This is a really old story. Here are the updates:
Tapp was exonerated in 2019: https://innocenceproject.org/cases/christopher-tapp/
Tapp receives $11.7 settlement from the City of Idaho Falls, ID, USA in 2022: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/christopher-tapp-wrongful-convi...
Tapp dies in Las Vegas, USA in 2023: https://www.eastidahonews.com/2023/11/chris-tapp-idaho-falls...
Forensics Gone Wrong: When DNA Snares the Innocent (2016)
71–80 of 119 posts
Re: Forensics Gone Wrong: When DNA Snares the Innocent (2016)
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Confessions need to be made inadmissible in court as evidence. All state legislatures have the power to make that so, as does Congress at the federal level. The judicial system could do it too, in theory, but never will. Confessions could still be used by police as leads. While all "eyewitness testimony" is defective evidence, confessions are the most defective of all. Humans have weird psychology, but the psychology…
> Humans have weird psychology, but the psychology around confessions is the weirdest of all. It's why it's been exploited by the Catholic religion (and others). It causes strange (and not always unpleasant) emotions in those confessing, those hearing the confession, and even those confessing falsely. The purpose of confession in the religious sense has nothing to do with the purpose of confession in the judicial sen…
The inquisition was effectively a judicial body. They were religious representatives and burned witches for questionable reasons, but their… questioning did force quite a few false confessions if I recall correctly.
This has little to do with your Sunday Priest.
Re: Forensics Gone Wrong: When DNA Snares the Innocent (2016)
#73[deleted]
Re: Forensics Gone Wrong: When DNA Snares the Innocent (2016)
#74See also: > The Phantom of Heilbronn, often alternatively referred to as the "Woman Without a Face", was a hypothesized unknown female serial killer whose existence was inferred from DNA evidence found at numerous crime scenes in Austria, France and Germany from 1993 to 2009. The six murders among these included that of police officer Michèle Kiesewetter, in Heilbronn, Germany on 25 April 2007. > The only connection…
There was also the case where a DNA test of a woman's children showed that they did not share any of her DNA. Social Services was threatening to take them away from her. When she had another child, the court ordered an officer to be present during the birth and collect DNA from both of them at that time. Even still the DNA "proved" she was not the mother. It was only after another similar case was discovered that the…
Lydia Fairchild was told that her two children were not a genetic match with her and that therefore, biologically, she could not be their mother. The state accused Fairchild of fraud and filed a lawsuit against her. Researchers later determined that the genetic mismatch was due to chimerism.
Re: Forensics Gone Wrong: When DNA Snares the Innocent (2016)
#75See also: > The Phantom of Heilbronn, often alternatively referred to as the "Woman Without a Face", was a hypothesized unknown female serial killer whose existence was inferred from DNA evidence found at numerous crime scenes in Austria, France and Germany from 1993 to 2009. The six murders among these included that of police officer Michèle Kiesewetter, in Heilbronn, Germany on 25 April 2007. > The only connection…
[deleted]
Re: Forensics Gone Wrong: When DNA Snares the Innocent (2016)
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Submitting a plea is part of court procedure, and I'd also point out that the data you shared is for US federal cases, which have a notoriously high rate of conviction which could explain why people are quick to plea out. > In fiscal year 2022, only 290 of 71,954 defendants in federal criminal cases – about 0.4% – went to trial and were acquitted, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of the latest available st…
so there are 2 conclusions to draw from this 1. the federal law enforcement, and prosecutors are prefect humans that only ever go after the guilty 2. The system is sooo skewed in favor of the government that fighting them is pointless, likely due to immense corruption in the system it self Since no humans are perfect, I think the stronger case is for #2 to be reality
3. Federal prosecutors are resource-constrained and don't like to lose, so they only prosecute the surest cases.
Imagine you offer a great soccer player a million dollars if he can shoot 50 goals in a row, and he gets to choose the defenders and goalies. He's probably going to choose children to go against him.
Re: Forensics Gone Wrong: When DNA Snares the Innocent (2016)
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Submitting a plea is part of court procedure, and I'd also point out that the data you shared is for US federal cases, which have a notoriously high rate of conviction which could explain why people are quick to plea out. > In fiscal year 2022, only 290 of 71,954 defendants in federal criminal cases – about 0.4% – went to trial and were acquitted, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of the latest available st…
so there are 2 conclusions to draw from this 1. the federal law enforcement, and prosecutors are prefect humans that only ever go after the guilty 2. The system is sooo skewed in favor of the government that fighting them is pointless, likely due to immense corruption in the system it self Since no humans are perfect, I think the stronger case is for #2 to be reality
The Japanese use #1.
99.9% of criminal cases that go to trial in Japan end in a guilty verdict.
So maybe some humans are perfect enough?
Re: Forensics Gone Wrong: When DNA Snares the Innocent (2016)
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is another example of the "probability noise floor" I mentioned yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39112610 You can't be one-in-a-trillion confident about any particular DNA result, even if that's what the nominal probability from the DNA analysis itself seems to say, because it is objectively observable that there are plenty of other sources of errors of all sorts. You can only get down to that "no…
It's almost a corollary to how a lot of magic tricks work. Sure, you probably could sneak a card from one place to another, but why not just have a second card? You could predict someone's behavior, but why not simply hedge against every possibility? Magic does involve a good amount of sleight of hand, but it mostly relies on getting people to accept flawed premises. The most essential part of any given trick is the…
One saterical German book about about a communist cangoroo introduced the idea of a dirty bomb. Basically you collect as many hair, skin cells and other human remains of as many humans as you can find. And at the end of your crime you let it explode.
Re: Forensics Gone Wrong: When DNA Snares the Innocent (2016)
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn't have to be 1-to-1. You can have different standards for offensive vs defensive use of the information. Showing the DNA matches some relative of a different family could be enough to generate reasonable doubt while still being too weak to generate probable cause to arrest or even search others. Frankly, they had no probable cause to compell a DNA sample from that guys son. Probable cause is supposed to be t…
> Probable cause is supposed to be that by a preponderance of the evidence .. Really? IANAL, but this sounds like a muddling of what is required for arrest and what is the evidentiary standard for resolving a civil case in the US. I think realistically the trigger for a search or an arrest is going to be much less than what is necessary to successfully convict in a criminal case or to prevail in a civil case.
"but this sounds like a muddling of what is required for arrest and what is the evidentiary standard for resolving a civil case in the US."
I remember seeing that the standard for what was reasonable search and seizure in my state was set at preponderance of the evidence. It seems to be in line with other states/fed where you need evidence supporting that the crime has been committed or the object exists in a specific place. This can be, and often is, just an affidavit from the officer(s). Being a one sided process, being more likely than not is satisfied if there isnt an issue with the affidavit like missing element of the crime or unrealiable testimony. The problem comes up when the judges aren't viewing these with an open mind or to the standarss that states set (often these are handled by magistrates that do not hold a law degree nor have passed the bar). Often times the elements of the crimes defined in statue haven't even been claimed to have been met in the affidavit.
As an example, there might be someone operating a still at their residence. Just the sight of a still does not provide probable cause (only reasonable suspicion, and even that could be arguable). For probable cause to be met, you would have to prove that it was used for alcohol and that the person didn't have a fuel distillation permit or was selling it, etc (and probably one or two other small things in the statute). This is specific to my state. Other states may have more stringent rules about even owning a still.
"I think realistically the trigger for a search or an arrest is going to be much less than what is necessary to successfully convict in a criminal case or to prevail in a civil case."
It is less than the standard for conviction. All it needs is to show the elements of the crime have been claimed to have been met in the affidavit. Although they aren't even meeting this standard in every case. Or in some cases the officers have lied or made mistakes.
It's not exactly the same as a civil case since the warrant process is ex parte and does not need to consider defenses to the charge. It's just the same level of proof but applied to one-sided testimony. For example, you might have shot someone in self defense and the witnesses all agree it was self defense. They can still charge you (in most states) and make you prove that defense in court. You could get into some malicious prosecution stuff here, but according to probable cause you have satisfied all the elements of the crime and can be charged. Proving your defense then happens at the trial.
IANAL either, but have some criminal justice background. These are just what I have seen as it applies in my state.
Re: Forensics Gone Wrong: When DNA Snares the Innocent (2016)
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Trust the science", a refrain we of course heard over and over again used to justify questionable (and often coincidentally highly profitable) interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic, is already a contradiction in terms. The entire basis for being so enamored with science, as so many of us are, is that it provides a method for establishing facts without needing trust. Despite the noise to the contrary, we live in…
> justify questionable (and often coincidentally highly profitable) interventions What interventions might those be? I'm only aware of the interventions that time and time again have been proven to be highly effective that were implemented here, masking, improved guidelines for hygiene, distancing, and vaccination.
The unprecedented surge in money printing which pushed nearly all asset prices higher, causing major inflation. The mandated vaccines, paid for by taxpayers. Lockdown policies which effectively forced most people under house arrest, sending tech stocks like Amazon, Google, Facebook to all time highs. There was also a clear conflict of interest between companies like Google which benefited from lockdowns, and their content policies which censored criticism of the response to covid. Needless to say it's creepy to have the vast majority of information controlled by a handful of companies.