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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

#151

Post by pas »

mijoharas wrote: post #132

> 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 _th…

judges in many places are elected, but even if not, they still simply reflect the biases of the electorate. and of course this leads to an ugly feedback loop.

Re: MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

#152

Post by pas »

giantg2 wrote: post #52

So why is deception wrong in an interrogation? I can see some of the other tactics as problematic, but not that directly.

the problem with false conviction is that both an innocent gets punished and the guilty goes unpunished.

worst of both worlds.

Re: MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

#153

Post by franga2000 »

This is even more fucked up than the title suggests. It's not that a Mythbusters episode helped a man prove his innocence, it helped him overthrow a false confession he gave under coercion!

TL;DR: 18 year old was forced by a detective with threats and violence to sign a false confession and despite that detective having been accused of multiple cases of forced and falsified confessions, the way he finally got out after 20 years of a life sentence later was by finding a scientific impossibility in the fabricated and coerced confession.

Like yeah, "yay science!" and it's a great thing he finally got out, but how is the real story here not that once you sign a confession, you're basically fucked no matter what the circumstances of the confession were?!? I guess this might not be a surprise to people in or more familiar with the US, but holy shit it's scary to me as an outsider from a (yes, I'll say it) actually developed county!

Re: MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

#154

Post by giantg2 »

qngcdvy wrote: post #146
giantg2 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

You seem to argue strongly in favor of deception, but justifying that it's ok if all the other measures against false convictions are in place (lawyers, police who work by the book...). To me, it's like wearing a safety belt. I mean, if all your driver assistance systems work and all the other drivers pay attention and drive perfectly, you shouldn't need it, right?

I think the court reviewing the confession and tape of the interrogation would be the safety belt. There are ways to verify confessions even with limited evidence. These false confessions are sloppy work. It seems the courts don't care much for safeguarding against abuses, so maybe the verification steps need some codifying.

There also needs to be some utility left to the interview. Sure we don't want to have long, aggressive, or abusive interviews. But how useful would suspect interviews be if you just asked questions based on real information? Sometimes you might get some info, but the smart ones won't be that easy. Sometimes it would be good to use some deception just to gauge what they know, even if you don't get a confession. It's a useful tool that doesn't present any downside with the proper safety measures in place.

Re: MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

#155

Post by twawaaay »

mytwocentsworth wrote: post #124
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."

https://hypertextbook.com/facts/2003/ShaniChristopher.shtml

Spontaneous ignition temperature for gasoline vapour listed as 280C, well below "red hot".

Re: MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

#156

Post by twawaaay »

aaron695 wrote: post #138
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/

You can't prove something is impossible by showing a bunch of people try it and fail. That's faulty logic.

Re: MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

#157

Post by nickkell »

Stevvo wrote: post #140
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.

I'm not sure that's correct. As far as I'm aware they can't claim to have evidence implicating the suspect if they don't really have it.

Re: MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

#158

Post by vimacs2 »

vthommeret wrote: post #148
isitmadeofglass wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have misunderstood the comment you are replying to and the one it replied to. This is literally what was replied to: > Japan and America seem to be similar

I think you're actually misunderstanding what david38 and Retric are discussing. They're saying they're in agreement and that the US and Central America are similar, but not "equally bad".

I actually think you're all misunderstanding what you're discussing. No, I won't expand as to why, I just wanted to continue this alleged misunderstanding train.

Re: MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

#159

Post by 29083011397778 »

twawaaay wrote: post #156
aaron695 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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/

You can't prove something is impossible by showing a bunch of people try it and fail. That's faulty logic.

You're right, but parent has a point about grandparent making an unsubstantiated claim.

Re: MythBusters Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence

#160

Post by Retric »

isitmadeofglass wrote: post #147
Retric wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misunderstood, abhorrent means disgusting, loathsome, terrible etc. So he’s saying Japan’s criminal justice system is unconscionable just like the US, not that they are equally bad.

You seem to have misunderstood the comment you are replying to and the one it replied to. This is literally what was replied to: > Japan and America seem to be similar

All equilateral triangles are similar, they don’t all have the same magnitude.
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