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The Courts Government News Science

FBI Doesn't Tell Courts About Bogus Evidence 250

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the appelate-court-living-in-fear dept.
dprovine writes "According to a joint investigation by The Washington Post and 60 Minutes, a forensic test used by the FBI for decades is known to be invalid. The National Academy of Science issued a report in 2004 that FBI investigators had given "problematic" testimony to juries. The FBI later stopped using "bullet lead analysis", but sent a letter to law enforcement officials saying that they still fully supported the science behind it. Hundreds of criminal defendants — some already convicted in part on the testimony of FBI experts — were not informed about the problems with the evidence used against them in court."
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FBI Doesn't Tell Courts About Bogus Evidence More

FBI Doesn't Tell Courts About Bogus Evidence

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  • does the article state (Score:4, Informative)

    by zappepcs ( 820751 ) on Monday November 19, 2007 @02:58PM (#21411667) Journal
    why the evidence presented was not questioned as to its scientific veracity? From what I read and hear, there is valid reason for questioning every technology that is used against you, whether that is a radar gun, camera, eye witness, anything. Your lawyer should never accept anything as fact, and should attempt to prove in court that it is not valid. For instance, the breathalyzer tests have been shown to read higher than actual in more than 25% of tests. Can't remember the story lead or I'd link it.

    It's things like this that ensure that the party with the most money will win...

    • Re:does the article state (Score:4, Informative)

      by Derekloffin ( 741455 ) on Monday November 19, 2007 @03:06PM (#21411761)
      As good as some lawyers are, most are not experts in every scientific technique, and those that aren't frequently don't have the funds to hunt down and procure the testimony of someone who is both familiar with the technique and willing to talk about it's short comings in their client's favor.

    • Re:does the article state (Score:5, Informative)

      by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF ( 813746 ) on Monday November 19, 2007 @03:16PM (#21411897)

      Your lawyer should never accept anything as fact, and should attempt to prove in court that it is not valid.

      A lawyer I know once described public defenders as always falling into one of two categories:

      • Young, altruistic, energetic, and so inexperienced and incompetent they don't know how to file a motion, let alone properly get evidence examined.
      • Older guys, there for a paycheck, who do as little as possible, even choosing unnecessary plea bargains just so they have less paperwork to do.

      I'd like to think he's being cynical, but I haven't seen much evidence that contradicts his claim. I saw a true crime special the other day about a woman who spent four years in jail after being convicted of murder. The supposed method was LSD poisoning, even though there has never been a human fatality attributed directly to LSD. The test they used to convict her was a preliminary test that was only supposed to show if there was reason to do the more expensive test. The test was run on tissue from a exhumed cadaver, when the test was only useful applied to fresh urine from a living person. The state did perform the follow up test, but it showed up as negative, so they pretended they had not performed it. Somehow, her defendant did not question any of this evidence, at all despite it being scientifically unsound to pretty much any pathologist you could consult. That lawyer is still a practicing public defender.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by nomadic ( 141991 )
        Older guys, there for a paycheck, who do as little as possible, even choosing unnecessary plea bargains just so they have less paperwork to do.

        The thing is, around here if a public defender just wants a paycheck they're a lot better off going into private practice, and a few years in the PD's office looks good on your resume.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by PitaBred ( 632671 )
          Yeah, they'd be better off. But that would take ambition and competence. There are a LOT of people who are perfectly comfortable (if not happy) to just work only within what they know, and keep things from changing as much as possible. Change is bad. The old guys would stay there as long as they knew they'd get their regular pay increases, and know exactly what's expected of them, and don't have to do much work.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by $RANDOMLUSER ( 804576 )

        • Young, altruistic, energetic, and so inexperienced and incompetent they don't know how to file a motion, let alone properly get evidence examined.
        • Older guys, there for a paycheck, who do as little as possible, even choosing unnecessary plea bargains just so they have less paperwork to do.
        Sounds like a lot of programmers (and project managers) I know, too.
      • Around here the public defenders are all in private practice and do a rotation of so many cases depending on their specialty or line of practice.

        You are just as likely to get the same guy you would have hired as your lawyer, for a public defender. OF course this goes along the lines of who is accepting cases at the time too. I don't know if it is a better system or not. I think there is a flat fee for each case though. I'm not sure if the city/county/state picks up tabs for stuff like expert witnesses thoug

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by lucifuge31337 ( 529072 )
        The state did perform the follow up test, but it showed up as negative, so they pretended they had not performed it.

        Not disputing anything at all that you said, but if that is the case, it's highly illegal and grounds for disbarment of the prosecutor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exculpatory_evidence [wikipedia.org]

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF ( 813746 )

          That was the grounds for the retrial, but according to the report, the original prosecutor had been dead several years and the original defender refused interviews.

    • At a time when the prosecution can purchase [reason.com] expert testimony in their favor, it can be quite difficult for the defense to challenge the science behind the evidence.

    • Scientific testing is required to be peer reviewed and 'generally accepted as valid'. However, sometimes things get peer reviewed and approved which are then shown to be inaccurate. Sometimes they just get dumped into play regardless of the rules..

      Bullet Lead analysis is accurate to a point. The problem is that after decades of review, that point appears to be to vague to match the bullet with a specific batch of bullets. It might however be able to exclude bullets of similar caliber from different manufac

      • I think this problem became more troublesome over the years as manufacturing techniques and processes became more consistent.

        There was something else a few years back that they were claiming changed like this. Maybe it is the same thing, I don't remember what it was. It was that they used to be able to tell specific batch numbers from samples collect during manufacturing and it became more and more difficult as everything in the processes got better and the quality peaked or leveled out.

    • Re:does the article state (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Znork ( 31774 ) on Monday November 19, 2007 @03:53PM (#21412387)
      "the breathalyzer tests have been shown to read higher than actual in more than 25% of tests"

      Heck, DNA labs have had 10% error rates. There have been cases where they run first the DNA sample from the suspect, then run the comparison with the crimescene sample in the same batch, insufficiently cleaning equipment between so the suspects sample is actually transferred into the crimescene sample during the testing procedure. And labs that refuse to change such flawed procedures due to cost.

      There was a case in the UK where a man with advanced Parkinsons who couldnt drive and who could barely dress himself became a suspect in a burglary 200 miles away, after a DNA database search popped his name out as a match. He put in jail for several months, until his lawyer demanded a test on more loci and they noticed that, ooops, DNA isnt really that accurate, and seeing as human beings do not vary in size and form between flatworm through elephant, they can have quite a lot of matching loci without actually being the same person.

      Forensic science isnt questioned anywhere near as much as it should be. Which gives us idiotic ideas like fingerprint and dna databases that will be so diluted by irrelevant false positives they can only either waste resources and slow down police work or provide a whole host of scapegoats to throw in jail even when there's not the slightest chance they could actually be guilty.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by nasor ( 690345 )
      Sure, if you can afford to pay thousands of dollars to bring in your own qualified expert witness to testify that the police's forensic analysis was flawed. People with advanced degrees in forensics and/or analytical chemistry usually don't donate their time for free. If you're poor, good luck trying to concince someone to help you out of the goodness of their heart.

    • For instance, the breathalyzer tests have been shown to read higher than actual in more than 25% of tests.
      How did they test that, out of curiosity?
      • I'm trying hard to remember verbatim, but the gist is that the major manufacturer was sued and had to show their testing procedures, which when independently verified, showed that they did a decimal place typo and left it uncorrected in their math... leading to 25% rather than 2.5. A rather big difference. Again, don't quote me, I'm sure Google has it written down.

  • They were all guilty anyway! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by A beautiful mind ( 821714 ) on Monday November 19, 2007 @02:59PM (#21411677)
    They were all guilty! We know they were all guilty! How? We just know!

    Besides, would you let a killer/terrorist/robber free?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by eln ( 21727 )
      We know they were guilty because a jury said they were. These are very complex scientific arguments being presented. If you can't trust 12 people who were not smart enough to get out of jury duty to evaluate that evidence, then who can you trust?
      • The fact that a jury found somebody guilty, does not mean that that person is guilty. While I suspect that the error rate is rather low, the large number of cases means that a substantial number of convicts are innocent of at least one of the charges upon which they were convicted.

        The court system is all but paralyzed under the case burden they are suffering from. Consequentially, it has a very strong bias against reconsidering decided cases, even when evidence comes up that renders some of the evidence u

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by HiThere ( 15173 )
          I'd say the only thing wrong with your post is that you need to remove the word "typically", but that would be cynical. (OTOH, you did say "the court system", so I think that I'd be correct. Only some individuals within the system are concerned with justice.)

      • Re:They were all guilty anyway! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by magarity ( 164372 ) on Monday November 19, 2007 @04:06PM (#21412565)
        If you can't trust 12 people who were not smart enough to get out of jury duty to evaluate that evidence
         
        Such a finely developed sense of civic duty you have there. Jury duty may well be a pain in the arse but it's a hard won right for accused that people in trouble with the law in most other parts of the world would find an amazing gift.
      • Actually according to the Supreme Court's Daubert decision, it's judges who are asked to be the "gatekeepers" who exclude unreliable and irrelevant science.

        So don't blame the juries. If the science is really bad, it shouldn't be put in front of a jury in the first place. Blame the judges, the out of control prosecutors, and maybe the overworked public defenders.

      • This is a bullshit argument. Personally, I think it ranks with "but everyone else is doing it!" in shittiness. Did you ever think that some people actually consider jury duty to be a civic duty for which you ought to be thankful? Yes, it isn't the greatest system. But not participating - because that is what you're advocating - is just making it worse.

        Next thing you're gonna tell me is that no one should vote, because it is pointless. I'm sure you wouldn't mind to completely give up your right to vote and j

    • They were all guilty! We know they were all guilty! How? We just know!
      Let's be fair here. Even though the FBI may not be able to prove it beyond reasonable doubt in court, they may have a pretty damn good idea that the person is guilty. They may well see it as their duty to subvert the courts. I'm not saying by any means that I condone it, I just also don't condone making strawmen out of your opponents. It tends to weaken your side of the argument

  • Polygraph (Score:2, Insightful)

    by king-manic ( 409855 )
    Lie Detectors are still occasionally used and can be presented in the US. The basic premise behind them is very tenuous but they continued to be used. What they tell you is several physical indicators of stress which may or may not correlate to telling a lie. Nobody has proved a strong correlation but they continues to be used in the US.

    • Re:Polygraph - inaccurate (Score:4, Informative)

      by eleuthero ( 812560 ) on Monday November 19, 2007 @03:08PM (#21411801)
      Lie detectors can be used in investigations but not in trials. There's a real, significant difference there.

      • Re:Polygraph - inaccurate (Score:4, Informative)

        by king-manic ( 409855 ) on Monday November 19, 2007 @03:23PM (#21411987)

        Lie detectors can be used in investigations but not in trials. There's a real, significant difference there.
        Actually, they aren't considered scientifically sound enough to be entered into most courts. certain US jurisdictions will allow it or a polygraph expert to testify or test to be conducted in front of juries. defense councils occasionally use them in jury cases. So no they aren't strictly forbidden and thats is one of the problems. As well their prominence in Media give them drastically undue weight to a jury of my peers.

  • Adversarial system (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheMeuge ( 645043 ) on Monday November 19, 2007 @03:02PM (#21411719)
    That's what happens when the judicial system is an adversarial system - the prosecutor feels that the defendant is his enemy, because his record is dependent on the percent of cases he closes with a conviction. At the same time there is little to no penalty for convictions that are later overturned, unless they happen to be VERY high profile cases. I am not saying that another system is better, but this problem is certainly inherent in the system.

    Other than dramatically increasing the responsibility for false convictions and penalties for malicious persecution, I am not sure that I can come up with any changes that would remedy the problem. People are intrinsically prone to corruption when they are going to benefit from it... and the "blue wall of silence" is just one example of what happens in fraternal orders endowed with power over people's lives.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by sm62704 ( 957197 )
      That's why former Illinois Governor George Ryan commuted all the death sentences in Illinois to life after DNA evidence proved that half the men on death row were innocent.

      Ryan himself is now in a Federal slammer.

      -mcgrew

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by samkass ( 174571 )
        That's why former Illinois Governor George Ryan commuted all the death sentences in Illinois to life after DNA evidence proved that half the men on death row were innocent.

        That's a nice gesture, but it's a lot harder for someone sentenced to life in prison to get people to review their case to overturn it. If I was innocent of a crime, I'm not sure if I'd rather be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, or death. The latter would get me a lot more people digging for my innocence.

    • That's what happens when the judicial system is an adversarial system - the prosecutor feels that the defendant is his enemy, because his record is dependent on the percent of cases he closes with a conviction. At the same time there is little to no penalty for convictions that are later overturned, unless they happen to be VERY high profile cases. I am not saying that another system is better, but this problem is certainly inherent in the system.

      I don't have the impression that the prosecutors knew the sci

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by CodeBuster ( 516420 )
        Perhaps, but they certainly had an incentive *not* to check too closely into the science either. First, science is not their area of expertise which brings up the second point. Why question potentially valuable scientific evidence that helps your (the prosecution's) case if the scientists say that it is good or at least do not say that it has any problems? As other posters have said, the penalty for getting your conviction overturned someday is small and unlikely while a failure to secure a conviction could
    • That's true, but it's much worse for countries with a cooperative justice system where the prosecutor's record is still dependent on the number of cases he closes.

      One thing that does bug me..

      Cases where convictions are overruled or the defendant is found not guilty.. They don't ever seem to get investigated further. It's like, if our guy doesn't get convicted, the crime didn't really happen, or something. At least, there isn't any media coverage. For instance, OJ was acquitted. Doesn't that mean the cas

      • For instance, OJ was acquitted. Doesn't that mean the case should still be open?

        Can't say for all but with OJ the police thought that they had the right guy. No one else existed whose level of suspicion in the double murder reached the level necessary to achieve a warrant for arrest. How are you going to hold a case open when you believe you have apprehended the correct person?

        As a side note, amazingly enough, after his acquittal and strong statements that the killer was still at large and needed to

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Toonol ( 1057698 )
        What are they supposed to do? The evidence points towards a suspect that the courts have found innocent. They can't just switch to the runner-up suspect, and they can't retry the same suspect. If some startling new evidence came up that pointed towards someone new, they'd probably press charges again... but I doubt that happens very often in real life.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Unlikely_Hero ( 900172 )
      Convict someone of a crime based on evidence you know to be faulty, you serve the sentence instead.

      You argued for the death penalty?...ohhh....bad move...
      • That sword (pun intended...see below) cuts both ways. Nobody would want to take on the job of prosecuting capital cases if they had to potentially stake their own life on the eventual outcome of the prosecution. In fact, there is an interesting historical precedent for just such problems involving private prosecutions (an option under the old English system of common law) where private citizens could initiate criminal proceedings (i.e. bring charges) against other private citizens in certain cases (i.e. the
        • Dueling is outlawed in the D.C. and all or nearly all states. If anyone knows a state where it isn't, I'd be interested in finding out.
        • You're quite right, no one would want to take on the job of prosecuting capital cases. But I'm not talking here about a prosecutor receiving the sentence they were going for if they lose the case, but if it's shown that they were prosecuting the case in a corrupt or illegal manner.
          For prosecutors using illegal or corrupt methods to push their cases, perhaps they should be put to death if they're willing to use immoral methods to sentence others to it. I say this and I'm against the death penalty; for those

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jmv ( 93421 )
        Actually, you should be convicted what what you really did. Someone spent 5 years in prison because of evidence you knew was faulty? You get convicted of sequestration. Someone learly got executed -- attempted murder. Someone got executed -- murder.

    • That's what happens when the judicial system is an adversarial system - the prosecutor feels that the defendant is his enemy, because his record is dependent on the percent of cases he closes with a conviction. At the same time there is little to no penalty for convictions that are later overturned, unless they happen to be VERY high profile cases. I am not saying that another system is better, but this problem is certainly inherent in the system.

      Perhaps a court-employed investigator, who's beholden to p

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by doggod ( 1081287 )
      I don't think the problem lies so much with the adversarial system as with another dynamic you mention -- the link between the political success of the District Attorney's office and its record of successful prosecutions. "Success" is thus not defined in parallel with "justice" but rather with court victories.

      I see a further linkage here that has to do with general function of the whole "public safety" establishment. Most people, I would guess the overwhelming majority, believe that the function of the
    • For one, enforce the law. If you know that the test you used is flawed, or even that a more reliable test counteracts what you are presenting, (as another poster mentioned) and you continue to present that as fact, it should be considered purgery and a felony.

      I constantly here stories like this about cops/prosecutors/whatever present what amounts to faked evidence in court, and none of them even get a slap on the wrist, even though the law calls for all of them to be in jail.

  • A true whistleblower (Score:5, Insightful)

    by InvisblePinkUnicorn ( 1126837 ) on Monday November 19, 2007 @03:03PM (#21411723)
    If this turns out to be true, which it seems to be, then William Tobin is a hero for revealing all of this. If I were in his position, working for so many years under the assumption that the FBI had actually done some tests to back up their original theory, I too would be pissed off that my spurious work had put so many people behind bars for decades (the article mentions someone behind bars for 22 years based solely on this evidence, who has maintained absolute innocence from day one).

  • Law Science (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Monday November 19, 2007 @03:08PM (#21411797) Homepage Journal
    One big problem with our justice system is that it's modeled on science, with evidence, hypothesis (of guilt), theory(of how the law was broken), and logical analysis of physical tests (and the weaker, but still analytical, cross examination of witnesses), all relying on the principle of falsifiability (if the hypothesis can be disproven, or alternatives can't be disproven, the hypothesis is rejected). But science really relies on reproducibility. Experiments are repeated several times and competitively criticized by others with experience repeating and reading the results. While criminal justice does a single "experiment", the alleged criminal act, and then analyzes it once. And then sometimes executes people.

  • Fingerprints? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Monday November 19, 2007 @03:08PM (#21411809) Journal
    I seem to recall reading that there is no scientific study validating the uniqueness of fingerprints. The primary defence for the use of fngerprints on Wikipedia appears to be that "they have been used for a long time", repeated in several forms.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by sm62704 ( 957197 )
      I seem to recall reading that there is no scientific study validating the uniqueness of fingerprints.

      Science doesn't prove, it disproves. You test your theory, and if it's not found to be invalid it's assumed to be valid, until further or different tests disprove it. If on the unlikley event the second law of thermodynamics is shown to be false, or false under some circumstances, it will be dropped or modified.

      When it is shown that two people can, indeed, have identical fingerprints then fingerprints can no
      • Even with a small recurrence of fingerprints, I'd think they could still be used in court -- just not as the only evidence. They would have to prove that one of the people with those prints had motive and was in the right place at the right time, or some other circumstantial evidence.

        With 4 (5?) billion people on this planet, I can't imagine that my index finger's pattern of swirls is absolutely unique -- especially when you start talking about partial prints. But, if I share fingerprints with some poor far

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by HiThere ( 15173 )
        Fingerprints have NEVER honestly been used as evidence. To use it honestly one would need to calculate the probability that the portion of a fingerprint that was found at the scene was only present on one person. This would NEVER yield a certainty.

        What is actually done is even less that that. They take the sample(s) and analyse them for a number of particular features, and then they look for someone with those particular features. An accurate comparison would require that after they select a suspect, th

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Dan Ost ( 415913 )
      There is no physical law that dictates that fingerprints are unique, but there is an enormous amount of statistical evidence to that effect. Of course, this is dependent on the fact that you've got a good print for comparison. Smudged prints, partial prints, etc, all significantly weaken the statistical case for fingerprint evidence.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Toonol ( 1057698 )
        Right. There's no reason that two fingerprints can't be alike, but if there was a significant rate of erroneous matches, it would have been noticed by now. If two matching fingerprints are found, and one of them is the victim's spouse, and the other is an old lady who lives a thousand miles away, I don't think it weakens the prosecutor's case much.

        What is more likely to cause error are matches from incomplete or smudged fingerprints that are presented as more reliable matches than they really are.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Badge 17 ( 613974 )
      There is a lot of research in both forensics and statistics about fingerprint uniqueness. A classic reference for calculating these numbers is Stoney and Thornton - Stoney, David A., and John I. Thornton. 1986. A critical analysis of quantitative fingerprint individuality models. Journal of Forensic Sciences 31 (4): 1187-1216.

      Fingerprint identification is done by comparing the location and orientation of "minutiae," small defects in a fingerprint pattern. Typically, it takes around 12 minutiae to be consi

  • Update from the first link (Score:5, Informative)

    by bi_boy ( 630968 ) on Monday November 19, 2007 @03:10PM (#21411829)

    On Friday, the FBI agreed. It acknowledged that it had made mistakes in handling bullet lead testimony and should have done more to alert defendants and the courts. As a result of the 60 Minutes-Washington Post investigation, the bureau said it will identify, review and release all of the pertinent cases, and notify prosecutors about cases in which faulty testimony was given.

    The FBI also says it will begin monitoring the testimony of all lab experts to make sure it is based on sound scientific principles. FBI Assistant Director John Miller said, "We are going to the entire distance to see that justice is now served."

    Evidence Of Injustice: FBI's Bullet Lead Analysis Used Flawed Science To Convict Hundreds Of Defendants [cbsnews.com]
  • to realize the bullet evidence is not the proverbial "Hand in the cookie jar". Police generally have to have a pretty good reason to detain you for something since this was pre-patriot act. Unless someone goes back over the case history and looks at the evidence this one piece may not have even been required to seal a conviction is was just the cherry on top.

  • Stonewalling by the FBI (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Henry Pate ( 523798 ) on Monday November 19, 2007 @03:26PM (#21412045) Homepage Journal
    The article says the National Academy of Sciences started the study in 2002, and it took 18 months, to give them the benefit of the doubt let's say that they finished the study in 2004 and found that the method was severely flawed. Then they waited an entire year to stop using the technique and the report they issued downplayed the severity of the issue saying that they still stood behind the science, even when they knew it could have been wrong. Nobody in the FBI or the Justice Department tried to identify the hundreds of cases that used their analysis, nor did they notify the defendants, prosecutors or judges involved in these cases.

    What kind of twisted lies do you have to tell yourself to justify keeping possibly innocent people behind bars? They weren't just trying to ignore the science, they didn't notify defendants or their lawyers when they knew their time for appeal was almost up. Oh sorry, you appealed too late, no doubt the evidence against you is utter horseshit, but sorry, it's been a few years and everyone else has moved on, get used to jail.

    It took 60 Minutes to actually get some progress on this, I hope all the people involved in keeping evidence that could exonerate someone get a fair punishment.
  • Is anyone actually surprised here? I am of the opinion that any legal system begins serving those who make it up rather quickly. The US Legal system serves overzealous prosecutors over all others and seems to be on a trend to increase this.
  • To be fair. the legal system in the US is at best a compromise; a system designed to be as fair as possible and lead mostly correct convictions. Unfortunately, it is lacking in a lot of places, and frankly, I'm not really sure how I'd go about improving it. But for starters, having a lawyer disbarred because he violated client-lawyer privilege after his client was dead is insane. Especially when the privilege required the man to withhold crucial testimony that proved another man's innocence.

    From the CBS art

    • While the bullet lead analysis story is indeed big news, the number of people that are unjustly behind bars because of it can likely be counted on one hand.

      Where are you getting that idea? The 60 Minutes story said that of 300 cases involving bullet-lead-analysis that 60 Minutes looked at, something like 18 hinged on that analysis. And they said that the 300 cases were a fraction of the total, since the FBI was unwilling to release the list of cases they had provided the analysis for. However:

      As a result

      • Well, the article said that the FBI had done analysis on 2500 cases... So just extrapolating, 2500/300*18 means that something like 150 people were convicted largely because of this evidence. Obviously, 150 >5, but my reasoning was more so that of those 150 the majority of them actually committed the crimes they're in jail for. So, my "likely to be counted on one hand" comment was a bit sensationalistic, yes, but compared to the number of people we have in jail at the moment (1.5->2 million depending

  • How can I ever avoid reasonable doubt now? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nasor ( 690345 ) on Monday November 19, 2007 @03:41PM (#21412225)
    As a jurror, how the hell am I supposed to not have "reasonable doubt" about anything that's introduced as evidence in a trial? It's already very well-established that eye-witness identification has horrible reliability. Now apparently I shouldn't even take the reliability of forensic evidence forgranted. What's left? If the prosecution presents damning forensic evidence and the defense lawyer simply says "Yeah, but since it's been proven that even established forensic tests aren't necessarily reliable, why should anyone believe you?" how am I supposed to not have reasonable doubt about the forensic evidence now?

    • Re:How can I ever avoid reasonable doubt now? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by twifosp ( 532320 ) on Monday November 19, 2007 @04:07PM (#21412579)
      I was going to mod you up but will reply instead:

      Yeah, but since it's been proven that even established forensic tests aren't necessarily reliable, why should anyone believe you?" how am I supposed to not have reasonable doubt about the forensic evidence now?

      You have nothing to worry about. That type of thinking (logicical) will exclude you from ever being selected as a juror. Unless you fiegn complete ignorance in the selection process, that is.

      That is what I see as the single biggest flaw with the American legal system. We are supposed to be judged by our peers, but I wouldn't consider any modern jury to be made up of my peers. They are selected based on their ignorance of the topic involved. Prosecutors want blank slates to trick with fancy sounding testimony. Defenders want considerate and empathetic people. In any case involving race, both sides will seek to fill a quota of a certain demographic.

      Judged by your peers? Not very likely.

    • Re:How can I ever avoid reasonable doubt now? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by RWarrior(fobw) ( 448405 ) * on Monday November 19, 2007 @04:17PM (#21412691)
      It's obvious you've never been on a jury. You're too smart. [findarticles.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ignavus ( 213578 )
      And even confessions are unreliable.

      So the jury falls back on that old tried and true method ... does the defendant *look* guilty?

      I just wonder, though, whether it is statistically more accurate than tossing a coin.

      In the olden days it was easier - if the police charged you, you were obviously guilty. But then we discovered that the police were not entirely reliable. Occasionally, even, they were the criminals.

      Maybe universal CCTV is the answer. If your entire life is recorded, then criminal charges will be

      • Re:How can I ever avoid reasonable doubt now? (Score:5, Informative)

        by twifosp ( 532320 ) on Monday November 19, 2007 @06:17PM (#21414101)

        Maybe universal CCTV is the answer. If your entire life is recorded, then criminal charges will be easier to determine.

        Given the context of your post (which I did not quote) I realize this statement was probably tongue in cheek, but I felt the need to respond anyway.

        CCTV systems are used to investigate crimes. But they rarely actually catch the criminal act themselves. Instead it's used to connect people, places, and times. Would you like to be linked to criminal activity just because you happened to be in two wrong places at the wrong times? If a linked crime happens in 2 areas, the probability goes up that all the people recorded in that area are suspects. This also increases your probability to be charged with a crime you did not convict. Even if you are acquitted in the end, the mere charge of a crime in today's societies comes with negative consequences. Even if you are proven innocent, you suffer reputation damages, probably wife and kids, and most assuredly your job.

  • A leading pathologist had his cases reviewed
    and numerous convictions brought back to the
    attention of the courts...

    --dave

  • DNA (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF ( 813746 ) on Monday November 19, 2007 @04:01PM (#21412503)

    On a related note, if you ever go to trial and DNA matching is used, question the methodology and get the source to the software used. A friend of mine works at a company that makes DNA comparison devices and says they make some really, really, really questionable choices in their matching algorithms. Like if the DNA strand shows a sequence that is rare in the common populace (rarer than an arbitrarily chosen value) the algorithm assumes it is an error an substitutes the most common sequence for purposes of matching. He says it sometimes keeps him up at night worrying about who is going to jail.

  • Big surprise! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Master of Transhuman ( 597628 ) on Monday November 19, 2007 @04:07PM (#21412583) Homepage
    Anybody remember the big deal over the manipulated crime lab results a few years back?

    The FBI's function has always been since Day One to put people in jail without regard to guilt or innocence.

    Does anybody really believe that J. Edgar Hoover ever gave a damn about "evidence"?

    There's a reason that the rule for talking to the FBI is: You say "On advice of attorney I have nothing to say to the FBI." That's it. You never say anything else, because they WILL use it to build a case against you even if you have done nothing.

    Ask that guy Jewel from the Atlanta bombing case. Ask the guy suspected in the anthrax case. Ask thousands of people in Federal prison.

    The FBI is the equivalent of the Gestapo except they have slicker methods and better PR thanks to the TV shows.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Attila Dimedici ( 1036002 )
      Actually, if I recall correctly, Richard Jewel only had problems because the news media figured out that he was being investigated by the FBI. The news media assumed that since he was a suspect he must be guilty. The FBI was doing its job, the media made his life hell. The FBI did overstep itself after the media jumped all over the case because they were afraid of evidence being destroyed. However, what went wrong in the Richard Jewel case was the media.
      And if you think the FBI is the equivalent of the Ge

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by rjh ( 40933 )
      This is not actually good advice. When interviewed by federal agents, the proper response is I'd love to help, but I need to talk to my attorney first. I'll have him get in touch with you.

      If you express an unwillingness to talk to the agents, that can be used to support warrants against you, on the grounds that it's indicative of some sort of suspicious behavior. If you express a willingness to talk but you assert your right to counsel before any conversation, they can't use that to support a warrant.

      The
  • It's what you know that ain't so.
    I love that saying....

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