People v. Williams
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M.T. found the door of his house open and two black men walking in the adjoining alley. He lost sight of them as they got into a red Mustang. M.T. could only see their silhouettes. Jewelry and a cash box had been stolen. A window had been pried open; its lock was broken. The responding officer lifted fingerprints from the broken window. A fingerprint analyst compared those fingerprints with Williams’s fingerprints taken from an Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) report generated when Williams was previously arrested. The report listed Williams's address as 0.3 miles from M.T.’s house. Williams’s home was not searched for the stolen property. None of the property was located in Williams’s possession. Williams did not have a red Mustang registered in his name. There was no evidence tying Williams to the burglary other than the fingerprints. Williams, charged with felony burglary, unsuccessfully argued that fingerprint analysis does not pass muster under "Frye."
The court of appeal reversed Williams’s conviction. The trial judge improperly aligned itself with the prosecutor in the minds of the jury by the manner of his questioning of the fingerprint expert, repeatedly interrupting the defense’s cross-examination and implying that the defense could have hired its own expert. The questioning constituted prejudicial misconduct.
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