Precisely. We've always known that identical fingerprints are not just possible but more common than the regular folk would imagine. The point is that the statistical probability of two individuals being in the same room at the same time and related to the same crime with the exact same fingerprints are so low as to make fingerprint ID good enough.
Multiply that by fingerprint evidence being often partial and damaged and how few shits the penal bureaucracy gives about people they've already decided are guilty
Excepting of course identical twins
Edit: apparently I was wrong
They tend to have different fingerprints for the same reasons they will have differing birthmarks.
Identical twins do not have identical fingerprints, because fingerprints are not only genetic. They might be close or somewhat similar, but rarely identical. They can be distinguished as different individuals by regular pedestrian forensic techniques.
Precisely. We've always known that identical fingerprints are not just possible but more common than the regular folk would imagine. The point is that the statistical probability of two individuals being in the same room at the same time and related to the same crime with the exact same fingerprints are so low as to make fingerprint ID good enough.
Multiply that by fingerprint evidence being often partial and damaged and how few shits the penal bureaucracy gives about people they've already decided are guilty
Excepting of course identical twinsEdit: apparently I was wrong
They tend to have different fingerprints for the same reasons they will have differing birthmarks.
Identical twins do not have identical fingerprints, because fingerprints are not only genetic. They might be close or somewhat similar, but rarely identical. They can be distinguished as different individuals by regular pedestrian forensic techniques.