Legal Question in Criminal Law in Michigan

Re: breaking and entering

Fingerprints and DNA help prove WHO had been in a certain location, or had touched an object. But there's always a question of the context for that evidence: is there an innocent explanation for that person being in that location, or for that print being on that object?

Where in the car was the print? On the steering wheel, the stereo knob, an object in the trunk, on the cover for the wires under the steering column where the car got hot-wired? Knowing where the print was found is critical because some may have innocent explanations, and some cannot.

One possibile reason why a fingerprint might not be a clincher: The person had a plausible (or even corroborated) innocent explanation for the fingerprint being there, such as "the victim is my co-worker and we went to lunch the other day in his car and I was playing with the stereo". In that case, the presence of the print does not necessarily mean that THAT person stole the car, just that the person was in the car.