Police, Prosecutors Used Junk Science To Decide 911 Callers Were Liars (propublica.org) 95
An anonymous reader shares a report: Tracy Harpster, a deputy police chief from suburban Dayton, Ohio, was hunting for praise. He had a business to promote: a miracle method to determine when 911 callers are actually guilty of the crimes they are reporting. "I know what a guilty father, mother or boyfriend sounds like," he once said. Harpster tells police and prosecutors around the country that they can do the same. Such linguistic detection is possible, he claims, if you know how to analyze callers' speech patterns -- their tone of voice, their pauses, their word choice, even their grammar. Stripped of its context, a misplaced word as innocuous as "hi" or "please" or "somebody" can reveal a murderer on the phone. So far, researchers who have tried to corroborate Harpster's claims have failed. The experts most familiar with his work warn that it shouldn't be used to lock people up. Prosecutors know it's junk science too. But that hasn't stopped some from promoting his methods and even deploying 911 call analysis in court to win convictions.
[...] Junk science in the justice system is nothing new. But unvarnished correspondence about how prosecutors wield it is hard to come by. It can be next to impossible to see how law enforcement -- in league with paid, self-styled "experts" -- spreads new, often unproven methods. The system is at its most opaque when prosecutors know evidence is unfit for court but choose to game the rules, hoping judges and juries will believe it and vote to convict. People like Faria, defense lawyers and sometimes even the judges are blindsided. "I don't want what happened to me to happen to anyone else," Faria told me. Askey, who now goes by Leah Chaney and is no longer a prosecutor, did not answer questions about the case other than to say she didn't know about Harpster's work until after Faria's first trial. She has denied allegations of misconduct in other media interviews.
[...] Junk science in the justice system is nothing new. But unvarnished correspondence about how prosecutors wield it is hard to come by. It can be next to impossible to see how law enforcement -- in league with paid, self-styled "experts" -- spreads new, often unproven methods. The system is at its most opaque when prosecutors know evidence is unfit for court but choose to game the rules, hoping judges and juries will believe it and vote to convict. People like Faria, defense lawyers and sometimes even the judges are blindsided. "I don't want what happened to me to happen to anyone else," Faria told me. Askey, who now goes by Leah Chaney and is no longer a prosecutor, did not answer questions about the case other than to say she didn't know about Harpster's work until after Faria's first trial. She has denied allegations of misconduct in other media interviews.
source code or you must aquit! (Score:5, Funny)
source code or you must aquit!
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Mod parent Funny and not a bad FP.
On the story, it is an interesting problem. Though it's hard for me to imagine a case where the criminal would make the 911 call, in the case where such a thing does happen then it might have some unusual and distinctive characteristics, either for the crime or the criminal. I've probably read too many mysteries where the killer creates an alibi for the actual time of death?
Re:source code or you must aquit! (Score:5, Informative)
Law enforcement is a job, and not a particularly easy one, that is in need to serious reform in America
Trying to arrest or ignore people who call 911 is NOT the way to do it
Police departments make it harder on themselves by intentionally hiring dumb people [go.com], giving them a handgun as their primary tool and training them to empty their magazine at anything that makes them feel threatened. [harvard.edu]
Nine times out of ten, bringing in the police just makes a situation worse, and NOW they want to take shortcuts when people are willing to call 911 for help?
I have one thing to say, FUCK THE POLICE [youtube.com]
Re:source code or you must aquit! (Score:4, Insightful)
>>And the average man on the street has a right to be armed and use deadly force if they feel threatened.
You are living in an alternate reality if you think that "stand your ground" [efsgv.org] laws are either universal or beneficial
If anything, the current American masturbatory fascination with guns and intentional ignorance of the purpose of the 2nd Amendment only make the job of law enforcement harder
>>We train our police officers NOT to shoot.
BULLSHIT [theatlantic.com]
The training that police departments have relied on for decade starts with "we are going to show you have to come home safely to your family" and goes from there to train officers to be hyper-vigilant and quick to unload. The rare body camera footage when a officer gets shot, are used to drive this training point home, even though they are rare occurrences.
Re:source code or you must aquit! (Score:5, Insightful)
Nonsense. The average man on the street knows he could face prosecution if he misjudges when to shoot. The cop knows prosecutors and judges will bend over backwards to not put him on trial for anything short of a planned execution.
The cops are trained to shoot first, then think. Combat troops are more restrained.
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The cops are trained to shoot first, then think.
They most certainly are not.
Yeah, they're just trained to shoot first.
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Yeah, they're just trained to shoot first.
They most certainly are not.
Re: source code or you must aquit! (Score:1)
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Here are examples drawn from actual training:
Officers aren’t just told about the risks they face. They are shown painfully vivid, heart-wrenching dash-cam footage of officers being beaten, disarmed, or gunned down after a moment of inattention or hesitation. They are told that the primary culprit isn’t the felon on the video, it is the officer’s lack of vigilance. And as they listen to the fallen officer’s last, desperate radio calls for help, every cop in the room is thinking exactl
Re: source code or you must aquit! (Score:3)
Criminals need to understand this and realize that if they make threats against any random person sufficient to make that person fear for their life, they could get shot.
If we're not there today, we're never getting there.
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Mostly disagreement because I think there are a lot of good ones out there. But maybe I've just been lucky that my encounters with police have been mostly harmless. There was one time when I lost some money, but I can argue it was my fault, even for the stop and frisk that triggered it.
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No, but it's a sordid way to ask with an even more sordid solution approach so I'll reserve the details. Sounds like you're trying to create a straw man and you probably want me to loan you a lighter, too. And this thread started as a joke?
So in conclusion, if Slashdot had a convenient way to annotate reputations, I'd already be willing to annotate yours as worth less of my time.
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Though it's hard for me to imagine a case where the criminal would make the 911 call
"They were like that when I found them" is pretty common actually.
Re: source code or you must aquit! (Score:1)
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Right and wouldnâ(TM)t the guilty and the innocent say that? How does this âoehelpâ?
They claim to magically be able to tell the difference. I think that was the whole point.
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Seems to me like they don't need much magic. The circumstances are going to be overwhelming if the police show up within any reasonable amount of time. First and most obvious question: "So how do you suppose the murderer got away without your noticing?" Or maybe "Do you suppose the murderer waited for you to arrive before killing?"
However, I think the premise seems plausible. There should be detectable differences between the two populations of witnesses who were completely surprised by finding the bodies a
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The circumstances are going to be overwhelming if the police show up within any reasonable amount of time. First and most obvious question: "So how do you suppose the murderer got away without your noticing?" Or maybe "Do you suppose the murderer waited for you to arrive before killing?"
Well you don't call right after killing them, duh. The longer you can plausibly wait the better. More like kill your wife in the morning, go to work, and then call 911 when you get home is the sort of thing I think they are discussing here.
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That goes back to my original comment about trying to get an alibi for the time of death. If the criminal was supposed to be with the victim when the victim died, then it doesn't do much good to wait before reporting it. But I acknowledge that there are contexts where a killer will have to discover the body. However that goes back to an earlier comment in some other branch of this discussion about the two populations (unsurprised killers and surprised discoverers of bodies) that should have distinguishing c
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"Though it's hard for me to imagine a case where the criminal would make the 911 call,"
Every case where people kill their wife and 'discover' them when coming home did exactly that.
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You seem to be looking for a straw man. Popular hobby around here.
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Sort of this. Why can't a judge, or better yet a member of the jury, ask questions of counsel when they submit evidence at a trial? Like what is the statistical basis of the particular test you relied upon for your evidence?
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I would suspect that the problem is similar to talking to conspiracy nuts. To argue from a position of authority is much harder than just making up sciencey sounding woo-woo.
The judge or the juror would have to understand the subject (and probably many others). The woo-woo merchant just has to sound convincing (and is probably being pushed as an expert).
Re: source code or you must aquit! (Score:2)
If you are sitting on a jury and you don't understand the evidence being presented by the prosecution, it's your responsibility to ignore that evidence.
Ironic (Score:5, Insightful)
Actual lying 911 callers spieling highly fanciful tales to get the police to SWAT innocent people got believed.
The money quote was left out of the summary (Score:5, Informative)
Clearly prosecutorial misconduct. No wonder she changed her name:
In 2016, Missouri prosecutor Leah Askey wrote Harpster an effusive email, bluntly detailing how she skirted legal rules to exploit his methods against unwitting defendants.
“Of course this line of research is not ‘recognized’ as a science in our state,” Askey wrote, explaining that she had sidestepped hearings that would have been required to assess the method’s legitimacy. She said she disguised 911 call analysis in court by “getting creative without calling it ‘science.’”
“I was confident that if a jury could hear this information and this research,” she added, “they would be as convinced as I was of the defendant's guilt.”
What Askey didn’t say in her endorsement was this: She had once tried using Harpster’s methods against Russ Faria, a man wrongfully convicted of killing his wife. At trial, Askey played a recording of Faria’s frantic 911 call for the jury and put a dispatch supervisor on the stand to testify that it sounded staged. Lawyers objected but the judge let the testimony in. Faria was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
After he successfully appealed, Askey prosecuted him again — and again called the supervisor to testify about all the reasons she thought Faria was guilty based on his word choice and demeanor during the 911 call. It was Harpster’s “analytical class,” the supervisor said, that taught her “to evaluate a call to see what the outcome would be.”
This judge wouldn’t allow her to continue and cut the testimony short. Faria was acquitted. He’d spent three and a half years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit.
Remember, boys and girls, when talking to the cops, you have zero need to say anything except "am I free to go now?". Just shut your mouth. Nothing you say can be used to help you, anything you say can be used against you.
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Re: The money quote was left out of the summary (Score:1)
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Re:The money quote was left out of the summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, don't forget that police are allowed to lie to you. So, no matter what *they* say, it should be assumed that they are just trying to make you incriminate yourself.
How many stories of wrongfully convicted people start with the words, "I knew that I was innocent, so I cooperated with the police..."?
Re: The money quote was left out of the summary (Score:1)
The goal is to establish probable cause (Score:5, Insightful)
Once again this is why the yardstick to the side on prison terms should never be how much punishment you think someone deserves but instead whether or not they're an immediate threat to the community. And that in order to maintain someone in prison you should have to show that person is an immediate threat to the community if it released.
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Once again this is why the yardstick to the side on prison terms should never be how much punishment you think someone deserves but instead whether or not they're an immediate threat to the community. And that in order to maintain someone in prison you should have to show that person is an immediate threat to the community if it released.
Too many in this country are obsessed with puritanical notions of punishing evil doers to ever consider what your describe. For instance, we spend billions on incarcerating an insane portion of our population but heaven forbid we spend any money setting them up so they don't reoffend (US has one of the highest rates of recidivism in the world at 44% of freed prisoners reoffending in their first year https://worldpopulationreview.... [worldpopul...review.com] ). That would save money in the long run and make society safer but evil wo
Re:The goal is to establish probable cause (Score:4, Interesting)
Too many in this country are obsessed with puritanical notions of punishing evil doers to ever consider what your describe. For instance, we spend billions on incarcerating an insane portion of our population but heaven forbid we spend any money setting them up so they don't reoffend...
I'm pretty sure a lot of those 'puritanical notions' merely serve as cover for the huge financial incentives to incarcerate people [prisonpolicy.org].
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Sure, prison unions and the like have financial incentives to encourage more prisons but I'm talking about large bodies of the general public who are actually voting against their own fiscal best interests by voting against candidates who are in favor of rehabilitation while labeling them "soft on crime".
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Part of this is how police and prosecutors view "justice" in America. It's drilled into them from the word go that it's all about making sure $SOMEONE pays the price for whatever the crime is. It doesn't matter if it's the right person. Convictions is the only stat that matters to them. If justice, real justice, is served, it's at best an accident, at worst (depending on the prosecutor and police involved) an aberration that means they sorta/kinda did their actual jobs for a change. If only "Defund the Poli
Re:The goal is to establish probable cause (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's actually even worse. Actual combat troops are trained to show more restraint than police. They go into the city like they IMAGINE combat troops go on the battlefield.
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There've been a few police stations that hired mercenaries to train their "frontliners." So, it's hired guns training the people that should be interfacing with the public day to day and drilling them into the idea that every person you meet is an enemy combatant. And then we wonder why our police see us all as the enemy first and foremost.
This isn't about justice (Score:2)
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And because of how jury trials work and never knowing exactly what a jury is going to do innocent people will often plea bargain and do a few years in jail rather than risk the heavily inflated sentences from decades of political fear-mongering that might put them away for 20 or 30 years.
The gap between the plea bargain and the jury sentence probably shouldn't be so large, but in general plea deals are a good thing. It means that the person does a full confession and accepts the punishment, rather than going through the expense (and randomness) of a trial.
Once again this is why the yardstick to the side on prison terms should never be how much punishment you think someone deserves but instead whether or not they're an immediate threat to the community. And that in order to maintain someone in prison you should have to show that person is an immediate threat to the community if it released.
There's three reasons for imprisonment, protect the community, rehabilitate the offender, and punish the wrongdoer.
I know people who've been the victims of serious crimes, and saying that punishment shouldn't be part of the equation is usu
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No. The state should need to PROVE ITS FUCKING CASE to a judge and/or jury. Having careerist filth in law enforcement and scum in the DA's office be able to threaten people with what amounts to a life sentence if they don't roll over and confess to something that may have not even done is not a good thing. "Full confession and accepts the punishment" doesn't mean someone is guilty -- it just means that they're terrified of being locked up for decades. Welcome to the so-called "Land of the Free."
And no,
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No. The state should need to PROVE ITS FUCKING CASE to a judge and/or jury.
That seems to be a lot of work if the person is willing to confess.
Remember, Law & Order is a TV show and is far from typical. Most often, once an arrest is made it's completely obvious that a crime was committed and who committed it.
Having careerist filth in law enforcement and scum in the DA's office be able to threaten people with what amounts to a life sentence if they don't roll over and confess to something that may have not even done is not a good thing. "Full confession and accepts the punishment" doesn't mean someone is guilty -- it just means that they're terrified of being locked up for decades.
I definitely agree that overcharging is an issue and that it can lead to false confessions.
Welcome to the so-called "Land of the Free."
And no, expense shouldn't be the primary consideration here.
It isn't, but if everyone agrees on who committed the crime then what's the trial for?
Why should someone found (say) in possession of a small quantity of opiates for personal use be prosecuted at all? Offer them treatment or leave them the fuck alone. Both are cheaper than paying to jail them at $5000+ per month.
Generally agreed, though at a certain point of addiction I think mandatory treatment is in their
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1. Throwing someone in a cage for a period of years to decades or judicially murdering them SHOULD be a lot of work. Both for moral reasons and fiscal ones (mass incarceration is quite expensive).
2. The purpose of a trial is to establish that the confession is in keeping with actual facts. Requiring a trial would reduce the incentive for those in authority to coerce confessions, either by physical force or by threats of excessively long sentences.
3. I would further suggest that cases with coerced confe
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> I think mandatory treatment is in their best interest.
Not sure what you mean by treatment? Wouldn't it need to work before it can be called?
There's also the severe problem of probability of accusation, severity of prosecution, and judicial outcomes, inversely correlating with economic means.
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> I think mandatory treatment is in their best interest.
Not sure what you mean by treatment? Wouldn't it need to work before it can be called?
There's also the severe problem of probability of accusation, severity of prosecution, and judicial outcomes, inversely correlating with economic means.
I'm not an expert in drug treatment, but there's more than enough people who have had their lives destroyed by addiction that at a certain point you have to help them whether they want it or not.
I'd be perfectly happy with it being a non-criminal process. I think that's effectively the system that rich & famous folks have now, when it's a manageable habit no one cares, when it gets out of control they start going to rehab, but the legal system rarely comes into play.
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Portugal decriminalized all drugs, BUT if a person becomes a public nuisance they can be brought before a tribunal that can set mandatory treatment for them
In the long run, lifelong addicts receive treatment and the creation of new addicts is reduced significantly because the existing addicts do not have to rely on selling drugs to new addicts to feed their addiction
Portugal’s law removed incarceration, but people caught possessing or using illicit drugs may be penalized by regional panels made up of [nytimes.com]
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[nytimes.com]
"A lot of the benefits over the years from Portugal’s policy shift have come not from decriminalization per se, but in the expansion of substance-use disorder treatment. Such a move might bring the most tangible benefit to the United States. After decriminalization, the number of people in Portugal receiving drug addiction treatment rose ... as of 2008, three-quarters of those with opioid use disorder were receiving medication-assisted treatment. Though that’s considered the best a
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> but there's more than enough people who have had their lives destroyed by addiction that at a certain point you have to help them whether they want it or not.
Do you include offering them free board, drugs and patient directed therapy?
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Re: The goal is to establish probable cause (Score:1)
Way more people have had their lives destroyed by junk processed food, sedentary lifestyle, nicotine, alcohol & excessive TV/video games/phone use.
They are all addictions so I would like to put 60% of Americans under mandatory "treatment", starting with you.
Non criminal process i assure you.
Quite reasonable I would say. Though I am not an expert on anything.
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Way more people have had their lives destroyed by junk processed food, sedentary lifestyle, nicotine, alcohol & excessive TV/video games/phone use.
They are all addictions so I would like to put 60% of Americans under mandatory "treatment", starting with you.
Non criminal process i assure you.
Quite reasonable I would say. Though I am not an expert on anything.
a) Those are different classes of addiction, problems yes, but not the kind that need mandatory treatment [cnn.com].
b) I'm not American.
Re: The goal is to establish probable cause (Score:1)
If you know youâ(TM)re innocent and your lawyer tells you to accept a plea deal, get a better lawyer. Most plea deals are because all parties know âsomethingâ(TM) happened but probably cannot prove it to the extent necessary in a court of law. There is generally some evidence that shows your involvement. There are probably some cases you can find, but the research methodology is generally very flawed to come to a conclusion that it happens âa lotâ(TM).
Most research in real world cas
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5% is too high when we're talking about people's freedom. Also, since most plea deals don't result in a life sentence or the death penalty, the amount of people who got railroaded into a plea deal, then asking to be exonerated, may be vanishingly small. They just accept their fate, get out of their cage eventually, and move on. Cost of doing business in a carceral shithole like the USA.
The proper way to test this would be to take a RANDOM sample of plea deals and consider the actual evidence, whether or
Re: The goal is to establish probable cause (Score:2)
Either the defendant is innocent, and they are just trying to avoid that so-called "randomness", or the defendant is guilty and you're allowing them to serve less time.
How is it a social good to give criminals light sentences and send innocent people to prison?
Instinct is not a good argument (Score:1)
A variety of human instincts have proved mal-adaptive as we have moved from small groups of creatures trying to survive in a hostile natural environment to large groups trying to co-exist peacefully in technically and socially more advanced society.
People instinctively fear "the other".
People are instinctively violent towards *perceived* threats.
Greed is largely mal-adaptive in our modern social environment.
Instinctiveness is not a sufficient argument where life and liberty are concerned.
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A variety of human instincts have proved mal-adaptive as we have moved from small groups of creatures trying to survive in a hostile natural environment to large groups trying to co-exist peacefully in technically and socially more advanced society.
People instinctively fear "the other".
Ever heard of "stranger danger"? Being cautious around strangers is generally wise, as is being cautious around different cultures where you don't know the rules. It can go too far, but the basic instinct still applies.
People are instinctively violent towards *perceived* threats.
I'd agree we're too ready to use physical violence against threats. Since ancestral times threats have become more social (and less physical) and the advent of law enforcement makes personal use of force less useful.
Greed is largely mal-adaptive in our modern social environment.
Ancestral environments were typically communal, greed is a product of modern
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Once again this is why the yardstick to the side on prison terms should never be how much punishment you think someone deserves but instead whether or not they're an immediate threat to the community. And that in order to maintain someone in prison you should have to show that person is an immediate threat to the community if it released.
Look at it another way, if Harvey Weinstein agreed to chemical castration, and it could be agreed that he was at zero risk to re-offend, do you think he should be released?
If he agreed to this procedure the moment women started accusing him do you think he should never have been put in jail in the first place?
Cops where I live (Score:5, Insightful)
Cops where I live still use the polygraph thinking it's a legitimate lie detector instead of a useful intimidation tool for interrogation. I've been in the room while they were talking about it as I was working on their computers.
It's embarrassing, and it's ethically criminal.
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It's been well known for quite some time that polygraphs are not accurate lie detectors. If they're not being unethical then they're being incompetent.
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So... here's a fun thing. 'Precrime' can to some degree actually be done with data mining.
Most crime is committed by repeat offenders, and the factors creating opportunities for crime aren't exactly unknown... and a big one is "where does the nearest known offender live?"
You're not going to arrest anyone before they commit a crime, but a decent crime analyst backed by a decently constructed database full of validated information can tell you where police visibility should be raised to reduce crimes of oppo
Re: Cops where I live (Score:1)
While such predictive systems are technically very attractive and challenging to techies, the problem will be apparent if you consider that we could very well do such a system for say elections - who will win, Trump or Biden, by data mining & predicting all voters behavior; or to remove all the long drawn exams or other evaluation process for colleges & employment - let the system just predict who will get what score or fit into what job position; no more dating apps and long courtship- system can
Re: Cops where I live (Score:1)
Itâ(TM)s not accurate, but it gives people the feeling that it is and people that are involved in crimes may think it is and say things they shouldnâ(TM)t say.
Again, donâ(TM)t talk to the police. You donâ(TM)t have to agree to a police polygraph test, ever, you can never prove your innocence, you can only prove your guilt.
Legal bias towards "experise" (Score:5, Informative)
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Another big advantage is that so many jurors just assume a-priori that the police and prosecutors have done all the necessary work. In other words, they're thinking "if he wasn't guilty why would they have arrested him?" And indeed in the only trial I was on I heard essentially that from another juror. 11 to 1 and he refused to believe that there was insufficient evidence.
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I know someone that works (at least used to) as an 'expert' witness. Dude has Engineering and Philosophy degrees from a school you've heard of, from the early 70s. He charges crazy sums for his time and only produces his own opinion. Mostly, he likes to use big words and sound authoritative but he is a complete charlatan. He has never done anything remotely hard or interesting. I was never sure what formed the basis of his expertise other than some kind of word salad.
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Use an AI (Score:2)
Ohio (Score:2)
When it comes to psychology (Score:2, Insightful)
Having said that, interrogators are allowed to lie to suspects.
So if junk science gets them to confess ( and include checkable proof of their guilt ) that is fine.
As long as we are clear that it IS junk.
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That's not how it works. The junk is used to elicit any sort of confession and plea deal (mostly from suspects that would rather do a couple years than a couple decades). The veracity of the confession is never investigated.
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Well documented, not even controversial at this point.
A book on Junk Science (Score:5, Informative)
Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System By: M. Chris Fabricant
https://www.akashicbooks.com/c... [akashicbooks.com]
https://www.amazon.com/Science... [amazon.com]
"In 2012, the Innocence Project began searching for prisoners convicted by junk science, and three men, each convicted of capital murder, became M. Chris Fabricant's clients. Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System chronicles the fights to overturn their wrongful convictions and to end the use of the "science" that destroyed their lives. Weaving together courtroom battles from Mississippi to Texas to New York City and beyond, Fabricant takes the reader on a journey into the heart of a broken, racist system of justice and the role forensic science plays in maintaining the status quo."
"Junk Science is a book that should be on every true-crime reader's shelves. It is an eye-opening and infuriating tour through the failed idealism of forensic science as a discipline, how certain techniques like analyzing fibers and bite marks wilt under scrutiny, and how the criteria for 'experts' in a courtroom can be laughable at best and dangerous at worst, causing scores of innocent people to lose decades behind bars (or, in some heartbreaking instances, their lives.)."
The TLDR of the book is that the only science that stands up is DNA evidence
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DNA evidence is not as reliable as claimed. It easily gets contaminated. Accidentally or on purpose. And some of the matching is pretty rough in practice.
But there was a phase when DNA was just being introduced where old cases could be re-examined. The number of convicts *proved* innocent was enormous in the USA. Several states responded by destroying evidence before it could be DNA tested.
Police manipulation (Score:1)
The article should have gone into more detail, this is not only something not new, it's almost the entire basis on which people are charged. Polygraphs. Fingerprints. Ballistic testing. Even, in some cases, DNA testing results - using a partial DNA match for charges. It's all nonsense, and they'll do anything and everything from the point of initial contact to justify an arrest and prosecution. "Probable cause" no longer is probable cause, even, and any even "reasonable" presumption the police officer makes
More "Myth busters" (Score:3)
She didn't say the magic word proving she was a witness, she must be the criminal. Why do I think this is only used against males, or black US-ians.
Yes, I remember when inspection of any child's anus could prove child rape: The assumption is, such crimes are common. All 'miracle policing' suffers from the same problem: How do you prove they fail as often as they work? The answer is random sampling: Feed it data with known outcomes and see if it is correct.
In this case, SWATting phone calls are perfect samples.
Now it's time to denounce polygraphs: Myth Busters did such a demonstration but we need more television demonstrating it's junk science.
Easy Detection (Score:2)
if (automated_call_from_Apple_device) { false_alarm = true }
idiots and morons (Score:2)
Lawyers and judges have no background in science, and rely mainly on truthiness. Police are generally of low intelligence, and believe all sorts of nonsense.