ABSTRACT
U.S. courts accepted fingerprint identification evidence long before there was an FBI laboratory or any hint of computerized fingerprint image retrieval systems. Fingerprint identification methods were briefly preceded by the famous Bertillon system introduced by the Paris police in 1882. The Bertillon method involved the recording and subsequent matching of scrupulous measurements of bodily structures, such as height, length, and width of head, fingers, feet, etc., from the recorded data and current suspects. This system was briefly utilized in the United States for purposes of identifying military deserters in the early 1890s.
