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MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

innocenceproject.org

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Re: MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

#131

Post by vdqtp3 »

caminante wrote: post #39
pkrotich wrote: post #35

What scares me about US legal system is; Elected prosectutors are motivated by high conviction rate for obvious reasons (re-election and politics of it all). Add the fact that their line of work requires competitive personalities and you become just but a number, especially if you don't have competent cousel. I'm not saying ALL public defendors are incompetent, but we see to many cases of ineffective representation w…

False positives are rare in the US [0]: estimated at only 1% of incarcerations according to the Innocence Project (mentioned in HN article) and go even lower depending on who does the analysis. Are you aware of legal systems in other countries with lower false positives? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscarriage_of_justice#United_...

Interesting that those are the numbers.

"That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer, is a Maxim that has been long and generally approved."

Ben Franklin https://www.bartleby.com/73/953.html

Re: MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

#132

Post by mijoharas »

> But soon after, a judge later decided that they would only receive a suppression hearing — which would allow them to motion to suppress their false confessions — instead of granting them a new trial. At that hearing, their motions were denied.

One thing I'd like to know is what exactly happened here. Obviously there were multiple miscarriages of justice, but this seems like a pertinent one.

EDIT: (obviously not _the most_ pertinent one, but still one I'd like details/reasoning on. Why would the judge do that, once they had the evidence in front of them).

Re: MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

#133

Post by aksss »

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.

“Several thousand murderers are walking free each year” probably needs some more commitment - the thought experiment isn’t just saying these free murderers are living a life with no repercussions for past crimes but that this represents some quantity of future murders that would otherwise not happen.

Let’s say thousands of murderers going free that otherwise wouldn’t results in one person dying that otherwise wouldn’t.

Is one person unjustly dying with zero chance of resurrection better than one innocent person going to prison with a non-zero chance of exoneration?

Re: MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

#134

Post by lazyasciiart »

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.

Mathematically, no, it doesn't mean that. For a start, cases being cleared doesn't even imply that someone was arrested, just that the police decided they knew who did it. There could be zero false imprisonments and also close to zero accurate convictions, if the prosecutors just picked someone with a slam dunk case for one murder and accused them of all the others as well. Even easier if they pick a dead guy and close the case with him the assumed perpetrator - as referenced in the second paragraph of that article - because there's less chance that someone will fight the accusation. But either way, all the murderers except the one fall guy were able to walk away, and the police got a 100% clearance rate.

Re: MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

#135

Post by aksss »

AngryData wrote: post #125
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.

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

It’s interesting that you responded to a comment about “several thousand murderers” with a rejoinder about “dozens of criminals”, which represents some math or a value proposition you’re making about the “one innocent person”.

The innocent person is worth dozens, but not scores? And certainly “criminals” is a quite broad category - “dozens of shoplifters” but not “scores of pedophiles”?

Curious if that was intentional and where the line actually is.

Otherwise it seems you’re just expressing a cost-free emotional sentiment. In the world of policy with real consequences (violent crime) on real people (also at times innocent), the sentiment gives very little guidance, really only the barest start of an inquiry.

Re: MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

#136

Post by ezoe »

pkrotich wrote: post #35

What scares me about US legal system is; Elected prosectutors are motivated by high conviction rate for obvious reasons (re-election and politics of it all). Add the fact that their line of work requires competitive personalities and you become just but a number, especially if you don't have competent cousel. I'm not saying ALL public defendors are incompetent, but we see to many cases of ineffective representation w…

What really bother me is that the police sting operation is legal in US. It's fundamentally wrong. They are creating the crime by criminal police activities, from my point of view and it's legally true in my country's law system.

Re: MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

#137

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

mlindner wrote: post #118
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is possible that I am biased, because I watched Expanse and ( apart from being annoyed by how it quickly it became a relationship show ) I absolutely bought into the premise including the points you listed: * The idea that we would actively intentionally re-create the situation of MAD in another context. MAD was an accident of historical happenstance and now that we know about it, we wouldn't try to re-create it.…

> I can't even.. We can just barely force corporations to maintain labor rights now with some semblance of control since we have them physically operating and we can summon the representative in court and enforce compliance. And even then, those controls are eroded via various means. Is it really that difficult to imagine 'when cats away' scenario? We've had massive improvements in workplace safety in 100 years. Just…

It is possible that we are arguing two different things. I am not denying that progress took place. That is indisputable based solely on the examples you provided already.

What I am saying is that this civilization that allowed it to eventually happen is not a fixed construct, but a continuous process that can go forward, stay unchanged or, just as easily, revert to its original starting point.

The basic argument is that just because we currently did not have any massive atrocity ( lets say along the lines of Crusades, Khan or Mao ) does not mean we can't have one tomorrow. It is hard for me not to channel George Carlin now by saying something along the lines:

"This civilization that you are so proud of. Do you realize how fragile all this is?"

Please let me know if I am misreading your post.

Re: MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

#138

Post by aaron695 »

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…

> All those videos with stupid people holding cigarettes and igniting vapours

But you couldn't even link one? Very HN of you.

Lots of videos showing how it doesn't work.

https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSRq6aBjw/

Re: MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

#139

Post by systoll »

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%.

Whoops – https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=931454 is a better source for the second one.

Re: MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

#140

Post by Stevvo »

Archelaos wrote: post #84

> In 2021, Illinois and Oregon became the first states to ban the use of deception during interrogations of minors ... Is there any other modern democracy that allows deception as a method of interrogation to the same extent as the US? In my country, Germany, deception during interrogations is forbitten even for adults. There exist only some minor exceptions, for example, that prior wrong ideas of the suspects may be…

In the UK it's commonplace because it's a very effective tactic on victims and first time offenders.

Anyone who has been arrested before learns to answer either "no" or "no comment" to all questions, so deception doesn't come into play anymore.

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