth v. Patterson, No. SJC-09478 (Mass. Dec. 27, 2005), upholding the admissibility of evidence on latent fingerprint identification on "general acceptance" grounds, but rejecting, on the record before it, the admissibility of identifications based on "simultaneous impressions." The latter technique involves piecing together an identification from multiple latent prints, no one of which is complete enough to support a match by itself.