#27 Guess Who Is Out Of Luck?
Back when I was a prosecutor, I had a defendant object that I couldn’t compel him to give a fingerprint sample for comparison. It’s how we proved our prior convictions. Our expert would fingerprint the defendant both outside the presence of the jury and in the presence of the jury, then compare fingerprints to the ones included on old judgments. This is 101% nonsense because fingerprints aren’t testimony and can be compelled, but the judge for the day was actually buying the argument. So I stood up, told the judge I was applying for a search warrant and asked to be sworn in. She swore me in, I applied for a warrant, and she wrote out a warrant in return for his fingerprints. No longer with a valid objection, the defendant was fingerprinted and surprise—his four prior felonies were indeed his. He’s serving life now.
Credit: profssr-woland
