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Bad science and bad statistics in the courtroom convict innocent people

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

#121

Post by RetpolineDrama »

qingcharles wrote: post #81
chaps wrote: post #53

Very, very much yes. Criminal courts really, really aren't a good place to address technical matters. For example, ankle electronic monitoring (obviously) doesn't work well in faraday-cage like apartment complexes. And yet time and time again, GPS skew is used to argue that someone left their home -- sometimes even months after the fact. I've read emails from a local sheriff's office that said that they consider a su…

Also wrote the previous one which ended with me serving five months in jail for retweeting the public defender's Tweet about it (not your fault): https://chicagoreader.com/news-politics/false-alarms/ This might have been the Tweet I reposted: https://twitter.com/CookCoDefender/status/153970586223037644... https://nitter.net/CookCoDefender/status/1539705862230376448

>which ended with me serving five months in jail for retweeting the public defender's Tweet about it

Um, what? You served 5 months in jail for a retweet? Care to elaborate?

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

#122

Post by incahoots »

qingcharles wrote: post #107
oooyay wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I'm off base here, but this seems to be absolute nonsense: > Like many on EM, Ross was never granted movement outside his home even once, not even to buy food. His sister, a manager at Securitas, helped when she could, but work got in the way sometimes, he said. So, they replaced the box you sit in with a box that you pay for and provide no additional services with all the same restrictions. What the fu…

I wasn't allowed to leave for food. The judge told me he would not grant my request to leave for food. "Have you heard of Amazon? Order it online." he said. Then when I ordered it online he gave me five months in jail saying he never gave me permission to use the Internet :D

I've gone through the system in a similar fashion, but with no where near the same outcome as you did. If I hadn't gone through a similar situation I would almost believe that you were making it up, that's how ridiculous this is.

For context I got stopped in a car with a friend who had weed (unknown to me at the time), had a really old warrant for something like a missed child support payment (also didn't know), and we were both removed from the car. Mind you, I was not driving, and the car did not belong to me, I was simply a passenger. Cops claim they have cause to search the car, I can't argue otherwise, car gets searched, weed was found, we both get hit with the charge.

I was expected to pay $6000 for possession, spent a week in jail, lost my job, and had to travel 3 hours to the court house to "appear" in front of a judge with no means of getting there because every waking moment needed me to find a job and save any money I had to pay upcoming rent and needs, in addition to paying child support and not missing a payment otherwise I would end up in jail.

That's how quickly this shit escalates, had I not found a ride to get to the court house at least twice, I would've been arrested for bail jumping, and lost my new job, and my apartment.

Apologizes if I'm taking away from your experience, not my intention. I feel like that if others don't come to share similar stories, people are quick to dispel your situation as a one off, and accuse of not being responsible.

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

#123

Post by function_seven »

Dalewyn wrote: post #100
causal wrote: post #10

Note that proportionately few of our federal judges have spent any time as public defenders, and a disproportionately high number have served as prosecutors. Jackson is the first supreme court justice to have served as a public defender, whereas 3 other justices have been prosecutors. Prosecutors are incentivized to get convictions, and that slanted thinking could easily be carried on to the bench. [1] https://www.pb…

Obligatory IANAL. >Prosecutors are incentivized to get convictions, Their entire job is to get convictions. It literally doesn't matter if the prosecutor thinks someone should be convicted or not, that's for the judge to decide. The job of a prosecutor is to make as strong a case for conviction as he possibly can. Likewise, the job of a lawyer representing a defendant is to make as strong a case for acquittal as he p…

> It literally doesn't matter if the prosecutor thinks someone should be convicted or not, that's for the judge to decide. The job of a prosecutor is to make as strong a case for conviction as he possibly can.

It's unfortunate that you're probably right in the de facto sense. This is how many prosecutors view their role. But it's wrong. This is not the prosecutor's objective. Their obligation is to strive toward justice, not a conviction. If a prosecutor has a reason to believe the accused is not guilty, they have an obligation to act on that. To dismiss the charges, to share their belief with the defense, etc.

Here's someone explaining it[0] better than I can:

> The United States Attorney is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all, and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the two-fold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer. He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor—indeed, he should do so. But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one

Another good quote [1]:

> For this reason, while a lawyer defending a man accused of a criminal offense should "exert all his ability, learning, and ingenuity, in such a defence, even if he should be perfectly assured in his own mind of the actual guilt of the prisoner," a lawyer should never prosecute "a man whom he knows or believes to be innocent."

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor#United_States

[1] https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&h...

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

#124

Post by Clubber »

tiahura wrote: post #21
causal wrote: post #10

Note that proportionately few of our federal judges have spent any time as public defenders, and a disproportionately high number have served as prosecutors. Jackson is the first supreme court justice to have served as a public defender, whereas 3 other justices have been prosecutors. Prosecutors are incentivized to get convictions, and that slanted thinking could easily be carried on to the bench. [1] https://www.pb…

Being primarily a civil attorney, I'm well aware of the disproportionate number of former prosecutors on the bench. A couple of points: 1. Most prosecutors are liberals. It's not like right wing law students go looking for jobs in prosecutor's offices. I can't think of any from my class way back when. 2. The problem is more that judges and prosecutors are old colleagues. The slant is that they all know the defendants…

>prosecutors tend to only bring cases where the defendant is clearly guilty.

How does that square with overcharging? Seems like a trend is to throw a bunch of charges at person in hopes they will cop a plea deal, which is considered a win. (cheating IMO).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overcharging_(law)

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

#127

Post by qingcharles »

chaps wrote: post #120
oooyay wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I'm off base here, but this seems to be absolute nonsense: > Like many on EM, Ross was never granted movement outside his home even once, not even to buy food. His sister, a manager at Securitas, helped when she could, but work got in the way sometimes, he said. So, they replaced the box you sit in with a box that you pay for and provide no additional services with all the same restrictions. What the fu…

It's very much a political issue over a practical issue. The EM program has been around since the 80s, but the pandemic caused its use to explode -- largely to reduce the spread of COVID in/out of jails.

This. And now with States finally trying to produce a fairer bond system (e.g. elimination of cash bail in Illinois and other jurisdictions), the system is expanding enormously.

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

#128

Post by WalterBright »

10000truths wrote: post #31
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…

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.

No. Sorry.

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

#129

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

tiahura wrote: post #21
causal wrote: post #10

Note that proportionately few of our federal judges have spent any time as public defenders, and a disproportionately high number have served as prosecutors. Jackson is the first supreme court justice to have served as a public defender, whereas 3 other justices have been prosecutors. Prosecutors are incentivized to get convictions, and that slanted thinking could easily be carried on to the bench. [1] https://www.pb…

Being primarily a civil attorney, I'm well aware of the disproportionate number of former prosecutors on the bench. A couple of points: 1. Most prosecutors are liberals. It's not like right wing law students go looking for jobs in prosecutor's offices. I can't think of any from my class way back when. 2. The problem is more that judges and prosecutors are old colleagues. The slant is that they all know the defendants…

     >prosecutors tend to only bring cases where the defendant is clearly guilty.

     >They like shooting fish in a barrel.
Desire to Convict is tied to many factors that aren't Ease of Conviction.

Ease of conviction is tied to many factors that aren't guilt.

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

#130

Post by WalterBright »

graphe wrote: post #36
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…

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?

Everyone acted in good faith - the lawyers, the judge, the jury, the victim. The problem is a system that believes eyewitness testimony is slam dunk evidence.
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