Bad science and bad statistics in the courtroom convict innocent people • Hacker News Board

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

#131

Post by WalterBright » Mon, Dec 11, 2023, 7:40 PM UTC

hobotime wrote: post #73

michaelt wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There were the semen samples taken, but this was before DNA matching.

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

#132

Post by qingcharles » Mon, Dec 11, 2023, 7:43 PM UTC

RetpolineDrama wrote: post #121

qingcharles wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes. Here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38603663

Basically judge told me I was allowed to use the Internet while on bail and joked with me that as long as I didn't use it for anything illegal.

Then when I retweeted the article "chaps" above wrote about EM not working etc, and I also tweeted about police misconduct (I was getting arrested every single day), it angered the local Sheriff's dept and they locked me up. The judge then basically made the most strained argument in history that he never gave me permission to use the Internet and that I was a bad person for Tweeting about the police under an assumed name (my Twitter account is also my name??). "Chaps" did his level best to help my lawyer, and we were 110% in the right, but the judge was days away from retirement, so fuck me lol

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

#133

Post by graphe » Mon, Dec 11, 2023, 7:44 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #130

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?

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.

From your other comment it seems like this is a relic before dna testing. I’ve heard there are many samples of dna that have yet to be processed. Hopefully the circumstances don’t occur again.

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

#134

Post by qingcharles » Mon, Dec 11, 2023, 7:44 PM UTC

oooyay wrote: post #118

qingcharles wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> "Have you heard of Amazon? Order it online." That's textbook entrapment given that collecting an Amazon order, much less the occasionally misplaced one, would require stepping outside of your apartment.

Yes. I once stepped onto my front step to let my dog out and the police saw me and went bat-shit crazy about it. They told me I needed to hire someone to come to my house each day and open my front door to let my dog out.

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

#135

Post by nonrandomstring » Mon, Dec 11, 2023, 7:45 PM UTC

swells34 wrote: post #37

causal wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for that insight. My discomfort is with the notion that they could know that the defendant is guilty- sure there may be some obvious cases, but I do not trust most humans to differentiate their intuition from hard evidence.

And unfortunately, judges are the only legal entity empowered to use their intuition for legal decision making. Sentencing is a good example; judges can kinda just decide sentences based on feel. Just throw some number out there.

That's not unfortunate, it's the system working as intended. Not being funny but that's why we call them judges. You can't have everything decided in advance by an algorithm baked into the system, part of the system is devolved deciding, sometimes called "equity".

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

#136

Post by AnthonyMouse » Mon, Dec 11, 2023, 7:46 PM UTC

Clubber wrote: post #124

tiahura wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

That's how you know they're guilty -- by tacking on some charges that everyone is guilty of. Of course, you don't charge everyone with them, only the people who are being charged with something else. That way prosecutors can maintain a high conviction rate.

Heuristic: Any law that too many people are charged with should be repealed. Either too much of the population doesn't think it should be illegal even past the point of purposely not respecting it, or it's excessively broad and too many people are violating it unintentionally.

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

#137

Post by pc86 » Mon, Dec 11, 2023, 7:47 PM UTC

incahoots wrote: post #122

qingcharles wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Unfortunately, the common refrain in scenarios like this is that it's your fault. Even ignoring the weed, which I think a lot of people would have sympathy for, you owed child support that wasn't paid and had a [bench, presumably] warrant out for your arrest. The simple fact of the matter is that most people don't owe court-mandated child support at any point in their lives, most people that do owe it pay it, and most people don't ever have warrants out for their arrest.

I don't say this as any sort of moral or character judgment, but simply to point out that part of the reason this thing is allowed to happen is because the people it's happening to are very rarely sympathetic individuals. They're viewed as bad people and "others" by the majority of the population.

So what's the fix for this? I wish I had an answer, but I don't. Maybe teaching empathy so that the court system starts feeling pressure from the citizens that this isn't ok. Maybe legislation against charge stacking just to elicit plea deals. There's also the very real possibility of the pendulum swinging too far in the other direction where DAs don't charge petty crime and people charged with violent crimes are released on signature bonds.

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

#138

Post by conductr » Mon, Dec 11, 2023, 7:50 PM UTC

rightbyte wrote: post #54

It wouldn't surprise me if computer forsensics is about as bad science as bullet forsensics. Ever since I had a porn virus hosting kinda lame porn videos over BitTorrent like 20 years ago, I thought about exactly how computer forsensics prove intent in child sexual abuse material cases.

Recently a teacher at my son's school was found to be part of a child porn ring. His mug shot was posted alongside a couple dozen others and initial impression was it was organized crime pedaling this stuff. Perception was he's guilty; lock him up.

The immediate response was he was fired, arrested, etc. There were no facts or investigation but the school was in communication with us and getting info from LEO as the investigation began. We pretty quickly found that no kids were involved (sigh of relief). Then found out it was a part of a FBI sting and he was actually a lone actor not involved in any type of organized 'ring' (wait, what?). Then about a month after initial arrest, we found out he watched on his computer (streamed or tracked from an FBI server) approximately 3 videos. Unknown duration, unknown intent, unknown everything else. But, having seen the 'legit' side of the adult industry and how those websites work, I'm totally of the opinion he probably landed on a website and those videos 1) autoplayed 2) did not indicate or appear as containing underage people 3) or he clicked them and hit back once he realized the 'actors' appeared a little too young looking.

The FBI sting also caught some terrible people and this teacher's mug shot in that press release basically made him guilty by association (that didn't exist). I don't know if this teacher did anything intentionally illegal, but in my opinion the facts that eventually came to be did not substantiate the initial response from law enforcement - which has ruined this man's career and ostracized him from our community (at minimum); he's still fighting to reduce charges so it's likely bankrupted him too. Also, If you search his name today, you'll see that press release and mugshot as top result.

I know I've seen some adult content on 'legit' websites that I feel was questionable on age, no way to know for sure, but I didn't realize it until I viewed it and I just moved on with my browsing. It's scary to thing visiting any website could give the FBI enough data to come down this hard on someone.

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

#139

Post by qingcharles » Mon, Dec 11, 2023, 7:50 PM UTC

incahoots wrote: post #122

qingcharles wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No, you're not taking anything away. Your situation is (sadly) very common indeed.

And as you say, if you start missing child support payments the judge will hit you with contempt charges and put you straight back in jail for several months to teach you a lesson.

If you had ended up in jail the case might have run on for months or years. Once you are inside a jail you lose most contact with your attorney and your support system and you have the lowest priority in the system, so your case is usually just continued each month until the end of time.

Find the wrong cops and you'll end up in jail for months for having some vitamins on you:

https://archive.is/Blzbm

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

#140

Post by graphe » Mon, Dec 11, 2023, 7:53 PM UTC

qingcharles wrote: post #113

graphe wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blame laws like fruit of the poisoned tree. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree If you want to act in bad faith and call it magic and bullshit feel free to grandstand.

What is wrong with the poisonous tree doctrine in your opinion? I find it isn't used widely enough against police and prosecutor misconduct. There are too many ways out of it for them.

It’s in response to:

>Here you're saying that mass-murderers are common, but despite their extensive trails of corpses, we can't pin the actual crime on an actual criminal. No, there's nothing magical about criminal prosecution here, it's no more than bullshit as you've described it.

Everyone does illegal stuff in the US. Sometimes it’s a technicality that a guilty party goes free.