EPISODE 8: THE WINDOWSILL

Kate and Paul explore the first ever case to use fingerprinting in court. We travel to 1910s Chicago to learn about a Black man arrested for the killing of a White family in a case that changed detective work forever.

Sources:  

People v. Jennings, 252 Ill. 534 (1911) 

“Rule 702. Testimony by Expert Witnesses” (Federal Rules of Evidence) 

“Identified, Misidentified, and Disidentified: Subject Formation and Reformation in American Law and Literature” by Aurelio José Perez 

“Forensic evidence : science and the criminal law” by Terrence Kiely 

“A brief history of forensics” by Radley Balko (Washington Post) 2015.  

“Fingerprint Evidence in an Age of DNA Profiling” by Jennifer Mnookin (Brooklyn Law Review) 2001.  

“A Comparative Analysis of Best Practices in a Facial Recognition Policy for Law Enforcement Agencies” by Terry H. Smith (DePaul University) 2022. 

“Convicted by Fingerprint: A 1910 Murder Trial Makes History” by Karen Harris (JSTOR) 

“First Finger Print Conviction” (Hanford Journal) 1910. 

“Flashback: How fingerprinter made Chicago famous: New technology led to 1910 murder vonction in a first for the nation” by John Mark Hansen (Chicago Tribune) 2020.  

“The Fingerprint Sourcebook: Fingerprints and the law” by Andre A Moenssens and Stephen B. Meagher

“The First Criminal Trial That Used Fingerprints as Evidence” by Francine Uenuma (Smithsonian Mag) 2018.

“CJIS Digitizes Millions of Files in Modernization Push” (FBI) 2014.