How is it possible that you can be so confused? You still continue to conflate two separate issues. This is the third or fourth time you've done so here. The palm print characteristics and the barrel irregularities are not the same thing. The points of identity matching the lift to the barrel would not have been the ulnar loops, ridge flows, principal lines, wrinkle features, and delta-point features from the palm. Those are palm print characteristics. None of those were left on the barrel. Day had lifted them entirely so that no trace of them remained. While five matching points of identity is below the minimum needed for a credible identification of a fingerprint or palm print, it obvious was enough for Scalice to make his positive match of the lift to the barrel.
I decided to go back and find your statement, just to set the record straight that you are the one who confused barrel irregularities with palm characteristics.
In reply to my point that Scalice said nothing about seeing barrel irregularities in the palmprint lift, you said the following:
Scalise reported that he identified five points of identity which match the lift to the barrel. If not impressions of irregularities, then what could those points of identity possibly have been? How else could they have been described?
In response to this, I said that the matching points that Scalice identified would have been ulnar loops, ridge flows, etc., and I repeated the point that Scalice said nothing about seeing any barrel irregularities:
Huh? The points of identity would have been the ulnar loops, ridge flows, principal lines, wrinkle features, and delta-point features from the palm. He said nothing about irregularities from the barrel also appearing in the lift. And he only matched five points, well below the minimum needed for a credible identification.
Matching points/points of identity are not irregularities, and certainly not rifle barrel irregularities, but are characteristics shared by the lift impression with an undisputed print impression made of the person's palm or fingers. If Scalice had found any irregularities from the barrel present in the palmprint lift, certainly he would have said so.
You know, we would not be having this conversation if Lt. Day had done the same thing with the palmprint that he did with the trigger-guard prints, namely, take in situ photographs of them before lifting them. He followed long-established, common-sense procedure with the trigger-guard prints, but passed up every opportunity to do so with the palmprint. If he had photographed the palmprint before supposedly lifting it, and if the photos of the palmprint had been sent along with the rifle when it was first sent to the FBI, there could be no suggestion that the print was planted on the rifle between 11/24 and 11/26.
Similarly, if Lt. Day had not repeatedly claimed that the palmprint was still visible on the rifle when he handed it over to Drain, you would not be left with explaining how the palmprint, along with any indication that the barrel had even been processed for prints, magically disappeared in the few hours before it reached FBI HQ in DC.
Of course, if Lt. Day had even processed the barrel for prints, at least some latent lift powder would have still been on the barrel when Latona examined the rifle a few hours later. That powder doesn't fall off easily.
We might also ask why Lt. Day did not cover the palmprint with cellophane, which was standard procedure, but did so with the trigger-guard prints. It was standard procedure to cover any detected prints with cellophane, and Day did so with the trigger-guard prints, but, once again, veered from standard procedure with the palmprint. Gee, why was that? When asked this question, Lt. Day said that he saw no need for cellophane with the palmprint because the print was on a part of the barrel that was protected by the wooden foregrip! Oh, okay.
Then what happened to the palmprint and the surrounding latent print dust between Dallas and FBI HQ?! Poof! Gone! Magic!
Latona not only saw no trace of a print on the barrel, but he saw no trace that that part of the barrel had even been dusted for prints. That's because Lt. Day did not dust it for prints. He did not dust because he logically assumed that the gunman could not have touched that part of the barrel during the shooting because it was protected by the wooden foregrip.
By the way, Latona added that as of 11/23 he had heard nothing about a palmprint being found on the rifle.
When they planted the palmprint on the rifle, they knew they could not plant it anywhere on the rifle that had already been dusted for prints, so they planted it on a part of the barrel under the foregrip of the wooden stock. But they couldn't do this until they had gotten Oswald's palmprint at the morgue and until the rifle was returned.
That's why nobody in the DPD said one blessed word about finding a palmprint on the rifle until 11/24. Veteran journalists with long-time sources in the DPD were reporting as late as the night of 11/23 that their police sources were telling them that Oswald's prints had not been found on the rifle.
