Dumond v. State

The “open file” policy has once again proved that it pays to hide things you do not want discovered. The defense had no knowledge that fingerprints had been examined by the Arkansas Crime Laboratory until it was disclosed by state witnesses during the trial. There was no logical reason why the state could not have made the fingerprints, or lack of them, available to the defense. I am sure the Arkansas Crime Laboratory is not the only place in the country where latent fingerprints can be examined. We will never know whether an independent fingerprint examiner could have identified these prints…