HISTORY: The First Fingerprints Used in US Court

HISTORY: The First Fingerprints Used in US Court

This is the history behind the first fingerprints used as evidence in US court.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
At just after two a m. On September nineteenth, nineteen ten,
a man broke into a home on West one hundred
and fourth Street in Chicago, Illinois. It's believed that the
man was planning to burglarize the home, but when he
found thirteen year old Florence Hiller sleeping in one of
the bedrooms, he must have changed his plan. When Florence

(00:21):
awoke and saw the man, she screamed as the man
pushed up her nightgown and started touching her. The screams
alerted her parents, Clarence and Mary Hiller, and as Clarence
ran down the hall to investigate, he ran into the
man and they fought. The intruder pulled out a gun
and shot Clarence twice, killing him, then he fled the scene.

(00:44):
The neighbors were woken up by the commotion, and John
Pickens went to the Hiller home to help. He arrived
at the same time as his son, Oliver Pickens, who
had been walking home from a friend's house at the time.
Officer Floyd Beardsley was on patrol in the area when
he heard screams and was looking for the source when
he found John and Oliver approaching the Hiller home. They

(01:06):
observed the body of Clarence, and when the officer went
upstairs to get a sheet to cover the body, he
found sand on the foot of Florence's bed. At the
same time, four Chicago police officers had ended their shift
and were sitting on a bench waiting for a street car.
While they waited, a man ran onto the street with

(01:26):
a revolver in his hand. They found the man suspicious,
and since it was nineteen ten, the fact that the
man was black likely heightened that suspicion, but they also
had a lot to be suspicious of. The man was sweating,
had blood on him, and the gun had recently been fired.
He said he had just been injured when he fell
off of a street car, but the officers didn't believe him,

(01:49):
and they took him to the station. At that time,
those officers didn't know about the murder that had happened
not far away. The man was identified as Thomas Jenny,
and he had just been released from prison on parole,
where he had been serving time for burglary. He was
thoroughly examined and found to have fresh injuries from a

(02:09):
fight and blood on his clothing. They also found sand
in his shoes, which was linked to the murder scene.
Not long after Thomas was brought to the station, he
was arrested and charged with the murder of Clarence Hiller.
But his trial would not be cut and dry. He
would introduce a piece of evidence as proof against the
defendant that had never been used in a US court before.

(02:57):
He was later that morning that investigators would find the
ground breaking piece of evidence in the case. As Thomas
fled the scene, he grabbed a freshly painted porch railing
to pull himself through a window. The wet paint became
a perfect medium to capture his fingerprint patterns. That lucky
timing worked in the investigator's favors. Those crucial prints would

(03:20):
have been lost if the paint had dried earlier. The
fresh paint worked like a natural fingerprint collector. When Thomas
pressed his fingerprints against it, the oils from his skin
created clear marks in the paint. The railing held four
clear fingerprints, giving investigators plenty of evidence to work with.
Those pristine impressions in wet paint gave police a great

(03:43):
chance to use the new science of fingerprint identification to
solve that violent crime. Investigators took great care to preserve
the evidence. Instead of just taking photos, they removed the
entire railing to keep the evidence intact. The pull least
then created large photos of the crime scene prints. Those

(04:04):
photos helped them examine and compare the prints with other samples.
They matched them against two sets of Thomas Jennings's fingerprints,
one from his recent arrest and another from when he
violated parole years earlier. The preservation methods they used were
advanced for nineteen ten. Modern fingerprint collection has come a

(04:25):
long way, but the simple approach from the Jennings case
remains similar to what experts use today. Current forensic specialists
still value those early techniques. Their detailed work paid off
when they found thirty three matching points between the crime
scene prints and Thomas's known prints. That analysis became the
heart of the prosecution's case. Though finger printing was new

(04:49):
to American forensics, those early investigators showed amazing insight. They
knew that keeping both the physical evidence and photos would
help prove that new type of evidence. With reliable four
fingerprint experts testified that the prints from the railing belonged
to Thomas Jennings without doubt. People near the crime scene

(05:10):
gave vital testimony that later built a stronger case against Thomas.
Neighbors of the Hillers identified Thomas as the person who
had robbed them right before the murder. That string of
crimes showed Thomas was in the neighborhood at that crucial time.
Kenya Nettles, who lived in apartments facing the Hiller's house,
later pointed to Thomas in court as one of the

(05:31):
men she saw that night. The prosecutor also presented the
physical evidence found on Thomas when he was questioned by
the off duty officers, his visible injuries, blood on his clothing,
and a recently fired revolver. Court records showed that prosecutors
matched the bullets from Clarence Hiller's body to the gun

(05:51):
they found on Thomas. The investigators also matched sand from
Florence's bed to sand in Thomas's shoes. That left no
question that Thomas Jennings was inside the hill or home.
Jennings defense team fought hard against the unfamiliar evidence. They
questioned if it was scientifically legitimate and legally admissible. The

(06:13):
attorneys pointed out that Great Britain needed special laws to
make fingerprint evidence legal. That strategy tried to raise doubts
about American courts accepting the technique without similar laws. The
defense made a bold move to challenge fingerprint identifications basic
idea without proper scientific backing. They argued court should reject

(06:37):
fingerprint evidence as unreliable. The defense team highlighted the lack
of scientific testing behind fingerprint analysis. Their objections focused on
how new the technique was, rather than error rates or
methods that later challenges would address. The defense raised questions
that would become standard and fingerprint challenges. Could experts really

(07:00):
be sure no two fingerprints matched? How many mistakes did
examiners make? Was their matching technique reliable? Four fingerprint experts
testified for the prosecution, Michael P. Evans, Chicago Police Department's
Bureau of Investigation Chief, William M. Evans, a former Bureau member,

(07:21):
Edward Foster, British police inspector, and Mary Holland, the first
woman to teach fingerprinting. Each expert had looked at thousands
of fingerprints and confirmed the crime scene prince only matched
Thomas Jennings. Then the defense attempted a daring challenge against
the prosecution, which backfired in a dramatic court room moment,

(07:45):
Attorney W. G. Anderson dared experts to lift his fingerprint
from a piece of paper he touched. They did exactly that,
showing everyone how well the technique worked. The jury couldn't
ignore that powerful demonstration. The prosecution showed blown up images
of the fingerprints with matching points clearly marked. Jurors saw

(08:07):
nature's evidence speak for itself. The visible ridge patterns left
a lasting impression that proved hard to ignore. The judge
let the testimony stand, saying finger printing had scientific merit.
He backed his decision by citing the Encyclopedia Britannica and
a handwriting identification book. He noted that quote standard authorities

(08:30):
on scientific subjects discussed the use of fingerprints as a
system of identification, concluding that experience has shown it to
be reliable. The jury unanimously convicted Thomas Jennings, and he
was sentenced to death by hanging. That verdict kicked off
a legal journey that reached the Illinois Supreme Court. Their

(08:52):
fingerprint evidence faced its final test before becoming a permanent
part of American law. The Illinois Supreme Court looked to
British precedence, where courts already accepted fingerprint evidence. Scientific authorities
played a key role in convincing the justices that fingerprint
analysis was reliable. The Supreme Court allowed expert testimony on fingerprints.

(09:15):
The Court determined that, quote, expert testimony is admissible when
the subject matter of the inquiry is of such a
character that only persons of skill and experience are capable
of forming a correct judgment as to any facts connected
therewith The Justices unanimously agreed that finger printing had enough
scientific merit as evidence, stating, quote, this method of identification

(09:39):
is in such general and common use that the courts
cannot refuse to take judicial cognizance of it. The Court
emphasized that there is a scientific basis for the system
of finger print identification, and that the courts are justified
in admitting this class of evidence. That significant decision made
fingerprint analysis a s specialized field that needed expert interpretation.

(10:04):
The Illinois Supreme Court upheld Thomas Jennings conviction on December
twenty first, nineteen eleven. People v. Jennings made fingerprint evidence
legally admissible in American court rooms. The Cook County Jail
hanged to Thomas Jennings on February sixteenth, nineteen twelve, but
his legal impact lasted much longer. All state courts adopted

(10:26):
the People v. Jennings reasoning by the late nineteen twenties.
That precedent changed American jurisprudence and made fingerprint evidence the
lifeblood of criminal prosecution across the United States. He was
the most solid piece of physical evidence in any criminal
case until DNA was first presented in US court in
nineteen eighty six. But fingerprints were already being used as

(10:49):
a means of identification long before Thomas Jennings was convicted
in nineteen ten. Several ancient civilizations used fingerprints for practical reasons.
Chinese officials left their fingerprints on clay seals to verify
government documents during the Chin Dynasty of two twenty one
to two h six BCE. Babylonians did something similar around

(11:12):
nineteen hundred BCE. They used fingerprints on clay tablets during
business deals. Those early uses show that people knew fingerprints
were unique. The Chinese were way ahead of their time
when it came to use of fingerprints in criminal cases.
Chinese law enforcement collected hand and fingerprints from crime scenes

(11:33):
during the Chin Dynasty. A Chinese historian named Kiekun Yen
wrote about fingerprints as a way to verify identity by
six p. Fifty c. Scientists have found even older proof
that humans noticed fingerprints. Cave paintings with hand patterns and
ridge marks exist in Nova Scotia, France, and other places.

(11:56):
Those artworks are more than fifteen thousand years old. Scientists
began studying fingerprints seriously in the nineteenth century. Johann Evangelista
Perkinyi made a breakthrough in eighteen twenty three. He identified
nine types of fingerprint patterns, including loops, arches, and whirls.

(12:17):
Modern forensics still used those classifications. Sir William Herschel was
a British Man who worked for the Imperial Civil Service
in India, who began using palm prints and then fingerprints
as a means of signing contracts in as early as
eighteen fifty eight. He began documenting his own fingerprints at
various times over his lifetime, proving that they don't change

(12:40):
over time. Doctor Henry Flds changed everything in the eighteen seventies.
The Scottish surgeon worked in Japan when he saw fingerprints
on old pottery. The discovery fascinated him. He started studying
fingerprints and was able to use them to exonerate a
colleague who was accused of theft after the hospital where

(13:01):
they worked was broken into. Falds published his research in
the scientific journal Nature in eighteen eighty. He suggested using
fingerprints to identify criminals and sought the help of Charles Darwin,
but he wasn't interested. Instead, he referred the doctor to
his cousin, Sir Francis Galton. He didn't start researching fingerprints

(13:23):
until eight years later, but his research proved two important things.
First was that fingerprints stay the same throughout life, at
least naturally. I accidentally cut the tip of my left
index finger off with a circular saw decades ago, so
the fingerprint on that finger is a little different now,
but that was caused by an outside force. The second

(13:45):
thing he proved was that no two prints are exactly alike.
The chances of finding matching fingerprints were one in sixty
four billion. Galton wrote a book called Fingerprints in eighteen
ninety two, creating the first scientific way to classify them.
Galton's work in the late nineteenth century created a scientific

(14:07):
base that courts worldwide would later accept. He worked hard
to convince doubtful people that fingerprints could identify someone reliably.
That paved the way for fingerprints to become crucial evidence
in criminal cases. Congress formalized fingerprinting's role by establishing the
FBI's Identification Division as a central repository for criminal identification data.

(14:31):
In nineteen twenty four. Law enforcement agencies throughout the country
started building their own collections after recognizing the technology's potential.
Manual fingerprint systems reached their practical limits. Eventually, the FBI's
Identification Division realized manually searching would become impossible. By nineteen

(14:52):
sixty three, silicon chip technology emerged at just the right time,
leading to the automated fingerprint identification System STAS or APHIS.
Those changes brought dramatic results. San Francisco saw ten times
more latent print identifications after implementing an early version of
APHIS in nineteen eighty four. Cases with APHIS generated evidence

(15:15):
had tripled. The conviction rates compared to those without. The
city's burglary rates dropped, while national rates climbed. APHIS technology
spread faster afterward. Around five hundred APHIS installations existed worldwide
by nineteen ninety nine. Modern systems handle millions of prints automatically.

(15:36):
The FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services processed seventy four million
fingerprints in twenty twenty three alone, comparing ninety seven percent automatically.
A set of fingerprints on a freshly painted railing changed
American criminal justice forever. The year was nineteen ten, and
Thomas Jennings's case became a defining moment that gave science

(16:00):
tentific evidence its rightful place in court. Finger Printing quickly
became one of the most important tools of forensic science
after the Illinois Supreme Court made its groundbreaking decision. Thomas
Jennings never knew how his fingerprints would shape criminal justice.
His case made finger printing legally valid evidence and created

(16:20):
a blueprint to introduce new forensic methods in court. Scientific
evidence became crucial to criminal prosecution. Though Jennings paid with
his life, he unknowingly wrote a crucial chapter in forensic
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