'The Law Must Respond When Science Changes' (scientificamerican.com) 167
The clash between law's need for finality and science's evolving nature is creating serious justice problems, an opinion piece on Scientific American argued on Monday. Two recent cases highlight this: Robert Roberson faces execution based on now-discredited shaken baby syndrome science, while the Menendez brothers' life sentences are being questioned due to improved understanding of childhood trauma's effects on violence.
Scientific understanding in criminal justice has repeatedly proven wrong. Texas executed Cameron Todd Willingham in 2004 based on invalidated arson science. The FBI found errors in 90% of their reviewed hair analysis cases. Courts still accept bite mark evidence despite experts failing to distinguish human from animal bites. The legal system fails in two critical ways, the story argues: Judges don't properly screen out bad science despite their "gatekeeper" role established in Daubert v. Merrell Dow, and courts resist reopening cases when scientific understanding changes.
While some states like Texas and California have laws allowing appeals based on updated science, implementation remains weak. Roberson has spent 20 years on death row and the Menendez brothers 28 years in prison while courts drag their feet on reviewing their cases with current scientific knowledge. The piece argues that constitutional due process requires allowing convicts to challenge their cases when the science underlying their convictions proves faulty. The system can reform by enforcing stricter scientific evidence standards and creating clear paths to challenge convictions based on outdated science.
Scientific understanding in criminal justice has repeatedly proven wrong. Texas executed Cameron Todd Willingham in 2004 based on invalidated arson science. The FBI found errors in 90% of their reviewed hair analysis cases. Courts still accept bite mark evidence despite experts failing to distinguish human from animal bites. The legal system fails in two critical ways, the story argues: Judges don't properly screen out bad science despite their "gatekeeper" role established in Daubert v. Merrell Dow, and courts resist reopening cases when scientific understanding changes.
While some states like Texas and California have laws allowing appeals based on updated science, implementation remains weak. Roberson has spent 20 years on death row and the Menendez brothers 28 years in prison while courts drag their feet on reviewing their cases with current scientific knowledge. The piece argues that constitutional due process requires allowing convicts to challenge their cases when the science underlying their convictions proves faulty. The system can reform by enforcing stricter scientific evidence standards and creating clear paths to challenge convictions based on outdated science.
Courts only want finalty, not justice. (Score:5, Insightful)
Judges and courts are only interested in finality, not justice or facts.
Meanwhile, too many prosecutors are only interested in "winning", despite the facts.
The police are not on your side: they are only on their own side -- this may result in the police helping you, but that only happens when they think it will ultimately benefit them.
Listen to a few episodes of the "Wrongful Conviction" podcast and you will develop a deep cynicism about justice in the USA.
https://lavaforgood.com/with-j... [lavaforgood.com]
There are many cases where prosecutors framed innocent people, yet suffered no consequences for this.
Re:Courts only want finalty, not justice. (Score:5, Insightful)
The judiciary in most countries is reluctant to accept that mistakes have been made, even when they are fairly clear. It can help if someone else is on the hook for it, like cops lying or coercing a confession, but often it's just some witness who can reasonably claim to have given his expert opinion based on the known science of the day. Some of it is even subjective, like fingerprint matches often are.
Another issue is the assumption that juries don't make mistakes, when they very clearly do. Absent some procedural or legal flaw in the trial, the jury being bamboozled or mislead is un-appealable. Someone I know was on a jury where they decided the guy was guilty pretty much so they could go home, not because the case against him was compelling. There are systems that can help avoid that kind of thing, while still preserving the right to be judged by your peers.
Re:Courts only want finalty, not justice. (Score:4, Insightful)
In civilized countries, unlike the USA, the police are not allowed to lie to people under interrogation. These lies lead to false confessions.
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Re: Courts only want finalty, not justice. (Score:3)
ever
You actually do. For the extent of time they are allowed to detain you prior to filing charges or releasing you. But all you have to respond with is "Attorney, please."
Re: Courts only want finalty, not justice. (Score:5, Informative)
> But all you have to respond with is
You don't have to respond at all.
Note that in the US unless the right to remain silent was explicitly invoked, merely "not responding" does not imply the 5th Amendment protections apply and that "silence" can actually be used against a defendant, see Salinas vs. Texas [wikipedia.org]:
Salinas v. Texas, 570 US 178 (2013), is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, which the court held 5-4 decision, declaring that the Fifth amendment's self-incrimination clause does not extend to defendants who simply choose to remain silent during questioning, even though no arrest has been made nor the Miranda rights read to a defendant.
Also the right to remain silent is not absolute and e.g. does not extend to the duty to identify yourself to law enforcement during an investigation.
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It's really amazing how far backwards the courts have bent in order to negate Constitutional rights.
That includes rubber stamping any warrant that crosses a judge's desk, sometimes after the fact.
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If they haven't Mirandized a subject prior to a police interview the police are in the wrong and any evidence from the interview is inadmissible in court.
Only if the interview is being conducted while the subject is in custody. It was actually not the case for Salinas...
The point still stands that it's better to invoke the right to remain silent if one wishes to exercise it.
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Indeed he was not in custody or under arrest and wasnt read his Miranda rights for this reason.
He also answered all questions, but one, which raised suspicion and this is what the SC case rests on.
If you don't answer any questions AT ALL this wouldnt be an issue. If you are 100% silent, there is nothing that could be held agaisnt you.
Of course, invoking your 5th amen. right is best. But as Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagain dissented, the decision raised concerning problems for uneducated defendants.
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Those people are fucking dumb. The -only- thing you say to cops, especially if you're not guilty of anything, is "I will only talk to my attorney ".
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Those people are fucking dumb. The -only- thing you say to cops, especially if you're not guilty of anything, is "I will only talk to my attorney ".
So what you are saying is that the law should only protect smart, well-educated people?
These lies are often used against naive teenagers. Do they not deserve protection? Do they not deserve fair treatment in the "justice" system? Did you see the interrogation of Brendan Dassey? He had a lawyer, who was useless.
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Please, tell all us about how the entirety of society should function.
Re:Courts only want finalty, not justice. (Score:4, Insightful)
The "first thing" is not necessarily Miranda rights. It's not even required to be the "first thing". Miranda is required once in custody and prior to interrogation. In a cop car and "just talking"? Well...'Your honor, I wasn't interrogating Mr Johnson, I just noticed he seemed upset and asked him how he was doing and why he was crying, then he just told me this stuff'.
Just because something is in every movie and TV show has them doesn't mean that's how the real world works. Moreover, that probably doesn't do anyone a service, if I've watched cops read the Miranda rights to folks on TV, and they haven't said them to me, maybe I could assume that I'm not being interrogated yet. Or maybe I could assume that since they haven't been said that nothing I say is admissible in court and can mouth off. Who knows? The point being, the Miranda rights aren't some magic set of words that can iron-clad make things better or worse.
Also, I'm not sure why you find one lie (your buddy confessed) ok but another (we have fingerprints) is not. Lying is either OK, or it's not. As soon as you start deciding which lies are ok and which aren't, I think you're firmly on the slippery slope.
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Because one lie is a material fact about evidence and the other is psychology. I don't disagree there's a potential slippery slope. But I also don't want to see a criminal go free because a cop said something which cop thought was true but turned out not to be. "Cop lied about what he ate for breakfast! Murderer goes free!" is a bad headline.
I am neither pro-cop nor pro-criminal. I want all bad cops off the streets and all criminals off the streets, too, but no innocent people in prison, either. There
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Because one lie is a material fact about evidence and the other is psychology. I don't disagree there's a potential slippery slope. But I also don't want to see a criminal go free because a cop said something which cop thought was true but turned out not to be.
The standard is that law enforcement cannot use coercion during an interrogation. Lying in itself does not qualify as "coercion" but every case needs to be evaluated in the "totality of circumstances", so a lie might become part of those circumstances leading to invalidating statements or confessions.
Even if your rights haven't been read yet and you haven't been detained legally yet, why are you telling a cop about your criminal activity?
Stupidity is definitely a factor, on top that sometimes it's actually the case of not realizing that some act is in fact a crime. Remember the murder of Ahmaud Arbery [wikipedia.org]? The defendants basically slammed the priso
Re:Courts only want finalty, not justice. (Score:5, Interesting)
So which one was "If you don't confess we'll have to send your dog to the pound. They'll euthanize him for sure".
Yes, that one ACTUALLY HAPPENED to a man accused of killing his father. BTW, the father was found alive and well soon after.
Yes, it really can be summarized as "Tell us what we want to hear or the puppy gets it!"
And cops wonder why increasingly, law abiding citizens don't trust cops.
Re:Courts only want finalty, not justice. (Score:4, Informative)
So which one was "If you don't confess we'll have to send your dog to the pound. They'll euthanize him for sure".
Yes, that one ACTUALLY HAPPENED to a man accused of killing his father. BTW, the father was found alive and well soon after.
Yes, it really can be summarized as "Tell us what we want to hear or the puppy gets it!"
And cops wonder why increasingly, law abiding citizens don't trust cops.
That was ruled illegal coercion though and for good reason. The police is allowed to lie, but not to coerce.
By the way the interrogation was by the Fontana police (CA) against Thomas Perez Jr. The city ended up paying Perez $900K [theguardian.com].
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Notably, they also told him his father's body was in the morgue and that he should confess before the coroner examines him if he wants a deal.
When the police lie and claim that the suspect's friend is telling them everything and they better have their say first, that is also coercion.
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And we still have many voting citizens who feel the Miranda decision was an overreach. They want the streets cleaned up without any technicalities about guilt or innocence. They do not like "wishy washy" stuff. If someone confessed then they are guilty, QED (if they only knew what QED meant). This extends to science, they HATE that science changes it's views when new evidence appears. This extends to politics, and only last week I heard the "wishy washy" complaint about some legislative candidate, as i
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I wanted to use the name DumbAsABoxOfBricks for my slashdot ID, but at the time it was too long for me to spell.
Much of the snag here is that innocent people are also stopped and questioned by cops. Many think that they'll be let go as soon as they give a good reason to the cops; after all, they're innocent, and jail time is only for guilty people, so why should they shut up? Then they stick their foot in their mouth, the cops question back, the foot gets shoved in further, and lo and behold there is some
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It's the same in the UK, the police can lie in interviews, or apply unreasonable pressure to confess. For the most part they can lie in court as well, and it rarely becomes an issue for them.
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It's the same in the UK, the police can lie in interviews,
No, they can't. Or at least, lying is strictly limited.
The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 changed things drastically in the UK.
https://prismreports.org/2021/... [prismreports.org]
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Technicallly US police, or anyone, cannot lie in court either.
5th (Score:2)
And in the US you don't have to say a thing to the police beyond you are staying silent.
The problem in the US isn't that police can lie to you, it's that people sleep through their civics classes and don't understand how rights work.
Go watch some court cams or police bodycam videos on Youtube. I'd estimate 60% of them feature dialog approximating:
"I don't have to talk to you! I don't have to talk to the police! I wasn't doing anything! I was just driving my friend..."
And then goes on to incriminate themselv
Re:5th (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem in the US isn't that police can lie to you, it's that people sleep through their civics classes and don't understand how rights work.
Civics classes don't teach you how to deal with the psychological torture techniques that the police use.
I have not done any of those classes, but I doubt that they teach you that you should assume the police want to frame you.
Your post is classic victim blaming.
Nonsense (Score:2)
You say "I'm remaining silent" and you stay silent and they stop questioning you, because anything after that gets thrown out of court per multiple supreme court and circuit court decisions.
As I've said, 60% of the time the suspect confesses on the spot. Maybe 1-2% of the time they say they are staying silent, and the cops stop talking to them, more or less, immediately.
They covered this stuff in my civics class 30 years ago. Not the newer nuances, but that, in general, you don't have to talk to the police.
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You say "I'm remaining silent" and you stay silent and they stop questioning you,
Not sufficient. Firstly, you have to explicitly invoke your 5th amendment right. Merely saying that you are going to be silent won't cut it.
Secondly, just because you invoke your constitutional right to be silent doesn't mean they have to stop questioning you. You have to explicitly invoke your right and actually shut up.
I hope you are never hauled in for questioning by police, because it's not going to go well for you.
Finally, most important: you demand a lawyer.
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Civics class doesn't include teaching resistance to interrogation using techniques that would be called a war crime if done by enemy soldiers.
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In civilized countries, unlike the USA, the police are not allowed to lie to people under interrogation. These lies lead to false confessions.
Yeah - civilized, amirite? We so soon forget that in Europe they didn't deal often with interrogation. Pop e'm in one of those special camps, and if they aren't fit to perform slave labor, gas 'em, and toast 'em, government approved.
Europe's most recent genocide was in the mid 90's.
Does Europe suppress their history? I mean they clam we are neanderthals while trying to kill everyone they didn't like like joos, slavics, people of African origin, gays. And the people behind the fun and games could not
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Judges and courts are only interested in finality, not justice or facts.
They are interested in following procedure. By following procedure the assumption is that it leads to establishing the "truth". The system assumes that said "truth" is correct and unquestionable as long as procedure has been followed and has very few avenues to challenge an outcome after it has been established.
The assumption that following the procedure leads to the correct outcome is crucial in the legal system since without that assumption it would not be justifiable for the legal system to deprive a per
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They should be forced to debug a computer program that "worked in the simulations" when it meets the real world or even just a real user.
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The solution is simple and easy. Severely punish any and all of the rooked judges, DAs, and police who conspire or act to sentence, prosecute, arrest, detain or otherwise harass and railroad anyone through the justice system who is not, in fact, guilty. Remove the judge and demote him to regular lawyer for dereliction of duty. Prosecute and imprison the DA, cops, and witnesses for perjury. Include assault and kidnapping sentences for the police. Break qualified immunity, seize the assets, and garnish a
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Wins and losses is right. Most prosecutors, even after retirement, will argue loudly if any of their old cases are overturned based on science, technicalities, or even deliberate prosecutorial misconduct. They want the WIN, because that gets them the votes, and sadly these prosecutors very often are elected or have elected bosses. Justice takes a back seat to the appearance of swift and effective justice.
I soured on all this way back when there were several high profile douche bags of the highest order go
How would you change any of that? (Score:3)
Humans don't deal well with ambiguity. We can't remove ambiguity systematically, and I think it's broken to expect people to. Best I've got is to recognize when motivations will cause problems, and to block or identify them.
If judges 'productivity' is estimated by 'cases closed'... is it any surprise they'd care most about decisions on cases? What you measure you tend to optimize.
How well do we measure social bonds, happiness, or contentment?
What about prosecutor cases won/lost? Should there be any mot
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fingerprints > how many points match? how many points match other fingerprints in the dataset? How large is the dataset? Are you releated to a cop? Are you lying? Have you ever lied before?
dna > how many STRs? How many STRs match other STRs in the dataset? How large is the dataset? How many labs did you use? Who works at the lab(s)? How many are releated to a cop? Are you lying? Have you ever lied before?
tooth mark matching > it's a lie.
bullet mark m
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Some of this is due to attitude of police. They exist to capture bad guys, not to keep the city or town safe. Thus these tools which were useful to try and identify the perp after which you get more evidence, possibly after using them to get a warrant, end up being misused as primary evidence. And juries get bamboozled into this also, witness all the books and movies in the early days presenting fingerprints as solid proof.
In many cases never was "science" (Score:5, Insightful)
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As a jury member potentially fucking someone's life forever I don't want to hear from either of them.
I want facts. Innocent until proven guilty. If the prosecution can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt the person is guilty then I'm defaulting to not guilty. Their experts and scientists can go take a jump in a lake. I'm not voting to ruin someone based on that.
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I'll accept something from a lab like DNA evidence. That's fine by me. But something that's a matter of opinion with dueling experts on both sides is not something I'd consider in my decision as a jury member.
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You should question evidence from a lab as well. Not all labs adhere to rigorous procedures. Some are less conscientious than middle schoolers doing an in class "experiment".
For years, Interpol and Scotland Yard were trying to track down a "serial killer" who had left DNA evidence in heinous crimes throughout Europe in cases that seemed otherwise unconnected. Years later, they found the lady in the packing department who didn't always wear gloves when wrapping the cotton swabs used for collecting evidence..
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I'll accept something from a lab like DNA evidence. That's fine by me. But something that's a matter of opinion with dueling experts on both sides is not something I'd consider in my decision as a jury member.
The problem is that the defense does not always have the means or wisdom to challenge that evidence with their own expert. Furthermore, something can be presented as "scientific fact" when actually it's not.
This is can be the case because most often "scientific facts" are based on statistics and understanding statistics to actually be able to evaluate those "scientific facts" can be crucial. Most people simply are not able to do that, see e.g. the base rate fallacy [wikipedia.org] which is aptly also called the prosecutor'
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There should be more solid evidence than just that piece of evidence though. If the verdict hinges on just a set of fingerprints then it's a very shoddy case. Now a fingerpint can go both ways, if it can cast a bit of doubt so that the verdict is not guilty, then that's a good use of evidence. But the standard for conviction is much higher and you need more than some forensics.
Re:In many cases never was "science" (Score:5, Interesting)
Way too many "investigators" just have far too much of a hard-on for "catching the bad guys" that they allow it to prevent their making rational judgments. I'd much rather have the evidence weighed by a dispassionate scientist than an ex-firefighter carrying a grudge against imaginary arsonists because of all the times they've had to risk their life battling fires.
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Fine, but don't dress it up as "scientific evidence" trying to bamboozle the jury into thinking it's more than just an opinion from someone with some experience.
It is genuinely horrifying (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem here isn't changing law with changing science The problem here is these prosecutors and the governor just really want to murder this guy for the sake of murdering him. I don't know if it's because it plays well with the tough on crime crowd or if they just have some kind of sick kink but the evidence in this guy's case is so overwhelming.
It's probably also that they're afraid of lawsuits. If you really get going on exonerating innocent people you're probably going to find thousands or even tens of thousands of them. And in addition to that not being a good look it would cost tens of millions of dollars in lawsuits. If I remember correctly Arizona had a county that famously paid out over $100 million dollars because of some dumb sheriff who insisted on ignoring the civil rights act. I think the voters got tired of him when they finally noticed how big the bill had gotten for his bullshit.
A lot of Voters don't seem to particularly care about justice but when you drop 100 million dollar bill in their laps they sit up and take notice
It's one of those things I wonder if you actually quantified the cost of over policing and of maintaining our militarized police what that would do. If you look at the actual budgets of police departments in general they're about half the budget of the entire city they're in. Not how much the city spends mind you because so much of the money for cops comes from state and federal grants but the raw dollars spent on cops. You'd have a hell of a lot less crime if you took that money and spent it on parks and affordable housing but that doesn't play as well in campaign ads. Kind of like how glossy computer monitors sell better but a matt finish on a display is infinitely more usable
No, poverty and crime aren't correlated (Score:2)
This is an idea that is widely asserted by many, but the evidence just isn't there. Crime levels 100 years ago in settled communities were far lower, and poverty was far worse, than it is today. Crime rates, on the whole, have been rising consistently since then, with unexplained drops in recent years. Despite this the idea of better material provision for the poor as THE SOLUTION persists, as you demonstrate.
What we need is stable families and communities where people have hope for the future as well as st
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The issue is relative poverty. If nobody has a lot of money, prices stay low. If some have plenty, prices go higher and societal expectations go up as well, leaving those without in the dust. If 90% of the population has no car, there is little call to "just get a car". Nobody expects anyone to commute 10 miles to work. If 90% have a car, the few left find that a 10 mile commute to work is "the norm" and are told to "just get a car" if they can't find employment a mile or 2 away.
That's not to say there is n
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An addition to this: the public defenders office MUST be at least as well funded as the prosecutor's.
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They need to end plea deals. If you think someone is guilty, take them to trial.
Or make the offered plea deal cap the defendant's exposure at trial so that a possible sentence is at least in the same ballpark even if higher. If the prosecutor believes that a good plea deal is 6 months in jail and then probation, it should not be possible for them on refusal to go to trial and ask 10 years in prison...
And every forensic lab should have a random 10% of their requests be secret tests of their honesty. Put the liars in jail, and have their default answer be "we can't tell".
Or give the defendant the right to participate in the test if it's not repeatable or to repeat the test in their presence if it is. This is actually how it works in some other jurisdiction
Cameron Todd Willingham is not the best example (Score:2)
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From what I remember in the Cameron Todd Willingham case, experts testified that the arson science used to convict him was outdated even at the time of his conviction
I think it wasn't so much that the "science" was outdated, but that there was no science in arson investigation. The old wives tales about fires and their origins that arson investigators passed down to new trainees had never been tested. Also, some of these old wives tails included concepts about fires that were known at the time to be false.
Our justice system is just a legal industry (Score:4, Informative)
and it is classist and corrupt to boot, indeed, justice for sale is no justice at all. When our jails are full of poor people and rich people are above our laws, there is no hope for any justice at all. This is a pay to play economy, where the rich rule the roost, welcome to our plutocracy.
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When you're a rich star, you can grab the justice system by the
What really chaps my hide is that the rich get golden parachutes for fucking up. Defenders of plutocracy like to talk about the motivational power of money to produce efficiency & invention, but if you get a golden gift basket when you cheat, the "motivation" is clearly F'd up.
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I 100% agree. The problem is the very mechanisms we depend upon for social justice and societal equilibrium have been corrupted and perverted.
I see this as a sign that our society is in decline.
Another example is product liability (Score:2)
Lawyers argue that a product is either safe or unsafe, an absolute binary choice
Reality is never simple and binary
Law vs Science (Score:2, Interesting)
The duality here isn't a duality, it is a misnomer of purpose.
There ought to be NO law that depends on science. For a law that is based on science is destined to be changed when science ("settled science") changes.
Laws ought to be written for purpose, and when those purposes fail, or the law itself fails, the laws are automatically nullified. How many stupid laws are still on the books, because they were short sighted and limited?
I cringe every time someone says "There ought to be a law", because someone do
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There ought to be NO law that depends on science. For a law that is based on science is destined to be changed when science ("settled science") changes.
But that's always the case. Any law against spells wishing for a lightning to strike a building are baseless the moment you know that lightning can not be forced by spells, and that a lightning rod will divert any lightning strikes to the ground without causing harm.
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There ought to be NO law that depends on science.
Please finesse this statement. As written, it's way too easy to find examples where the law's dependence on science is the obvious correct thing to do:
If the law couldn't rely on science, you couldn't have laws that regulate speeding cars (radar guns and calibrated-speedometers in police vehicles are only as good as our understanding of the laws of physics), murder (even when "obvious," the official cause of death is declared by a coroner, using science), and much more.
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We can and do have laws on murder that do NOT depend on science, but we use Science to convict or acquit, but that isn't encoded into the law itself.
The law, not the courts, ought to be science agnostic. The courts ought to use rules of evidence, which is a foundation of science itself
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That still leaves mis-application of science in the courts. X is illegal for good and proper ethical (not scientific) reasons. But we convict someone of X because "scientific evidence" shows that he did X. 5 years later, we realise the science behind that conclusion is dead wrong and so we no longer have any reason to believe the (now convicted) defendant did X at all. But there he sits in prison. And prosecutors will fight tooth and nail to keep him there. Even if the new science actually insists that he d
Trauma is subjective (Score:2, Informative)
Need to stop "expert shopping" (Score:2)
Expert shopping is where one side or the other cherry-picks experts to fit their target result. The other side may not have the money or time to find a counter expert.
I'm not entirely sure how to prevent it, though. Perhaps require a review by at least 3 random experts rather than a hand-selected expert. Let the court manage the selection via a group independent of the judge on the case.
Past trauma isn't an excuse (Score:2)
Robert Robertson, huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], his conviction was based on blunt force trauma -- and in large part on multiple skull fractures. He was also accused of abusing his wife and two older daughters. That's not a "shaken baby" conviction.
His is a terrible case to cite in support of the proposition that the law needs to change. I don't get why people keep pointing to him.
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Other than it not being a US case, the one where a woman was convicted for murdering her babies when 3 died from SIDS, on the basis of a "researcher" who plotted the odds of 3 babies dying of it was millions to one, would be much better. The problem was that he disregarded that heredity might be a factor. They eventually figured out that a genetic combination between her and the father, a gene interaction, drastically raised the odds of SIDS.
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Other than it not being a US case, the one where a woman was convicted for murdering her babies when 3 died from SIDS, on the basis of a "researcher" who plotted the odds of 3 babies dying of it was millions to one, would be much better. The problem was that he disregarded that heredity might be a factor. They eventually figured out that a genetic combination between her and the father, a gene interaction, drastically raised the odds of SIDS.
As well as ignoring the possibility that there was some genetic connection between the deaths, the "expert" made another crucial mistake:
Millions to one is not so small odds that it would never randomly happen. If you then search out those cases where it may have happened randomly, then the statistics provide no evidence that it wasn't a purely random event.
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A good point. There's like 3.8 million births a year in the USA. If you figure that around 0.5M of them are giving birth to their 3rd child, that means you'd expect a 1 in a million even that affects mothers of 3 children to happen about every other year.
Looking up the rates for the USA, it varies massively by state - 45 per 100k in Massachusetts, and 222 in Mississippi. It's much higher for blacks and natives.
But let's figure on 80 per 100k. That's a 0.08% chance. The researcher just did 0.08% * 0.08%
Scientific American stopped being a science (Score:5, Informative)
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An illustration of the REAL problems today: big money corrupting everything and how easy it is to break democracies from functioning.
Far easier to break things than fix them... and democracy has the most attack vectors; it's main defense is the wisdom of the crowd... which does actually exist but also studies show it falls apart quickly with a little competent propaganda.
If real science was completely immune (and it's probably the best thing we've got) that does not matter since science alone doesn't DO an
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Can't wait for the explanation on this one...
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One example was an article they ran that the James Webb telescope should be renamed because James Webb was a bad man by current Woke standards.
I let my subscription run out right after that.
Before that they had the great reversal. After literal decades of insisting there was no such thing as Race they did a complete flip-flop and decided race was not only real, but the most important thing of all. The races were Black, Asian, Indigenous, Latinx, and white. Notice which race does not deserve a capital letter
The science has not been discredited (Score:2)
1) Statement from American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS): [aans.org] "Shaken Baby Syndrome (also known as Shaken Impact Syndrome) is a serious form of abuse inflicted upon a child. It usually occurs when a parent or other caregiver shakes a baby out of anger or frustration, often because the baby will not stop crying."
The AANS appears to be a legitimate association for neurological surgeons. Google this phrase to see how it is referenced by colleges and universities: american association of neurologica
More junk science that is used (Score:2)
https://www.propublica.org/art... [propublica.org]
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They murdered their parents for cash. They're lucky they only got life insurance prison.
Too bad we can't put the parents on the stand for the alleged abuse. Being that they got blasted with shotguns n all.
Re: huh? (Score:2)
I get why they killed their dad. Alleged abuse and all that. But why did they kill their mom?
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Because they couldn't get away with killing their dad in front of their mom and leaving her alive to testify. They didn't even dispute that.
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They were scared of her too.
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I get why they killed their dad. Alleged abuse and all that. But why did they kill their mom?
I think they claim she knew about the abuse and did nothing about it. On the plus side they used their extra money to get court-side seats to a basketball game after the murders...
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" If the case was tried today, it might be considered justified."
Based entirely on what the murderers claimed happened to them previously? It "might be", but why would trying the case today matter?
The question is not whether they were guilty, but rather if their sentence was appropriate. NO WAY would their crime be considered "justified" today.
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It doesn't matter to me if it was justified. You can probably say every murder or bad thing anyone does is justified based on upbringing and genetics none of which the person has any significant control over. The fact is these people need to be removed from society so society can function. Punishing them also sets an example to others that this is unacceptable no matter what, which is also part of a persons upbringing. Personally I don't even understand the vengeance part of justice, the other 2 as in prote
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It doesn't matter to me if it was justified. You can probably say every murder or bad thing anyone does is justified based on upbringing and genetics none of which the person has any significant control over.
Can't find the cite now, but a lot of police say that people who are murdered often deserve it. I believe that.
The "battered woman defense" is often used as justification for women who kill their husbands. It occasionally works, but many times no evidence of abuse happens, and there is often a strong motive, such as insurance, inheritance, or a side guy.
The battered woman defense was used in the case of Suitcase killer Sarah Boone. It didn't work. Another case, Marcia Thompson killed her husband, shot
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No jokes on the rich target yet? (Score:2)
But why are you feeding the troll AND propagating it's vacuous Subject?
However I think the story is intrinsically too funny for laughs. Since when has the law EVER cared about science?
Minor confusion because some scientific facts are described as "natural laws". It's not like any legislature considered penalties for violating the "Law of Gravity".
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The issue wasn't whether they killed their parents, the issue was whether the killing was justified. If the case was tried today, it might be considered justified. That's why the case is being re-examined.
This is tremendous - it performs a get out of jail free card, as it exactly means that anyone who was abused as a child is permitted by law to murder people.
Justified means allowed for a good reason. What is more, this means if the Menendez brothers are released from Jail because it was a good thing - ie justified for them to kill their parents, any triggering event is likewise justified.
When we get to the point of justifying murder, because someone was mistreated at some point, it gets a little mess
Re: huh? (Score:4, Informative)
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They chased him ...
As he was running from the scene where had just shot someone.
Re: huh? (Score:3, Informative)
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Way to entire the situation half way through. Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of the crimes for which he was charged, he was not acquitted of every possible crime.
Err... what? Is that some new standard? That someone must be acquitted of "every possible crime?" Do we have to go through the entire penal code at trial or something?
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Way to entire the situation half way through. Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of the crimes for which he was charged, he was not acquitted of every possible crime.
Err... what? Is that some new standard? That someone must be acquitted of "every possible crime?" Do we have to go through the entire penal code at trial or something?
It means that unless the evidence that a person was acquitted was suppressed, a not guilty because od some trauma in the past will be evidence that the person is innocent. And judges do like their case law.
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Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of the crimes for which he was charged, he was not acquitted of every possible crime.
Which means he has to be considered innocent for those crimes as the presumption of innocence applies.
Re:Dude he showed up to kill people (Score:5, Informative)
1. State lines being, the town over.
- This is irrelevant in a country where there are no borders between states (it isnt irrelevant to the law of course), but is used to make it sound like he smuggled something accross;
2. He did NOT drive with the firearm, it was already in that state
3. The firearm was LEGAL and his carying of the firearm was also LEGAL under state law
4. The "goal of killing" is entirely in your head
5. They charged him with (2x homicide, 1x attempted homicide, 2x reckless endangerment) and was acquitted of all charges
- The charge of crossing state lines did not survive to the trial and where dropped because he did not cross state lines with the weapon
6. There was no jury nullification in this case. He was acquited of the charges on the merits (or lack thereof) of the case
No wonder you are irrationaly emotional about this, you still (to this day) have no basic knowledge of the facts in this case.
How you have garnered such notoriety on this site while being so ignorant of basic facts when making comments is beyond me.
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Seriously there's quite a bit of evidence that the guy showed up specifically looking to shoot people. I'm not going to get into the weeds on specific events and yeah the guy was acquited but the fact of the matter is he drove across state lines within illegal firearm with the express goal of killing somebody.
And incidentally that was the crime he was actually acquitted of. It was too hard to make the murder charges stick so they tried to get him on the very very very obvious charges of crossing state lines with an illegal firearm and they couldn't even get that to stick.
That's completely wrong information.
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[...] but at no point should they have not been in prison for some long period of time.
Exactly that's what Science is challenging today. Your opinion might be justified by some very outdated science or no science at all, but archaic revenge ideas.
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I am a firm believer in vigilante justice. However, at the same time I understand it isn't true justice. It's vengeance.
Do you really want a legal system based on vengeance?
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Lol, great strawman. Good job going way off topic to call me racist based on nothing! You win!