4 ms·

What can you do? 1. If you are on a jury, remember that it is FAR FAR FAR worse to imprison an innocent person than to let a guilty person free, regardless of

by pilom 10y ago

What can you do? 1. If you are on a jury, remember that it is FAR FAR FAR worse to imprison an innocent person than to let a guilty person free, regardless of the crime. Listen to evidence and make a personal decision about the defendant's guilt with that in mind and don't let any other jurors push you around. 2. Donate to your local chapter of the Innocence Project. 3. Encourage your local DA office to form or expand a version of the Conviction Review Unit mentioned in the article.

kiliantics 10y ago
If I were on a jury in the US, I'd vote the defendant not guilty no matter what the evidence. Prison here (and almost everywhere) is a human rights catastrophe and no person deserves it.
- crispyambulance 10y ago
  Don't worry, plenty of folks already do that in cities which are overflowing with uncontrollable violent crime and have neighborhoods so neglected they look like they've been bombed (eg where I lived for 12 years, Baltimore).
- gwkoehler 10y ago
  So basically, you believe dangerous people should remain in society? Habitual criminals should continue to terrorize innocents such as yourself and your family, and you wouldn't even call the police?
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    In my state the moment one of those people enter your home uninvited you have a right to execute said criminal. I won't call the police on them, but I'm not going to let those sorts of people back out into society either. That said I'd vote not guilty for any victimless crime.
  - justratsinacoat 10y ago
    >So basically, you believe dangerous people should remain in society? >Habitual criminals should continue to terrorize innocents such as yourself and your family, and you wouldn't even call the police? One of these sentences is a reasonable, if a bit reductive, summary of the GP's point. The other is wild hyperbole. Fully half of the comment I'm replying to is total nonsense, putting words in another's mouth, disingenuously representing another's opinion in the hope of making that person seem monstrous. To what end, gwkoehler? Is your position so tenuous that you feel you must misrepresent your opponent's? If your comments weren't an attempt at a counterargument, is it really so important to tell kiliantics that you disagree with his opinion and wish to paint it as unwise?
    - gwkoehler 10y ago
      I was trying to spark discussion, because I honestly do not understand this point of view. If you believe criminals shouldn't go to jail, it stands to reason that you're ok with coexisting with some very violent people next door. Someone has to.
      - justratsinacoat 10y ago
        A great way to understand another's point of view is to strawman it!! If you're actually interested in GGGP's position, look at his second sentence -- it's not that he's some insane opponent of Law and Order, it's that he seems to believe that the US penal system is so monstrous a punishment that he'd rather not visit it on anyone. Regardless, asking open-ended questions, rather than hoisting Cunningham's Law and charging, is probably a better way to 'spark discussion'.
        gwkoehler 10y ago
        Do you believe that any one person deserves jail in the united states?
        justratsinacoat 10y ago
        The point of view you're riled up about isn't mine. Go try to start fights elsewhere.
thearn4 10y ago
> If you are on a jury, remember that it is FAR FAR FAR worse to imprison an innocent person than to let a guilty person free, regardless of the crime This is one of the best examples of what the stats folks call a type I vs type II error. To understand why this point is correct, simply consider where the actual criminal is in each of the two cases - they're free. When imprisoning an innocent person, it truly is a double error (type I): the innocent person went to jail, and the guilty person STILL went free.
- swsieber 10y ago
  Oh my goodness. The whole type I vs type II actually seems a lot less nonsensical now. Thank you.
  - thearn4 10y ago
    It honestly isn't too much more complex than that. The conventional framework for the test of hypotheses (via the neyman-pearson lemma or some slight twist on it) effectively says you should put a hard limit on the dangerous type I errors (alpha), while numerically trying to minimize the less dangerous type II errors. It's certainly not the only way to do this empirically (which is why stats can seem like such a hodgepodge of competing perspectives), but it's the core framework that the hard sciences seemed to settle on in the 20th century. High level math-stats is a cool subject, I think that in some ways machine learning can be seen as picking up at the boundary of these 'traditional' methods. For example, if I don't care to really distinguish between false-positives and false-negatives, then you end up with something that will look more like an SVM than a test of hypotheses.

by pilom 10y ago

kiliantics 10y ago

If I were on a jury in the US, I'd vote the defendant not guilty no matter what the evidence. Prison here (and almost everywhere) is a human rights catastrophe and no person deserves it.

crispyambulance 10y ago
Don't worry, plenty of folks already do that in cities which are overflowing with uncontrollable violent crime and have neighborhoods so neglected they look like they've been bombed (eg where I lived for 12 years, Baltimore).
gwkoehler 10y ago
So basically, you believe dangerous people should remain in society? Habitual criminals should continue to terrorize innocents such as yourself and your family, and you wouldn't even call the police?
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  In my state the moment one of those people enter your home uninvited you have a right to execute said criminal. I won't call the police on them, but I'm not going to let those sorts of people back out into society either. That said I'd vote not guilty for any victimless crime.
- justratsinacoat 10y ago
  >So basically, you believe dangerous people should remain in society? >Habitual criminals should continue to terrorize innocents such as yourself and your family, and you wouldn't even call the police? One of these sentences is a reasonable, if a bit reductive, summary of the GP's point. The other is wild hyperbole. Fully half of the comment I'm replying to is total nonsense, putting words in another's mouth, disingenuously representing another's opinion in the hope of making that person seem monstrous. To what end, gwkoehler? Is your position so tenuous that you feel you must misrepresent your opponent's? If your comments weren't an attempt at a counterargument, is it really so important to tell kiliantics that you disagree with his opinion and wish to paint it as unwise?
  - gwkoehler 10y ago
    I was trying to spark discussion, because I honestly do not understand this point of view. If you believe criminals shouldn't go to jail, it stands to reason that you're ok with coexisting with some very violent people next door. Someone has to.
    - justratsinacoat 10y ago
      A great way to understand another's point of view is to strawman it!! If you're actually interested in GGGP's position, look at his second sentence -- it's not that he's some insane opponent of Law and Order, it's that he seems to believe that the US penal system is so monstrous a punishment that he'd rather not visit it on anyone. Regardless, asking open-ended questions, rather than hoisting Cunningham's Law and charging, is probably a better way to 'spark discussion'.
      - gwkoehler 10y ago
        Do you believe that any one person deserves jail in the united states?
        justratsinacoat 10y ago
        The point of view you're riled up about isn't mine. Go try to start fights elsewhere.

thearn4 10y ago

> If you are on a jury, remember that it is FAR FAR FAR worse to imprison an innocent person than to let a guilty person free, regardless of the crime This is one of the best examples of what the stats folks call a type I vs type II error. To understand why this point is correct, simply consider where the actual criminal is in each of the two cases - they're free. When imprisoning an innocent person, it truly is a double error (type I): the innocent person went to jail, and the guilty person STILL went free.

swsieber 10y ago
Oh my goodness. The whole type I vs type II actually seems a lot less nonsensical now. Thank you.
- thearn4 10y ago
  It honestly isn't too much more complex than that. The conventional framework for the test of hypotheses (via the neyman-pearson lemma or some slight twist on it) effectively says you should put a hard limit on the dangerous type I errors (alpha), while numerically trying to minimize the less dangerous type II errors. It's certainly not the only way to do this empirically (which is why stats can seem like such a hodgepodge of competing perspectives), but it's the core framework that the hard sciences seemed to settle on in the 20th century. High level math-stats is a cool subject, I think that in some ways machine learning can be seen as picking up at the boundary of these 'traditional' methods. For example, if I don't care to really distinguish between false-positives and false-negatives, then you end up with something that will look more like an SVM than a test of hypotheses.