Law & Order (TV Series) Myth of Fingerprints (2001) User Reviews

You ask yourself is it right that I'm in here and you're not? Guard!

[Mrpalli77 · 9/10 · 13 November 2017]

Two girls looking like streetwalkers were walking in a hallway to pay a visit to a man who hung around with one of them. She got the key and after getting into the apartment she found her boyfriend dead on the ground. The murder weapon was a TV-set and Briscoe sent it right away to forensic to match the prints. The victim was a lowlife with records for assaults and drug possession. His former girlfriend (Abigail Lopez) was angry at him because he didn't give her a dime for alimony (they've got a son together) and that led to a dispute outside the courtroom with her new fiancée. But it's not the right pattern to follow: the victim was a police informant and some inmates could have held a grudge against him. After locking up the right perp, motive cause detectives to dig in previous murders where forensic played a crucial role, usually mistaken the report: someone has to pay.

Anita Van Buren feels herself guilty of a mistake she made in the past. Briscoe supports her telling she put always the right perp behind bars and once in the lifetime everyone could get wrong: I think she really wanted to resign before talking to him, great Lenny!

The trouble with forensics

[TheLittleSongbird · 9/10 · 24 May 2022]

It was truly great to have a case that saw more of the character of Anita Van Buren, or where she plays a major role. She was the longest serving character on the original 'Law and Order' and one of the longest serving of the franchise for very good reason and doesn't get talked about enough (am myself actually guilty of this). This sounded like the perfect kind of story for her, the kind where she is more than just the boss and where we see the person behind the job.

"Myth of Fingerprints" does a great job on this front and while the story is a well worn kind of one, that was re-visited more than once before this episode and also since in the franchise, it didn't feel too old hat and Van Buren's dilemma was investable and more realistic than most in most episodes with similar stories. As far as Season 12 goes, "Myth of Fingerprints" is one of the best of the first half of the season and one of the best overall. One of only two up to this point of the season to be great, the other being "For Love or Money."

There really isn't all that much to fault, but it doesn't win plus points when it comes to originality for reasons said above.

Otherwise, "Myth of Fingerprints" is excellent. The slick grit and the sharper and tighter visual look that the previous eleven seasons had is still maintained, and equally had no problems with the generally understated and not too melodramatic music. Nor with the sympathetic but crisp direction in primarily the second half.

Furthermore, the script is taut, intelligent and thought-provoking, with a lot to say about the subject in a way that is educational without being one-sided. Not just about forensic analysis but also how easy it is for miscarriages of justice to happen. The story (with echoes of the harrowing case of Joyce Gilchrist) may be unoriginal, but it was easy for me to engage with Van Buren and sympathise with a difficult dilemma that was clearly hard for her. Did like too that there was more emphasis on the policing and that Briscoe shows a sympathetic and supportive side that was refreshing when seeing him being wise-cracking, hard-boiled and conflicted usually.

While the regulars are fine (excepting Elisabeth Rohm), it's the moving performance of S. Epatha Merkerson and the equally powerful one of Diana Scarwid that shine most. Their chemistry is dynamite. The legal portion pulls no punches and is easy to be intrigued by and invest in. It is a case where sadness and anger is felt to quite large degrees.

Concluding, excellent. 9/10.

A history of false IDs

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 20 October 2013]

The death of a man who nobody is going to mourn leads Jerry Orbach and Jesse Martin on the trail of a homicide of a case long solved. And the investigating officer was none other than S. Eptha Merkessen way back in her undercover days.

Turns out the deceased killed someone in the past and two people went to prison for that crime, one of whom was killed in the joint. The case rested on fingerprint identification and the woman in charge of the police lab, Diana Scarwid did the ID.

It was a false ID and as it turns out she's got a history of that. It will be quite a reach but DA Diane Weist has Sam Waterston charge Scarwid for the murder in prison.

What she did was irresponsible in the extreme. In her defense we learn that fingerprint IDs is not an exact science and one has a lot of latitude. It's also what makes careers for defense lawyers. And Scarwid sees it as her contribution to law and order.

A most thought provoking episode.

Another old friend turned bad

[jbirks106 · 6/10 · 22 April 2020]

It is a well-worn L&O trope: A longtime friend of one of the leads turns out to be a criminal, or at least the parent or patron of a criminal. After initially defending the friend, the scales slowly fall from the eyes. Adam Schiff seemed to have the worst judgment of character - Robert Vaughn as the unhinged Carl Anderton is most memorable of his numerous fallen friends - but he had plenty of competition.

Anita van Buren would seem the last of the show's stars to suffer this kind of tunnel vision. Yet in this episode she repeatedly goes to bat for Diana Scarwyd's forensic expert. It's perhaps the best case of slow disillusionment of the entire series because the writers invest plenty of time educating us in the subjective science of fingerprint analysis. Not only do we understand how such a miscarriage of justice could happen, we wonder how often it does in the interest of expediency or career advancement.