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Bad science and bad statistics in the courtroom convict innocent people

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Bad science and bad statistics in the courtroom convict innocent people

#71

Post by Dyac »

Lord-Jobo wrote: post #12

Wow, a hackernews topic thats actually directly related to my specialty. Anyway, this article is spot on and this is a really rampant specific issue. “expert witnesses have often overstated the probative value of their evidence, going far beyond what the relevant science can justify.” This is the absolute center of the issue. Experts are used by the prosecution AND defense, but the experts used by the prosecution are…

I think the geolocation stuff is particularly concerning. Expert witnesses try to use it to prove which side of a road someone was on, or what route they took from point A to point B or something.

My phone (Pixel 6) regularly gets my location wrong. I have lived in the same house, with the same router and same phone for years, yet every week it randomly tags incorrect coordinates on my photos, in some cases putting them a mile or more away, in a field or on the other side of town.

For me this is a minor annoyance (and one I can't correct on my phone - it won't let me edit the coordinates because they were supplied by the phone. I guess I could edit the EXIF data on a computer if I cared to), but for someone being prosecuted it could place the trustworthiness of testimony under doubt or undermine their defense etc, with "their word against hard data".

Re: Bad science and bad statistics in the courtroom convict innocent people

#72

Post by bawolff »

2devnull wrote: post #43
10000truths wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a link to the case details? At the very least, there has to have been some additional evidence to convict, even if circumstantial. I find it hard to believe that someone can be ruled guilty of a crime as serious as rape based solely on the plaintiff's testimony.

>I find it hard to believe I find it hard to believe you find it hard to believe. :) There’s a cliche term for such cases, “he said/she said” and they are not at all uncommon.

I dont think this term applies here - usually that term is reserved for one or both parties misrepresenting the situation. Here we have mistaken identity, which i would consider different.

Re: Bad science and bad statistics in the courtroom convict innocent people

#73

Post by hobotime »

michaelt wrote: post #59
graphe wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This indicates that the jury/judge also failed the innocent man. What would have saved him? Are these cases relics before dna? Would it happen again today?

For better or worse, a huge amount of our justice system depends on eyewitness statements. For example, if my crazy neighbour knocked on my door, pushed their way into my home when I answered then beat me up - the only evidence of who did it would be my eyewitness testimony. There would be incontrovertible evidence that someone had assaulted me, in the form of my bruise-covered face and body. But only eyewitness test…

That wouldn't me just your verbal evidence there, as your other neighbors would be able to collaborate that you neighbor was crazy. There would be bruises on his knuckles. His clothing would have your blood on them.

In cases of rape, where there's usually ample forensic evidence, there need not be a complete reliance on someone's testimony.

Re: Bad science and bad statistics in the courtroom convict innocent people

#74

Post by cool_dude85 »

WaitWaitWha wrote: post #46

This a bit misaligned, blame shifting. I will be the first to admit there are unscrupulous, fame seeking, and overzealous expert witnesses out there. But, there are mechanisms in the courts to filter most of them out. I just think it is not done for money, time, career, or political reasons. I have seen this fail both in the adversarial (e.g., US) and elsewhere in inquisitorial (e.g., EU) court systems. In the advers…

> time and time again I watch lawyers refuse to hire expert witnesses for their own side because .

Because they are very expensive and most regular people don't have money for them? Because public defenders have a few minutes to look over a case and don't have time or resources to bother with this level of care? Which of the two are caused by hubris?

Re: Bad science and bad statistics in the courtroom convict innocent people

#75

Post by Zigurd »

mistrial9 wrote: post #27
graphe wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the conclusion you’re making?

it is a revolving door in real ways

It starts with selective enforcement and repeated police contact with young people. That's how the business of imprisonment fills the funnel in the US.

Re: Bad science and bad statistics in the courtroom convict innocent people

#76

Post by [deleted] »

WalterBright wrote: post #29

I read about a case once where a man was convicted of rape. The evidence was that the rape was done face-to-face with the victim, and the victim positively ID'd him. How could she not, when she was face-to-face with him? It was a slam dunk. After some years in prison, the convicted person managed to get a DNA test, which proved he was not the rapist. How could this be? It turns out the DNA matched a convicted sex off…

[deleted]

Re: Bad science and bad statistics in the courtroom convict innocent people

#77

Post by cool_dude85 »

qingcharles wrote: post #47
causal wrote: post #5

It would be hard to really know, but I'm curious what percentage of the total US prison population is innocent. Per capita prison rate is still around 5 in 1000 according to Wikipedia, which is very high for the developed world.

OK, having spent practically 10 years inside and having helped 1000s of people with their cases, here's my single-person perspective: at least 95% of the people locked up are guilty of something related to their charges. The justice system isn't completely off-kilter. My main issues were that a) many people were overcharged (i.e. charged with extra crimes they were not guilty of) simply to obtain a plea deal; b) ofte…

1 out of 20 is still pretty nasty given the size of the US prison population.

Re: Bad science and bad statistics in the courtroom convict innocent people

#78

Post by P_I_Staker »

WalterBright wrote: post #29

I read about a case once where a man was convicted of rape. The evidence was that the rape was done face-to-face with the victim, and the victim positively ID'd him. How could she not, when she was face-to-face with him? It was a slam dunk. After some years in prison, the convicted person managed to get a DNA test, which proved he was not the rapist. How could this be? It turns out the DNA matched a convicted sex off…

Lots of times victims never will. There was a famous case of a guy that just admits to random crimes and the victim refused to believe it.

Re: Bad science and bad statistics in the courtroom convict innocent people

#79

Post by adamsb6 »

gruez wrote: post #35
adamsb6 wrote: post #17

Even photo and video evidence suffers from courtrooms that don’t understand how nearly all cameras will record and encode images. JPEG encoding (and thus MPEG encoding) takes 8x8 blocks of pixels and represents them as a discrete cosine transform. In a very real way these pixels don’t actually exist. If your video evidence relies on such a small portion of MPEG encoded video, you can easily mislead a jury to convicti…

>I’m reminded of the Rittenhouse trial where the prosecutors had a technician massage a still from a video for hours until some very tiny collection of pixels, enlarged from the original by quite a bit, were arranged in such a way that they said demonstrated Rittenhouse initiated aggression against the first man he shot. Is there an article with more on this?

Not terribly in depth, but this is about the evidence I referenced: https://apnews.com/article/kyle-rittenhouse-technology-wisco...

IMHO any upscaling in court should be strictly squaring existing pixels, along with heavy caveats on how encoding works. A 16X zoom means one black pixel becomes sixteen pixels, and jurors have to know that the individual pixel may not have ever been an accurate representation of reality. Anything else, even nearest neighbor, is adding information.

Especially with recent smart phones that are using AI to perform “super zoom” techniques you could easily magic into existence something that never existed.

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