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Bad evidence having been presented against them does not mean they are necessarily innocent. Their cases did not all hinge entirely upon this one piece of foren

by 794CD01 10y ago

Bad evidence having been presented against them does not mean they are necessarily innocent. Their cases did not all hinge entirely upon this one piece of forensic evidence. Although what happened to them was wrong, pardons go too far in the opposite direction. Retrial would be far more appropriate.

jessaustin 10y ago
Retrials ain't gonna happen, not least because there aren't enough courts to retry all the cases for which retrial is "appropriate", and also work through current cases. (In my county, there is a rapist of children still on pretrial bail after three fucking years because "there aren't enough judges" and the real priorities around here are traffic offences and drug possession. How eager do you think the courts are going to be to clean up ancient FBI fuckups?) Besides, which cases are you talking about? Juries will convict with no evidence. A single piece of "evidence" is enough for a judge to let the conviction stand. Most of these trials did "hinge entirely upon this one piece of forensic" bullshit. Fake forensics has allowed LEOs to pick suspects out of a hat and get convictions for decades. Do you really want to leave all those innocents in prison because you feel good about their hat-picking percentages? Far better for one innocent prisoner to be released than for hundreds of guilty people to stay in prison.
- 794CD01 10y ago
  I'm talking about the 32 capital cases referred to in the article. Which are you talking about? The ones you imagine as a symbol of systemic injustice? Or actual cases?
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    Ah, OK, I can see how that was confusing, from a certain point of view. From TFA: “Of 28 examiners with the FBI Laboratory’s microscopic hair comparison unit, 26 overstated forensic matches in ways that favored prosecutors in more than 95 percent of the 268 trials reviewed so far.” That is, these dickheads lied almost every time. We shouldn't suspect only the 250 verdicts their lies about which have been documented. We should suspect every single verdict that they touched. The WaPo article is more informative than TFA in this respect, in that it reveals that 2500 cases over this period had FBI hair testimony, while only 342 had been reviewed when that article was published. It also drops this bomb: "The bureau expects this year to complete similar standards for testimony and lab reports for 19 forensic disciplines." That is, there are tens of thousands more cases with shitty lying FBI expert testimony. I tried digging out more precise figures on this last part, but the Innocence Project's site is kind of a mess.

by 794CD01 10y ago

jessaustin 10y ago

Retrials ain't gonna happen, not least because there aren't enough courts to retry all the cases for which retrial is "appropriate", and also work through current cases. (In my county, there is a rapist of children still on pretrial bail after three fucking years because "there aren't enough judges" and the real priorities around here are traffic offences and drug possession. How eager do you think the courts are going to be to clean up ancient FBI fuckups?) Besides, which cases are you talking about? Juries will convict with no evidence. A single piece of "evidence" is enough for a judge to let the conviction stand. Most of these trials did "hinge entirely upon this one piece of forensic" bullshit. Fake forensics has allowed LEOs to pick suspects out of a hat and get convictions for decades. Do you really want to leave all those innocents in prison because you feel good about their hat-picking percentages? Far better for one innocent prisoner to be released than for hundreds of guilty people to stay in prison.

794CD01 10y ago
I'm talking about the 32 capital cases referred to in the article. Which are you talking about? The ones you imagine as a symbol of systemic injustice? Or actual cases?
- jessaustin 10y ago
  Ah, OK, I can see how that was confusing, from a certain point of view. From TFA: “Of 28 examiners with the FBI Laboratory’s microscopic hair comparison unit, 26 overstated forensic matches in ways that favored prosecutors in more than 95 percent of the 268 trials reviewed so far.” That is, these dickheads lied almost every time. We shouldn't suspect only the 250 verdicts their lies about which have been documented. We should suspect every single verdict that they touched. The WaPo article is more informative than TFA in this respect, in that it reveals that 2500 cases over this period had FBI hair testimony, while only 342 had been reviewed when that article was published. It also drops this bomb: "The bureau expects this year to complete similar standards for testimony and lab reports for 19 forensic disciplines." That is, there are tens of thousands more cases with shitty lying FBI expert testimony. I tried digging out more precise figures on this last part, but the Innocence Project's site is kind of a mess.