Foreniscs Specialists in a state of the art Crime Lab might be able to get fingerprint evidence off a eye ball or a body or other articles like tape thru fuming or other methods but those arent actually lifts those are scientific evidence retrieval methods.
Alot of surfaces don't lend themselves to the lifting of useable fingerprints using traditional dust and tape methods. The surfaces themselves distort the print, whether from causing smears or breaking up the detail, or being wet, or in the case of guns the cleaning oil if any is designed to counteract the oil in finger prints.Porus surfaces are also bad.
Even if you get a lift if the individual is not in the system it's useless as an identifer.
Try printing a burlary scene. You'll get all kinds of useless lifts the majority belonging to the victim, and it's cost prohibative to send anything to the lab for fuming or extensive evidence retrieval, unless it's a violent crime.
Just because Gill Grissom and Horatio Cane can lift a pristine print off a broken and shattered plate glass window doesn't mean it's common. And the cases you see on Court TV are picked for dramatic effect, it's not an everyday case.
