"[Out] of 268 cases where agents used microscopic hair analysis to link a defendant to a crime, the agents’ testimony was scientifically invalid in 257 or 96% of the cases."
That seems impossibly, mind-bogglingly incompetent.
I was on a jury and I could not argue to the rest of the jury using knowledge I was literally trained as a Psych major about... because it was not presented as evidence in the trial. It literally brought me to tears
The belief that the current justice system is even close to being fair is a fallacy. Standards for evidence in law and science are almost completely different. Eyewitness testimony, for example, should basically be thrown out: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-the-eyes-have-i...
Science needs to take law out back and give it a good whuppin'
As my small contribution to the truth, I donate to innocenceproject.org every month.
What I would be curious to know is how many of these 268 samples do not have a matching DNA. "Scientifically invalid" is a bit vague. Does that mean that the samples were not a match or does that mean that the method used didn't provide a sufficient degree of confidence of a match?
The state of forensic "science" today is similar to the state of medicine in the 18th century. Bloodletting wasn't an effective treatment, and but it's not like doctors--much less ordinary people--of the time knew any better.
Obviously those participating in hiding evidence should be prosecuted, but it's hard to blame everyone else who is going along with what forensic "scientists" tell them. The legitimate scientific establishment has done little to nothing to expose this field as the domain of charlatans. How are lay people supposed to understand the difference?
>How are lay people supposed to understand the difference?
Well first off lay people not to stop placing government agents on a God like pedestal where by everything a "forensic scientist" from the state utters in court is assumed to be truthful and beyond questioning.
This is how we get terrible science and convictions, the public watches a episode of CSI or NCIS where you have infinite zoom and enhance, where you can do facial recognition on a person in a ATM video from 25 miles away, where 2 people can hack all encryption by typing on the same keyboard really fast....
They see this shit, so then when a person from the FBI gets on the stands, says a bunch of big words, and points to the scary man or women at the table saying they did it... the case is over....
And this goes to show that if you want a fair trial in any country (even relatively evolved western countries), you need to be rich enough to have a decent legal team. When you read some of the cases from the innocence project, the incompetence is mind boggling.
And don't get me started on countries like Japan with 99.7% conviction rate and antiquated laws regarding police arrest.
I think that until you have a significant sum of money that can be used to pay for a legal defense team, you are at risk of prison even if you're innocent (of course in most cases the risk is negligible but if you're part of a minority it might not be)...
The cases from the innocence project are bad, but they only see the cases in which the person pleaded innocent and was convicted by a jury...
Most cases end in a Plea, which innocent people with out proper legal representation, and many with proper legal representation take for a whole host of reason.
I agree but in my opinion the only one. I am not opposed to the principle but justice in pretty much every country has historically shown a remarkable incompetence and lack of rigor.
It helps that in probably 80% of the cases there is no real doubt on the identity of the killer (not all cases are a suspense movie scenario). But I wonder if the reliability of courts is even higher that whatever that percentage is.
I'd think that it matters how many innocent people are executed vs how many lives are saved by deterring potential murderers, and my trouble is I don't know how to get those numbers.
Regarding just the second number - deterrence - here's a claim that the death penalty deters, saving between 3 and 18 lives per execution depending on the study you choose (quite the spread, BTW...):
...But here's a claim that the death penalty doesn't deter (though they cite, not direct statistical evidence, but the opinion of criminologists and the fact that some places without a death penalty have lower murder rates than places with it; but maybe if I dug deeper I'd find something more direct):
Perhaps someone who've looked into it more deeply can weigh in; all I'm saying is that it matters what the answer is.
(My own intuition would be that people aren't deterred by the death penalty very much, because they count on not getting caught, instead of multiplying the penalty by the probability or some such. But I could be wrong. Also I'm open to the opinion that you shouldn't do some things to people regardless of potential benefits to society, for instance I'm pretty sure torture would deter more than the death penalty because it's a very vivid picture a potential criminal would have in their mind, but it's great that nobody thinks we should go there. I just don't think that the capital punishment is "cruel and unusual" that way.)
One gets the ridiculous situation where an innocent person in prison, keeps on maintaining that they are innocent and end up serving far longer sentences than guilty people, convicted of very similar crimes, that don't deny their guilt.
I am not sure if this applied in this case, but it may well have done.
No on the second, for good reason. There wasn't anything in the article that indicated that the prosecutors did anything wrong. They took the evidence they were given by the police, by informants, and by the crime lab employee and presented it at trial. That the police did not give the prosecutors all the evidence the police had, and that a forensic technique that was widely accepted at the time by the FBI and the state turned out to not be accurate is beyond the scope of the prosecutor's role.
Another reason why it's best just to close the blinds, turn on the computer, and lay low for the rest of your life, using video games and pornography to entertain and escape.
You'll be more likely to duck things like this if no one knows your name.
[+] [-] bonniemuffin|10 years ago|reply
That seems impossibly, mind-bogglingly incompetent.
[+] [-] Eric_WVGG|10 years ago|reply
one off-the-cuff sample: http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=132262
[+] [-] enraged_camel|10 years ago|reply
Considering that such evidence is used to convict people and imprison them for possibly decades, shouldn't we call it "criminally incompetent"?
[+] [-] pmarreck|10 years ago|reply
I was on a jury and I could not argue to the rest of the jury using knowledge I was literally trained as a Psych major about... because it was not presented as evidence in the trial. It literally brought me to tears
The belief that the current justice system is even close to being fair is a fallacy. Standards for evidence in law and science are almost completely different. Eyewitness testimony, for example, should basically be thrown out: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-the-eyes-have-i...
Science needs to take law out back and give it a good whuppin'
As my small contribution to the truth, I donate to innocenceproject.org every month.
[+] [-] cm2187|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rayiner|10 years ago|reply
Obviously those participating in hiding evidence should be prosecuted, but it's hard to blame everyone else who is going along with what forensic "scientists" tell them. The legitimate scientific establishment has done little to nothing to expose this field as the domain of charlatans. How are lay people supposed to understand the difference?
[+] [-] the_ancient|10 years ago|reply
Well first off lay people not to stop placing government agents on a God like pedestal where by everything a "forensic scientist" from the state utters in court is assumed to be truthful and beyond questioning.
This is how we get terrible science and convictions, the public watches a episode of CSI or NCIS where you have infinite zoom and enhance, where you can do facial recognition on a person in a ATM video from 25 miles away, where 2 people can hack all encryption by typing on the same keyboard really fast....
They see this shit, so then when a person from the FBI gets on the stands, says a bunch of big words, and points to the scary man or women at the table saying they did it... the case is over....
[+] [-] nicolas_t|10 years ago|reply
And don't get me started on countries like Japan with 99.7% conviction rate and antiquated laws regarding police arrest.
I think that until you have a significant sum of money that can be used to pay for a legal defense team, you are at risk of prison even if you're innocent (of course in most cases the risk is negligible but if you're part of a minority it might not be)...
[+] [-] the_ancient|10 years ago|reply
Most cases end in a Plea, which innocent people with out proper legal representation, and many with proper legal representation take for a whole host of reason.
[+] [-] badsock|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cm2187|10 years ago|reply
It helps that in probably 80% of the cases there is no real doubt on the identity of the killer (not all cases are a suspense movie scenario). But I wonder if the reliability of courts is even higher that whatever that percentage is.
[+] [-] _yosefk|10 years ago|reply
Regarding just the second number - deterrence - here's a claim that the death penalty deters, saving between 3 and 18 lives per execution depending on the study you choose (quite the spread, BTW...):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06...
...But here's a claim that the death penalty doesn't deter (though they cite, not direct statistical evidence, but the opinion of criminologists and the fact that some places without a death penalty have lower murder rates than places with it; but maybe if I dug deeper I'd find something more direct):
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-about-deterrence-and-d...
Perhaps someone who've looked into it more deeply can weigh in; all I'm saying is that it matters what the answer is.
(My own intuition would be that people aren't deterred by the death penalty very much, because they count on not getting caught, instead of multiplying the penalty by the probability or some such. But I could be wrong. Also I'm open to the opinion that you shouldn't do some things to people regardless of potential benefits to society, for instance I'm pretty sure torture would deter more than the death penalty because it's a very vivid picture a potential criminal would have in their mind, but it's great that nobody thinks we should go there. I just don't think that the capital punishment is "cruel and unusual" that way.)
[+] [-] SeanDav|10 years ago|reply
I am not sure if this applied in this case, but it may well have done.
[+] [-] atemerev|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tzs|10 years ago|reply
No on the second, for good reason. There wasn't anything in the article that indicated that the prosecutors did anything wrong. They took the evidence they were given by the police, by informants, and by the crime lab employee and presented it at trial. That the police did not give the prosecutors all the evidence the police had, and that a forensic technique that was widely accepted at the time by the FBI and the state turned out to not be accurate is beyond the scope of the prosecutor's role.
[+] [-] walid|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vijayr|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flippyhead|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reddytowns|10 years ago|reply
You'll be more likely to duck things like this if no one knows your name.
[+] [-] ps4fanboy|10 years ago|reply