In Memoriam: Louis H. Pollak

Dennis Hevesi,  Louis H. Pollak, Civil Rights Advocate and Federal Judge, Dies at 89 NYTimes (May 12, 2012):

"In January 2002 in a murder case [Lhera Plaza], he ruled that fingerprint experts could point out the similarities between prints from the crime scene to those of a defendant, but could not “present ‘evaluation’ testimony as to their ‘opinion’ that a particular latent print is in fact the print of a particular person.”

"His initial decision delighted defense lawyers and alarmed law enforcement officials. Two months later, after three days of testimony at a special hearing, Judge Pollak reversed himself. Still, he expressed deep concern that “there have been at least a few instances in which fingerprint examiners, here and abroad, have made identifications that turned out to be erroneous.'"

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The dynamic evidence page
Evidence marshaling software MarshalPlan

Will fingerprint evidence become the new DNA?

Perhaps new technology (nanotechnology) will dramatically improve the ability to retrieve fingerprints from difficult surfaces and also to retrieve them even when fingerprint impressions were left years or decades ago. See Nanotechnology is key to recovering usable fingerprints from old evidence
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&&& 
The dynamic evidence page

It's here: the law of evidence on Spindle Law. See also this post and this post.