Police, Prosecutors Used Junk Science to Decide 911 Callers Were Liars (2022)
1–10 of 20 posts
Re: Police, Prosecutors Used Junk Science to Decide 911 Callers Were Liars (2022)
#2> Prosecutors know it’s junk science too. But that hasn’t stopped some from promoting his methods and even deploying 911 call analysis in court to win convictions. [...] She [Harpster] said she disguised 911 call analysis in court by “getting creative … without calling it ‘science.’”
Unfortunately, prosecutors are not trying to find out the truth, they're simply trying to put whoever is in front of them in prison. It doesn't matter if the suspect is guilty. If the guy goes to prison, they win.
> This judge wouldn’t allow her to continue and cut the testimony short. Faria was acquitted. He’d spent three and a half years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit.
> None of this bothered Harpster, who needed fresh kudos to repackage as marketing material and for a chapter in an upcoming book.
"Justice" system.
Re: Police, Prosecutors Used Junk Science to Decide 911 Callers Were Liars (2022)
#3(2022)
Previous discussion(208 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34161214
Re: Police, Prosecutors Used Junk Science to Decide 911 Callers Were Liars (2022)
#4[deleted]
Re: Police, Prosecutors Used Junk Science to Decide 911 Callers Were Liars (2022)
#5> Prosecutors know it’s junk science too. But that hasn’t stopped some from promoting his methods and even deploying 911 call analysis in court to win convictions. [...] She [Harpster] said she disguised 911 call analysis in court by “getting creative … without calling it ‘science.’” Unfortunately, prosecutors are not trying to find out the truth, they're simply trying to put whoever is in front of them in prison. It…
To an extent, everything is pushed to its limits in all human systems, so that it's most efficient. If things operate at random amounts between minimum and maximum, it's not efficient, and also unpredictable.
The same system also allows a lawyer that knows his client is guilty to still defend them (if they wish).
At the end of the day, if someone is dead or something is stolen, there are cases where we know what happened (for example video evidence). In the other cases, where we don't know for sure (hearsay, witnesses, etc..) if we don't convict someone is not getting justice. It can absolutely be wrong but this is where the two pressures of the system have to work as hard as possible and see where it breaks. There is no other way to do it.
Re: Police, Prosecutors Used Junk Science to Decide 911 Callers Were Liars (2022)
#6> Prosecutors know it’s junk science too. But that hasn’t stopped some from promoting his methods and even deploying 911 call analysis in court to win convictions. [...] She [Harpster] said she disguised 911 call analysis in court by “getting creative … without calling it ‘science.’” Unfortunately, prosecutors are not trying to find out the truth, they're simply trying to put whoever is in front of them in prison. It…
[deleted]
Re: Police, Prosecutors Used Junk Science to Decide 911 Callers Were Liars (2022)
#7> Prosecutors know it’s junk science too. But that hasn’t stopped some from promoting his methods and even deploying 911 call analysis in court to win convictions. [...] She [Harpster] said she disguised 911 call analysis in court by “getting creative … without calling it ‘science.’” Unfortunately, prosecutors are not trying to find out the truth, they're simply trying to put whoever is in front of them in prison. It…
> Unfortunately, prosecutors are not trying to find out the truth, they're simply trying to put whoever is in front of them in prison. It doesn't matter if the suspect is guilty. If the guy goes to prison, they win.
Yes, exactly. I still can't wrap my mind around this.
Re: Police, Prosecutors Used Junk Science to Decide 911 Callers Were Liars (2022)
#8> Prosecutors know it’s junk science too. But that hasn’t stopped some from promoting his methods and even deploying 911 call analysis in court to win convictions. [...] She [Harpster] said she disguised 911 call analysis in court by “getting creative … without calling it ‘science.’” Unfortunately, prosecutors are not trying to find out the truth, they're simply trying to put whoever is in front of them in prison. It…
To an extent, everything is pushed to its limits in all human systems, so that it's most efficient. If things operate at random amounts between minimum and maximum, it's not efficient, and also unpredictable. The same system also allows a lawyer that knows his client is guilty to still defend them (if they wish). At the end of the day, if someone is dead or something is stolen, there are cases where we know what happ…
> To an extent, everything is pushed to its limits in all human systems, so that it's most efficient
...with respect to which parameters? Efficiency is not an absolute measurement in any sense.
To my mind, an efficient justice system would address crime materially relevant to the median citizen per cost to the tax payer, not the rabid delusions of the average new york post reader.
Re: Police, Prosecutors Used Junk Science to Decide 911 Callers Were Liars (2022)
#9> Prosecutors know it’s junk science too. But that hasn’t stopped some from promoting his methods and even deploying 911 call analysis in court to win convictions. [...] She [Harpster] said she disguised 911 call analysis in court by “getting creative … without calling it ‘science.’” Unfortunately, prosecutors are not trying to find out the truth, they're simply trying to put whoever is in front of them in prison. It…
To an extent, everything is pushed to its limits in all human systems, so that it's most efficient. If things operate at random amounts between minimum and maximum, it's not efficient, and also unpredictable. The same system also allows a lawyer that knows his client is guilty to still defend them (if they wish). At the end of the day, if someone is dead or something is stolen, there are cases where we know what happ…
You seriously cannot think of a single other way to do it?
Re: Police, Prosecutors Used Junk Science to Decide 911 Callers Were Liars (2022)
#10These kinds of stories seem to have no other effect than to make the world feel darker, scarier, more dreary. It is, at best, another data-point in the argument against the criminal justice system, that it is run by ignorant, ego-inflated bullies looking for anything to make their bullying easier and more total. It goes along with the many auditing videos of LEOs overtly breaking the law, issuing unlawful orders to citizens, assaulting them, arresting them for nothing, knowing how much pain they are causing and knowing they'll get away with it. It goes with the SWAT teams violently entering homes at the wrong address, shooting dogs and leaving with a snide, "Be grateful it wasn't worse."
It paints a picture of an American justice system that is entirely corrupt, where judges, attorneys, police and prosecutors all work on the same team, all operate different levers of the same meat grinder, where the rules are an impediment and treated like a joke. The only people to get any kind of justice are those with deep pockets, and often not even then.
Local police have far too much power, far too little knowledge of the law, and far too often escalate an interaction because of their hurt egos. And they have so many tools: 'officer safety' being a perennial favorite. How does this stop? Why are the police in other countries better behaved? When will people stop being distracted by pronoun wars and get outraged at something real and urgent? What do you do with the legions of unthinking supporters of the meat-grinder, who cannot or will not imagine that one can have societal order without it, and that the lever-pullers are doing God's work? One can play whack-a-mole with this systemic injustice and that one, but the system as a whole is so deeply embedded, it seems impossible to change incrementally. The cops, judges, lawyers, AGs are just too comfortable operating with impunity, and they are too politically connected to ever change.