Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

innocenceproject.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 184 posts

Re: MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

#121

Post by wizzwizz4 »

Clent wrote: post #109
PebblesRox wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If every time you enter the legal system and you have a 1% chance of being falsely convicted I agree with you that 1% is a high number in this context, but I don't think the math works for what you're saying here. If 1 out of 100 convictions are of innocent people, that doesn't mean that 1 out of 100 innocent people put on trial are going to get convicted. That rate could be higher or lower than 1% because it depen…

The United State's conviction rate is more than 75% -- You are assuming a fair outcome. The innocent person has a 75% change of being convicted. A plea deal of the innocent isn't counted if it avoids jail time. Better to deal with the cost and hassle of parole than being prisoner where you are legally on the same level as a slave.

> The innocent person has a 75% change of being convicted.

If the conviction rate is 75%, and the percent of convictions that are innocent is 5%, wouldn't that make an innocent's conviction chance at most 30%?

Edit: I'm silly. It's at least 30%. If some of the unconvicted are guilty, the denominator of innocents is smaller.

Re: MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

#122

Post by parkingrift »

sokoloff wrote: post #113
nostromo wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even at the highest estimates of false imprisonments, it still means several thousands of murderers are walking free each year that wouldn’t have just 10 years ago.

I’m OK with that if it avoids innocent people rotting away their one life in prison for a crime they didn’t commit.

There are downsides to police and prosecutors abdicating their responsibilities. Urban flight and then eventually urban decay and despair. We will see what happens to dense liberal urban cities in America over the next 7-15 years. The trends are clear, alarm sirens are blaring, but people are instead patting themselves on the back.

Re: MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

#123

Post by mijoharas »

dghughes wrote: post #34

Curb Your Enthusiasm was filming an episode during a baseball game. A man accused of killing someone walked into frame as part of the crowd and that was proof of his location at the time of the crime. YouTube video of 60 Minutes Australia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V5Cj8d43Yw

So, first off, given that they were trying to incarcerate an innocent person in the case I think that the detectives in this case were either incompetent, or immoral.

It did somewhat throw me, in that documentary, to have the policeman that they used to say that be mark fuhrman[0] from the OJ simpson case.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Fuhrman

Re: MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

#124

Post by mytwocentsworth »

twawaaay wrote: post #95

Except, a lit cigarette can ignite a pool of gasoline. All those videos with stupid people holding cigarettes and igniting vapours at the gas station are proof that gasoline can be ignited with a cigarette. What you need is for the cigarette to have enough time in contact with right concentration of vapours (2% to 8% by volume). Too little but also too much and you will not get it ignited. Here is a handy table listi…

>Here is a handy table listing necessary concentrations

The table lists concentrations but not ignition temperature. And temperature is a key factor mentioned in the article: "Based on the ignition temperature of gasoline and the temperature range of a lit cigarette [...] the team determined it was highly unlikely that dropping a cigarette into gasoline could cause a fire."

Re: MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

#125

Post by AngryData »

nostromo wrote: post #89
lupire wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US used to solve the majority of murder cases, but now it’s solving less than half Closs the cases, not solve. It's good that police can't convict innocent people as easily anymore.

Even at the highest estimates of false imprisonments, it still means several thousands of murderers are walking free each year that wouldn’t have just 10 years ago.

Id rather see dozens of criminals get away with a crime than see one innocent person rot in jail for nothing.

Re: MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

#127

Post by lazyasciiart »

systoll wrote: post #116
nostromo wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 1% actually cites the estimation method (extrapolation from DNA exonerations). The higher 2.3-5% doesn’t. What studies are those? https://innocenceproject.org/how-many-innocent-people-are-in...

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=996629 , is the 2.3% https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228207991_Innocents... is the 5%.

And for context: both of those numbers are based on studying proven false convictions of people given the death penalty, which of course is a) supposed to have a high bar of evidence to convict in the first place and b) does have an incredibly high bar of both evidence and legal argument to be proven innocent after conviction. Since the majority of people convicted of crimes in the USA didn't even go to trial, it is realistically impossible that this number applies to all people in prison - the percentage of false overall convictions must be higher than the percentage of people who were sentenced to death and then proved themselves innocent, given the different pressures and levels of scrutiny on different crimes.

(cite for not going to trial: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/prisons-are-packed-bec...)

Re: MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

#128

Post by ummonk »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #121
Clent wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United State's conviction rate is more than 75% -- You are assuming a fair outcome. The innocent person has a 75% change of being convicted. A plea deal of the innocent isn't counted if it avoids jail time. Better to deal with the cost and hassle of parole than being prisoner where you are legally on the same level as a slave.

> The innocent person has a 75% change of being convicted. If the conviction rate is 75%, and the percent of convictions that are innocent is 5%, wouldn't that make an innocent's conviction chance at most 30%? Edit: I'm silly. It's at least 30%. If some of the unconvicted are guilty, the denominator of innocents is smaller.

Most convictions aren’t via trial but via plea bargains. It’s fair to assume that innocent people are less likely to take a plea bargain than guilty people, so the chances of getting falsely convicted could be quite high for an innocent person going to trial.

Re: MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

#129

Post by mijoharas »

mijoharas wrote: post #123
dghughes wrote: post #34

Curb Your Enthusiasm was filming an episode during a baseball game. A man accused of killing someone walked into frame as part of the crowd and that was proof of his location at the time of the crime. YouTube video of 60 Minutes Australia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V5Cj8d43Yw

So, first off, given that they were trying to incarcerate an innocent person in the case I think that the detectives in this case were either incompetent, or immoral. It did somewhat throw me, in that documentary, to have the policeman that they used to say that be mark fuhrman[0] from the OJ simpson case. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Fuhrman

unrelated, the audio in that clip keeps cutting out for me which is very distracting.

Re: MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

#130

Post by giantg2 »

Dove wrote: post #103
giantg2 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm only talking about deception. The other pressures I can understand. Why is deception without the other pressures bad?

People make plea deals and write confessions to reduce the punishment if they think they will be convicted. That motivation remains entirely the same even if they think they will be falsely convicted.

With access to a lawyer (one of the other issues) this shouldn't be a problem. And there are ways the police are supposed to verify the confession (changes to ensure that could be better).
Post reply on HN