Legal Question in Criminal Law in California
If some one steels a bottle of liqour and drops the bottle in the process, would the police take finger prints and enter it in the database? and if that person several years later has there finger prints taken for a job, would the prints show up on the police database and would the police arrest that person for the theft they commited over 5 years ago?
2 Answers from Attorneys
Highly Doubtful.
After five years it would probably be too late to prosecute the would-be thief.
The police probably did not take fingerprints at the time of the original offense. Forensic techniques like that are usually reserved for more serious crimes. But if the crime was more serious than you're making it sound and/or if the police had reason to think the thief was also guilty of other crimes, they might have given it a shot.
If the police tried to take prints they might have failed. Fingerprints are harder to collect than most people realize, and pieces of wet, broken glass might not yield usable prints.
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