Legal Question in Technology Law in Illinois
Misused of my finger prints
I Just wanted to share my experience on Thursday, November 03, 2005, approx 1:20. after I left, The American Lung Association in Chicago, IL
I thought I was a good Samaritan on the Blue-line train (Grand) in Chicago, IL while en route on job search:
A man dropped a 20.00 dollar bill and a 50.00 dollar bill at the train station platform. I pick it up and rush the money to the strange man. He put the money inside a handkerchief / inside his backpack, walk away and didn't even say ''Thank you''
The moral of this story is that I am still going to love people who are unappreciative or just mean to me for whatever reason because we all have to answer to God
This past weekend, Sunday, 11- 05 -2005, I started thinking about the money I pick-up the previous week.
Legal Question:
since I pick-up the money, isn't my finger prints on the money. If so, can a strange person of authority put my finger prints into the Chicago police's computer system and list it as an unknown person and create a negative situation that will implicate me in some kind of fraud / drug activity in the future, just to hurt me?
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Misused of my finger prints
Your fingerprints are on a lot of money, not just the two bills you wrote about. You have probably handled thousands of different bills over the years, and each of those bills likely passed through many other hands as well.
Even if clear fingerprints can be retrieved from paper currency, the information would be of little value. A $20 bill I handled last week might be in the pocket of a criminal who is arrested today, but connecting my print to his money does not suggest any connection between me and his crime.
A few years ago, a study found traces of cocaine on a very large percentage of bills which had been selected at random. Many of these bills must have changed hands a hundred times or more after they were exposed to the drug, so even finding cocaine residue on a bill doesn't implicate the person carrying it or anyone else whose print the bill might carry.
Besides, paper money handled so often and exposed to so much use that any prints on it would probably not last very long.
You really have nothing to worry about.
Re: Misused of my finger prints
You are absolutely right. I would also be concerned that you are leaving your DNA everywhere, on pop cans, envelopes, stamps, straws, hairbrushes and hundreds of other places.
If you are indeed a criminal you should turn yourself in immediately before they find you.
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