Judge Rules Fingerprints Cannot Be Called a Match
A judge has ruled for the first time that fingerprint evidence, a virtually unassailable prosecutorial tool for 90 years, does not meet the standards set for scientific testimony and that experts in the field cannot testify that a suspect's prints definitely match those found at a crime scene.

The decision, by a senior federal judge in Philadelphia, comes after two years of efforts by defense lawyers to hold fingerprint analysis to standards set by the Supreme Court in 1993.

The judge, Louis H. Pollak, found that fingerprint analysis had not been subjected to the rigorous testing required under those standards.
Judge Pollak ruled that fingerprint experts could still point out the similarities between prints from a crime scene and those of a defendant.
They may also still point out that no two people have the same prints. But, the judge wrote, "what such expert witnesses will not be permitted to do is to present `evaluation' testimony as to their `opinion' that a particular latent print is in fact the print of a particular person."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/11/national/11PRIN.html