14 ms·

25 Years After Junk Science Conviction, Texas Admits Sonia Cacy's Innocence

310 points by finid 10y ago

gourou 10y ago
Making a Murderer season 2
- mason240 10y ago
  Except this person appears to be innocent.
  - hueving 10y ago
    Uh, the whole point of making a murderer was to show that he could potentially have been innocent as well.
mabbo 10y ago
> In an exceptional move by the notoriously conservative panel, the BPP agreed that Cacy should be paroled, just six years after she was convicted. She served 6 years before parole, not 25 years behind bars I'm far more concerned with Cameron Todd Willingham. Governor Perry had this evidence, that much of the state evidence being used was junk science, and did nothing while an innocent man was put to death. Shameful.
- nostromo 10y ago
  The amount of junk science we allow in American court rooms is truly alarming. I wish more people knew about the case you're reference. Here's an excellent article: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/trial-by-fire http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/trial-by-fire And here's a good description about how it's quite common for a "fire expert" (which may simply be a normal firefighter) to misclassify an accidental fire as arson, implicating innocent survivors as murderers: https://californiainnocenceproject.org/issues-we-face/fire-investigation/ https://californiainnocenceproject.org/issues-we-face/fire-i...
  - mc32 10y ago
    There was another one in TX where a father was jailed for arson/murder? thinking he intentionally set the fire which killed his sons, I think, eventually new science cast doubts on the conviction. In the second revisit of the case it seemed the children had been playing with incendiary devices and accidentally set fire to a shed they were playing in. Most of the evidence against the father was circumstantial and inferential (divorce? time he arrived home, etc.) Not sure if he was set free, but scary anyway.
    - thechao 10y ago
      He was innocent & executed.
      - wnevets 10y ago
        sounds like texas alright
      - mc32 10y ago
        Do you recall the case? I think it's one of the seminal cases that cast grave doubts on the accuracy of fire science as then and currently understood.
        forgetsusername 10y ago
        >Do you recall the case? PBS to the rescue: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/death-by-fire/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/death-by-fire/
        mc32 10y ago
        Similar, but the case I recall was this one about mr Graf: https://wrongfulconvictionsblog.org/2015/08/20/modern-forensics-vs-good-old-fashioned-texas-justice-the-trials-of-ed-graf/ https://wrongfulconvictionsblog.org/2015/08/20/modern-forens... He's not the most sympathetic guy, given his peccadilloes, but the case was mostly circumstantial with some junk science thrown in for good measure. However, the overturning of his conviction was due to the injustice carried out on mr Willingham and the exposition of the junk science behind it. The overturning of mr Graf's conviction was the first one based on what was learned from the Willingham case.
- sctb 10y ago
  We updated the submission title from “How junk science put a woman behind bars for 25 years”, which breaks the rules by being editorialized.
- finid 10y ago
  The shame is on the whole system, not just on former Gov. Perry. You see, here in the US, being "tough on crime" improves your odds of getting elected, or of keeping your position, if you're already elected.
- zeveb 10y ago
  > Governor Perry had this evidence, that much of the state evidence being used was junk science, and did nothing while an innocent man was put to death. Shameful. In his defence, how can Gov. Perry distinguish between the case of the state investigator utilising junk science and the case of the someone who uses junk science to allege that the investigator used junk science? And of course there are plenty of other calls on a governor's time: his job was not to spend his entire term reviewing that one sentence. So of course he has to have panels of people he trusts are experts to review things for him. And they too have multiple items to consider. Going by what I've read, I would not have made his decision. But I wasn't in his situation, and I don't have access to the experiences he's had. Perhaps he had good reason to distrust those who urged him to distrust the investigator.
  - joering2 10y ago
    > And of course there are plenty of other calls on a governor's time: his job was not to spend his entire term reviewing that one sentence. Gosh, this sound in my eyes makes you sound like a monster. You know that a living human being (innocent) life was forcibly stopped, correct? If this doesn't speak to you then imagine this could as well be your child, or parent, or spouse? I mean -- is there anything more important to anyone - whether politician or not - that live of another person, especially if you're in charge of keeping this human alive or putting stop to it. Or maybe I'm simply being too soft. It might be - I know - I've been living in the USA for too long...
    - jpt4 10y ago
      This reply takes advantage of the opportunity of a dialectical opponent, represented by your comment, to address abstract issues alluded to by your words of choice. It is not intended to argue or refute your worldview directly. > is there anything more important to anyone ... [than the life] of another person Behind the veil of ignorance which equates all persons, things which might reasonably be considered more important include: -the lives of more than one other person -severe changes in the quality of life for many people -significant environmental degradation, and other systemic alterations of sufficient scale Allowing for the criteria to include the differences between individuals, the most immediate additions to the above list becomes: -the life of oneself -the preservation of the lives and quality of life of one's family members Further, although our current legal system precludes it, the framework of thought exists for very fine grain gradations in the differing values considered inherent in different people, as expressed by e.g. the German weregild system [0]; under such precepts, allocations of attention would be prioritized following the accepted worth of each object of attention. > maybe I'm simply being too soft The perspective assuming a position of ignorance is often considered "soft" and idealistic, in contrast to the "hard", realistic, non-egalitarian stance here epitomized by the system of man-price. I propose that this is the common interpretation. However, I counter that the former is only effectively realizable by a juridical system of great strength and resources, before which all men can be operationally equated because the marginal burden any one case places on the faculties of the law is negligible. Therefore, perhaps you voice your position not from reasoning aligned with softness, but rather that aligned with awesome and as-yet-non-extant might. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weregild https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weregild
- StillBored 10y ago
  Yes, and the number of death row inmate exonerated by DNA evidence (frequently after having fought a long battle to be able to use it) should convince anyone that the death penalty is putting innocent people to death. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-list-those-freed-death-row http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-list-those-freed-d...
  - wtbob 10y ago
    Only an idiot thinks that the justice system never convicts and punishes the innocent. Only an idiot thinks any justice system which convicts and punishes anyone will never make mistakes (the only process to never punish the innocent is to refuse to punish at all, which has its own downsides). Innocent folks are executed. Innocent folks breathe their last breaths as life prisoners. Innocent folks die of hear attacks a year into their sentences. Innocent folks spend decades in prison. Innocent folks are forced to register as sex offenders. Innocent folks go into bankruptcy due to fines. You can't get your life back whether you're executed or die in prison. You can't get your years back. You can't take back public humiliation. You can't restore lost opportunities. That innocents suffer is not an argument against a justice system, because having no justice system at all is yet more unjust. As an aside, I agree with you that it's despicable that inmates have to fight so hard to use exculpatory evidence, particularly when that evidence simply didn't exist when they were convicted. This is indeed a great problem.
deleted 10y ago
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seibelj 10y ago
This is something I find extremely scary, because an unusual series of events (accidental fire, accidental drowning, suicide) could be framed to look like something entirely different (arson, murder), which could drag any one of us into a nightmare. If you don't have the money to hire your own experts and a strong legal team, potentially bankrupting yourself, you are at the mercy of a motivated prosecutor with nearly unlimited resources. In 2009 a scathing report was released by the National Academy of Sciences that essentially says that blood spatter, handwriting, hair, fingerprints, and bite mark analysis are all junk science[0]. If two "experts" can look at the same evidence and come to entirely different conclusions, how is this science? It's opinion wrapped up as scientific fact. Who knows how many people are innocently convicted. It's terrifying. An excerpt from WikiPedia about hair analysis: The outcry from defense attorneys has forced the FBI to open up on disputed hair analysis matches since 2012. The Justice department began an "unprecedented" review of old cases involving hair analysis in July 2013, examining more than 21,000 cases referred to the FBI Lab's hair unit from 1982 through 1999, and including as many as 27 death penalty convictions in which FBI experts may have exaggerated the reliability of hair analysis in their testimony. The review is still in progress, but in 2015, it released findings on 268 trials examined so far in which hair analysis was used. The review concluded that in 257 of these 268 trials, the analysts gave flawed testimony that overstated the accuracy of the findings in favor of the prosecution. About 1200 cases remain to be examined.[1] [0] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/us/05forensics.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/us/05forensics.html?pagewa... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_analysis#Microscopic_hair_analysis_in_forensics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_analysis#Microscopic_hair...
- gohrt 10y ago
  "Opinion" is a subjective judgment based on personal weighing of facts by priority and probability. We must rely on judges and juries and expert opinions to form opinions. This junk forensics is just "guessing" and "prejudice".
- DINKDINK 10y ago
  >If two "experts" can look at the same evidence and come to entirely different conclusions, how is this science? Scientism is a mental disease perpetuated by people who seek social persuasion through whatever means convinces a person/the public rather than objective epidemiologically derived truth. It's easier to appear smart by accepting dubious "science" than rebuking it with skepticism.
draw_down 10y ago
We need a pretext for what we want to do, which in America is to lock people up. If we can fool ourselves with something that sorta looks and smells like science, that fits the bill perfectly.
- aero142 10y ago
  I don't think it's fair to say we "want to lock people up". We need to believe that we can make ourselves safe from criminals. We need to believe can do some science magic and tell the difference between the criminals and the regular people so we can sleep at night. Admitting we can't calls in to question the whole premise of locking the bad people up. A judge or politician can't come out and say, "we have no reliable way of deciding guilt or innocence." That is reality but we can't allow ourselves to admit it.
  - draw_down 10y ago
    All I have to say is, look at our prison population vs any other country's.
yuhong 10y ago
Anti-discrimination laws are even worse in that discrimination can happen with no evidence at all. One of the methods used to enforce them (particularly in things like hiring) is statistics, most of which assumes employees are interchangeable commodities. They were designed back in the 1960s for things like manual labor jobs. I am willing to suggest a compromise to limit them to these kinds of jobs.
- charonn0 10y ago
  I think you meant to reply to a different post.
rdtsc 10y ago
"Expert" witnesses for US courtrooms is a special kind of a parallel voodoo-science world. Especially when it comes to arson. Prosecutors like to pick the same people to testify as "experts" and their top qualification is that they have testified before as "experts". I imagine many have optimized putting up an act and throwing around fancy terms to make it seems really precise and scientific. Their future employment depends on that.
- api 10y ago
  This phenomenon exists everywhere. Who's an expert? A person with a history of being an expert, of course. It's a socially distributed form of confirmation bias.
- tzs 10y ago
  In civil cases, where both parties often have a significant budget for hiring experts, the experts often actually are top people from their fields but who are retired. I watched a patent trial, and an important part of one of the claims was that certain data from a hard disk was cached in a RAM cache. The side that wanted to see the patent invalidated brought up some earlier patent that involved caching some data on a hard disk, and claimed it was prior art that should have been considered. Their expert said that "RAM" stands for "random access memory", and a disk is random access and it is memory, so that any programmer or engineer who read the patent that called for using a RAM cache would understand that caching that data on a hard disk would count. That, of course, was one of the most ridiculous things I'd ever heard. However, the expert certainly was a real expert. He was a professor emeritus and former head of the computer science department of a top CS school. In fact, he had been the one who started the CS program there and brought it to its position as a top program. He was a fellow of the IEEE, and his published papers back from when he was an active researcher were some of the seminal papers from the beginning of the modern semiconductor and VLSI era. So how the hell did this guy think that "RAM cache" is commonly understood to include a cache stored on a hard disk? I asked the lawyers for the side that was defending the patent, and their expert (another retired professor emeritus, IEEE fellow, yadda yadda...) about that. They explained to me that experts in a trial like this will get paid $50-100k or more to testify in this kind of trial. They basically have to just spend a few hours reading a patent, and then come up with an argument for the side that is paying them that will sound good to a jury and that is not provably a lie. Then they have to come and spend maybe a week at the trial location, being there to help the lawyers out and to spend maybe an hour on the stand. So basically $100k for a couple of weeks of not too strenuous work, two plane trips, and a week in a hotel. They don't have to worry that colleagues will find out about the dumb things they said at trial and hold it against them or that it might tarnish their legacy or reputation, because everyone in the field knows about these expert witness gigs. When they hear that Professor Soandso said something really stupid about RAM cache at a trial, they just think, "Oh...I guess Professor Soandso wanted a new RV" or "Professor Soandso wanted a new boat". (In the case of the expert for the patent owner, it was to be one of the earliest to own a Tesla).
garyclarke27 10y ago
Similar junk in the UK has put many innocent parents away for "shaking baby syndrome" just based on a theory, not proven by scientific evidence. Expert witnesses who don't agree with the consensus establishment, have even been banned from practicing medicine, thus most now refuse to testify.
- DanBC 10y ago
  You might want to read the papers those banned doctors refer to, because the doctors often mangle the science. Here's one case of a doctor who had been struck off by the GMC. The judge overturned that decision, but has maintained the ban on her acting as an expert witness because she mangles the science so badly. https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/squier-v-gmc-protected-approved-judgment-20160311-2.pdf https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/squi...
metafunctor 10y ago
Is junk science in court rooms a root cause or just a symptom?
- notgood 10y ago
  I always despite this question so much; mainly because everything is a cause of something and a symptom of something at the same time; there is nothing isolated in this world. So you have to give a lot of context to see if -in that context- it is a cause or an effect. I'm this particular case you could say stupidity is the root cause, but saying so it's too abstract to be usefu/actionable.
- TillE 10y ago
  It's basically a symptom of a highly imperfect system, where few participants actually have the incentive of seeing justice done.
ihaveahadron 10y ago
Junk science is probably the greatest issue of our time. I theorize that ~90% of what is labeled science actually isn't.
finid 10y ago
Somethings the main qualification of some so-called experts is a certification from a 6-hour or 6-week class. From then on, they are eligible to testify as an expert in serious criminal cases.
deleted 10y ago
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deleted 10y ago
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geff82 10y ago
The nightmare is also that in some countries, when the police knocks on the door to arrest you, you might get killed in a gruel archaic ritual called "execution" at the end, even if you did nothing wrong, just the odds were against you. Here in Germany I do not have to fear the police. If if the judges wrongly sent me to jail "for life", at least I'd have some hope that one day I can convince them they were wrong and get to freedom again.
- 08-15 10y ago
  After two or three decades behind bars, you don't care about your freedom anymore. (Watch "The Shawshank Redemption" and see what happens to Brooks, if you don't get what I mean.) I really don't get where this ridiculous focus of human rights activists on the death penalty come from. Sure, death is irreversible, but so is locking someone away for decades. I actually think decades behind bars is more cruel than a swift death. Which reminds me... why aren't the false experts who caused the convictions of innocents locked away themselves? How is killing a man by lying about evidence not murder?
  - voxic11 10y ago
    You have to prove they lied and we're not simply dumb or mistaken, which is sadly often the case.
    - 08-15 10y ago
      Indeed, but why? Any professional is responsible for the damage they cause, whether on purpose or by neglect. These forensic "professionals" are not. And that's messed up. Besides, if you are both a professional and dumb or mistaken, you say that you don't know. Lying about your lack of confidence destroys human lives, and that's why I think bad "experts" should be tried for murder and probably convicted for (involuntary) manslaughter. Making expert witnesses responsible for the BS they spout would align their incentives correctly.
- zeveb 10y ago
  > If if the judges wrongly sent me to jail "for life", at least I'd have some hope that one day I can convince them they were wrong and get to freedom again. Is your German government any more able to restore your lost decades than my government is able to restore lost life? For some crimes execution is unjust; for others it is just. It is just as unjust to allow someone who deserves death to live as it is unjust to execute someone who deserves life.
GirlsCanCode 10y ago
> Richardson was also known to use a small propane torch to roast marshmallows while sitting in his recliner. Wow.
rmchugh 10y ago
The other case mentioned, the Willingham case is even more horrifying. A man was convicted of murdering his children and sentenced to death on bogus evidence. When presented with evidence to the contrary, the state of Texas under Rick Perry ignored it and allowed the man to be executed. This is state sanctioned murder of an innocent man. Why is the Governor not on trial for this?
lanius 10y ago
Gerald Hurst and Chris Connealy are true heroes.
johnhattan 10y ago
Got a friend currently doing time in Texas for basically the same thing. Here's hoping this gets the case some notoriety. http://thearsonproject.org/case-studies/curtis-severns/ http://thearsonproject.org/case-studies/curtis-severns/
- Hondor 10y ago
  Wow. 27 years for burning down your business and claiming insurance, even when it doesn't kill or seriously injure anyone, and the value is only ~$200,000. Guilty or innocent, that's a completely obscene sentence! How can anyone in Texas safely make an insurance claim for fire when the risk of misunderstanding is so great? In this particular case, it all seems to hinge on people's opinions of whether a flying can could have jumped over some barrier or shot a plume of flame in some direction and other subtle details about the scene that can't possibly be known without actually reconstructing or simulating the whole thing.
edblarney 10y ago
Question is: what is considered 'junk science' at the time it was used in court? Because I'm sure we are using some 'junk science' we just don't understand at the present time.
Tloewald 10y ago
This reminds me of a New Yorker article on the same topic (covering an even greater injustice, also in Texas -- in fact referred to in this article) http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/trial-by-fire http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/trial-by-fire

310 points by finid 10y ago

gourou 10y ago

Making a Murderer season 2

mason240 10y ago
Except this person appears to be innocent.
- hueving 10y ago
  Uh, the whole point of making a murderer was to show that he could potentially have been innocent as well.

mabbo 10y ago

> In an exceptional move by the notoriously conservative panel, the BPP agreed that Cacy should be paroled, just six years after she was convicted. She served 6 years before parole, not 25 years behind bars I'm far more concerned with Cameron Todd Willingham. Governor Perry had this evidence, that much of the state evidence being used was junk science, and did nothing while an innocent man was put to death. Shameful.

nostromo 10y ago
The amount of junk science we allow in American court rooms is truly alarming. I wish more people knew about the case you're reference. Here's an excellent article: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/trial-by-fire http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/trial-by-fire And here's a good description about how it's quite common for a "fire expert" (which may simply be a normal firefighter) to misclassify an accidental fire as arson, implicating innocent survivors as murderers: https://californiainnocenceproject.org/issues-we-face/fire-investigation/ https://californiainnocenceproject.org/issues-we-face/fire-i...
- mc32 10y ago
  There was another one in TX where a father was jailed for arson/murder? thinking he intentionally set the fire which killed his sons, I think, eventually new science cast doubts on the conviction. In the second revisit of the case it seemed the children had been playing with incendiary devices and accidentally set fire to a shed they were playing in. Most of the evidence against the father was circumstantial and inferential (divorce? time he arrived home, etc.) Not sure if he was set free, but scary anyway.
  - thechao 10y ago
    He was innocent & executed.
    - wnevets 10y ago
      sounds like texas alright
    - mc32 10y ago
      Do you recall the case? I think it's one of the seminal cases that cast grave doubts on the accuracy of fire science as then and currently understood.
      - forgetsusername 10y ago
        >Do you recall the case? PBS to the rescue: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/death-by-fire/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/death-by-fire/
        mc32 10y ago
        Similar, but the case I recall was this one about mr Graf: https://wrongfulconvictionsblog.org/2015/08/20/modern-forensics-vs-good-old-fashioned-texas-justice-the-trials-of-ed-graf/ https://wrongfulconvictionsblog.org/2015/08/20/modern-forens... He's not the most sympathetic guy, given his peccadilloes, but the case was mostly circumstantial with some junk science thrown in for good measure. However, the overturning of his conviction was due to the injustice carried out on mr Willingham and the exposition of the junk science behind it. The overturning of mr Graf's conviction was the first one based on what was learned from the Willingham case.
sctb 10y ago
We updated the submission title from “How junk science put a woman behind bars for 25 years”, which breaks the rules by being editorialized.
finid 10y ago
The shame is on the whole system, not just on former Gov. Perry. You see, here in the US, being "tough on crime" improves your odds of getting elected, or of keeping your position, if you're already elected.
zeveb 10y ago
> Governor Perry had this evidence, that much of the state evidence being used was junk science, and did nothing while an innocent man was put to death. Shameful. In his defence, how can Gov. Perry distinguish between the case of the state investigator utilising junk science and the case of the someone who uses junk science to allege that the investigator used junk science? And of course there are plenty of other calls on a governor's time: his job was not to spend his entire term reviewing that one sentence. So of course he has to have panels of people he trusts are experts to review things for him. And they too have multiple items to consider. Going by what I've read, I would not have made his decision. But I wasn't in his situation, and I don't have access to the experiences he's had. Perhaps he had good reason to distrust those who urged him to distrust the investigator.
- joering2 10y ago
  > And of course there are plenty of other calls on a governor's time: his job was not to spend his entire term reviewing that one sentence. Gosh, this sound in my eyes makes you sound like a monster. You know that a living human being (innocent) life was forcibly stopped, correct? If this doesn't speak to you then imagine this could as well be your child, or parent, or spouse? I mean -- is there anything more important to anyone - whether politician or not - that live of another person, especially if you're in charge of keeping this human alive or putting stop to it. Or maybe I'm simply being too soft. It might be - I know - I've been living in the USA for too long...
  - jpt4 10y ago
    This reply takes advantage of the opportunity of a dialectical opponent, represented by your comment, to address abstract issues alluded to by your words of choice. It is not intended to argue or refute your worldview directly. > is there anything more important to anyone ... [than the life] of another person Behind the veil of ignorance which equates all persons, things which might reasonably be considered more important include: -the lives of more than one other person -severe changes in the quality of life for many people -significant environmental degradation, and other systemic alterations of sufficient scale Allowing for the criteria to include the differences between individuals, the most immediate additions to the above list becomes: -the life of oneself -the preservation of the lives and quality of life of one's family members Further, although our current legal system precludes it, the framework of thought exists for very fine grain gradations in the differing values considered inherent in different people, as expressed by e.g. the German weregild system [0]; under such precepts, allocations of attention would be prioritized following the accepted worth of each object of attention. > maybe I'm simply being too soft The perspective assuming a position of ignorance is often considered "soft" and idealistic, in contrast to the "hard", realistic, non-egalitarian stance here epitomized by the system of man-price. I propose that this is the common interpretation. However, I counter that the former is only effectively realizable by a juridical system of great strength and resources, before which all men can be operationally equated because the marginal burden any one case places on the faculties of the law is negligible. Therefore, perhaps you voice your position not from reasoning aligned with softness, but rather that aligned with awesome and as-yet-non-extant might. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weregild https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weregild
StillBored 10y ago
Yes, and the number of death row inmate exonerated by DNA evidence (frequently after having fought a long battle to be able to use it) should convince anyone that the death penalty is putting innocent people to death. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-list-those-freed-death-row http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-list-those-freed-d...
- wtbob 10y ago
  Only an idiot thinks that the justice system never convicts and punishes the innocent. Only an idiot thinks any justice system which convicts and punishes anyone will never make mistakes (the only process to never punish the innocent is to refuse to punish at all, which has its own downsides). Innocent folks are executed. Innocent folks breathe their last breaths as life prisoners. Innocent folks die of hear attacks a year into their sentences. Innocent folks spend decades in prison. Innocent folks are forced to register as sex offenders. Innocent folks go into bankruptcy due to fines. You can't get your life back whether you're executed or die in prison. You can't get your years back. You can't take back public humiliation. You can't restore lost opportunities. That innocents suffer is not an argument against a justice system, because having no justice system at all is yet more unjust. As an aside, I agree with you that it's despicable that inmates have to fight so hard to use exculpatory evidence, particularly when that evidence simply didn't exist when they were convicted. This is indeed a great problem.

deleted 10y ago

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seibelj 10y ago

This is something I find extremely scary, because an unusual series of events (accidental fire, accidental drowning, suicide) could be framed to look like something entirely different (arson, murder), which could drag any one of us into a nightmare. If you don't have the money to hire your own experts and a strong legal team, potentially bankrupting yourself, you are at the mercy of a motivated prosecutor with nearly unlimited resources. In 2009 a scathing report was released by the National Academy of Sciences that essentially says that blood spatter, handwriting, hair, fingerprints, and bite mark analysis are all junk science[0]. If two "experts" can look at the same evidence and come to entirely different conclusions, how is this science? It's opinion wrapped up as scientific fact. Who knows how many people are innocently convicted. It's terrifying. An excerpt from WikiPedia about hair analysis: The outcry from defense attorneys has forced the FBI to open up on disputed hair analysis matches since 2012. The Justice department began an "unprecedented" review of old cases involving hair analysis in July 2013, examining more than 21,000 cases referred to the FBI Lab's hair unit from 1982 through 1999, and including as many as 27 death penalty convictions in which FBI experts may have exaggerated the reliability of hair analysis in their testimony. The review is still in progress, but in 2015, it released findings on 268 trials examined so far in which hair analysis was used. The review concluded that in 257 of these 268 trials, the analysts gave flawed testimony that overstated the accuracy of the findings in favor of the prosecution. About 1200 cases remain to be examined.[1] [0] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/us/05forensics.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/us/05forensics.html?pagewa... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_analysis#Microscopic_hair_analysis_in_forensics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_analysis#Microscopic_hair...

gohrt 10y ago
"Opinion" is a subjective judgment based on personal weighing of facts by priority and probability. We must rely on judges and juries and expert opinions to form opinions. This junk forensics is just "guessing" and "prejudice".
DINKDINK 10y ago
>If two "experts" can look at the same evidence and come to entirely different conclusions, how is this science? Scientism is a mental disease perpetuated by people who seek social persuasion through whatever means convinces a person/the public rather than objective epidemiologically derived truth. It's easier to appear smart by accepting dubious "science" than rebuking it with skepticism.

draw_down 10y ago

We need a pretext for what we want to do, which in America is to lock people up. If we can fool ourselves with something that sorta looks and smells like science, that fits the bill perfectly.

aero142 10y ago
I don't think it's fair to say we "want to lock people up". We need to believe that we can make ourselves safe from criminals. We need to believe can do some science magic and tell the difference between the criminals and the regular people so we can sleep at night. Admitting we can't calls in to question the whole premise of locking the bad people up. A judge or politician can't come out and say, "we have no reliable way of deciding guilt or innocence." That is reality but we can't allow ourselves to admit it.
- draw_down 10y ago
  All I have to say is, look at our prison population vs any other country's.

yuhong 10y ago

Anti-discrimination laws are even worse in that discrimination can happen with no evidence at all. One of the methods used to enforce them (particularly in things like hiring) is statistics, most of which assumes employees are interchangeable commodities. They were designed back in the 1960s for things like manual labor jobs. I am willing to suggest a compromise to limit them to these kinds of jobs.

charonn0 10y ago
I think you meant to reply to a different post.

rdtsc 10y ago

"Expert" witnesses for US courtrooms is a special kind of a parallel voodoo-science world. Especially when it comes to arson. Prosecutors like to pick the same people to testify as "experts" and their top qualification is that they have testified before as "experts". I imagine many have optimized putting up an act and throwing around fancy terms to make it seems really precise and scientific. Their future employment depends on that.

api 10y ago
This phenomenon exists everywhere. Who's an expert? A person with a history of being an expert, of course. It's a socially distributed form of confirmation bias.
tzs 10y ago
In civil cases, where both parties often have a significant budget for hiring experts, the experts often actually are top people from their fields but who are retired. I watched a patent trial, and an important part of one of the claims was that certain data from a hard disk was cached in a RAM cache. The side that wanted to see the patent invalidated brought up some earlier patent that involved caching some data on a hard disk, and claimed it was prior art that should have been considered. Their expert said that "RAM" stands for "random access memory", and a disk is random access and it is memory, so that any programmer or engineer who read the patent that called for using a RAM cache would understand that caching that data on a hard disk would count. That, of course, was one of the most ridiculous things I'd ever heard. However, the expert certainly was a real expert. He was a professor emeritus and former head of the computer science department of a top CS school. In fact, he had been the one who started the CS program there and brought it to its position as a top program. He was a fellow of the IEEE, and his published papers back from when he was an active researcher were some of the seminal papers from the beginning of the modern semiconductor and VLSI era. So how the hell did this guy think that "RAM cache" is commonly understood to include a cache stored on a hard disk? I asked the lawyers for the side that was defending the patent, and their expert (another retired professor emeritus, IEEE fellow, yadda yadda...) about that. They explained to me that experts in a trial like this will get paid $50-100k or more to testify in this kind of trial. They basically have to just spend a few hours reading a patent, and then come up with an argument for the side that is paying them that will sound good to a jury and that is not provably a lie. Then they have to come and spend maybe a week at the trial location, being there to help the lawyers out and to spend maybe an hour on the stand. So basically $100k for a couple of weeks of not too strenuous work, two plane trips, and a week in a hotel. They don't have to worry that colleagues will find out about the dumb things they said at trial and hold it against them or that it might tarnish their legacy or reputation, because everyone in the field knows about these expert witness gigs. When they hear that Professor Soandso said something really stupid about RAM cache at a trial, they just think, "Oh...I guess Professor Soandso wanted a new RV" or "Professor Soandso wanted a new boat". (In the case of the expert for the patent owner, it was to be one of the earliest to own a Tesla).

garyclarke27 10y ago

Similar junk in the UK has put many innocent parents away for "shaking baby syndrome" just based on a theory, not proven by scientific evidence. Expert witnesses who don't agree with the consensus establishment, have even been banned from practicing medicine, thus most now refuse to testify.

DanBC 10y ago
You might want to read the papers those banned doctors refer to, because the doctors often mangle the science. Here's one case of a doctor who had been struck off by the GMC. The judge overturned that decision, but has maintained the ban on her acting as an expert witness because she mangles the science so badly. https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/squier-v-gmc-protected-approved-judgment-20160311-2.pdf https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/squi...

metafunctor 10y ago

Is junk science in court rooms a root cause or just a symptom?

notgood 10y ago
I always despite this question so much; mainly because everything is a cause of something and a symptom of something at the same time; there is nothing isolated in this world. So you have to give a lot of context to see if -in that context- it is a cause or an effect. I'm this particular case you could say stupidity is the root cause, but saying so it's too abstract to be usefu/actionable.
TillE 10y ago
It's basically a symptom of a highly imperfect system, where few participants actually have the incentive of seeing justice done.

ihaveahadron 10y ago

Junk science is probably the greatest issue of our time. I theorize that ~90% of what is labeled science actually isn't.

finid 10y ago

Somethings the main qualification of some so-called experts is a certification from a 6-hour or 6-week class. From then on, they are eligible to testify as an expert in serious criminal cases.

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geff82 10y ago

The nightmare is also that in some countries, when the police knocks on the door to arrest you, you might get killed in a gruel archaic ritual called "execution" at the end, even if you did nothing wrong, just the odds were against you. Here in Germany I do not have to fear the police. If if the judges wrongly sent me to jail "for life", at least I'd have some hope that one day I can convince them they were wrong and get to freedom again.

08-15 10y ago
After two or three decades behind bars, you don't care about your freedom anymore. (Watch "The Shawshank Redemption" and see what happens to Brooks, if you don't get what I mean.) I really don't get where this ridiculous focus of human rights activists on the death penalty come from. Sure, death is irreversible, but so is locking someone away for decades. I actually think decades behind bars is more cruel than a swift death. Which reminds me... why aren't the false experts who caused the convictions of innocents locked away themselves? How is killing a man by lying about evidence not murder?
- voxic11 10y ago
  You have to prove they lied and we're not simply dumb or mistaken, which is sadly often the case.
  - 08-15 10y ago
    Indeed, but why? Any professional is responsible for the damage they cause, whether on purpose or by neglect. These forensic "professionals" are not. And that's messed up. Besides, if you are both a professional and dumb or mistaken, you say that you don't know. Lying about your lack of confidence destroys human lives, and that's why I think bad "experts" should be tried for murder and probably convicted for (involuntary) manslaughter. Making expert witnesses responsible for the BS they spout would align their incentives correctly.
zeveb 10y ago
> If if the judges wrongly sent me to jail "for life", at least I'd have some hope that one day I can convince them they were wrong and get to freedom again. Is your German government any more able to restore your lost decades than my government is able to restore lost life? For some crimes execution is unjust; for others it is just. It is just as unjust to allow someone who deserves death to live as it is unjust to execute someone who deserves life.

GirlsCanCode 10y ago

> Richardson was also known to use a small propane torch to roast marshmallows while sitting in his recliner. Wow.

rmchugh 10y ago

The other case mentioned, the Willingham case is even more horrifying. A man was convicted of murdering his children and sentenced to death on bogus evidence. When presented with evidence to the contrary, the state of Texas under Rick Perry ignored it and allowed the man to be executed. This is state sanctioned murder of an innocent man. Why is the Governor not on trial for this?

lanius 10y ago

Gerald Hurst and Chris Connealy are true heroes.

johnhattan 10y ago

Got a friend currently doing time in Texas for basically the same thing. Here's hoping this gets the case some notoriety. http://thearsonproject.org/case-studies/curtis-severns/ http://thearsonproject.org/case-studies/curtis-severns/

Hondor 10y ago
Wow. 27 years for burning down your business and claiming insurance, even when it doesn't kill or seriously injure anyone, and the value is only ~$200,000. Guilty or innocent, that's a completely obscene sentence! How can anyone in Texas safely make an insurance claim for fire when the risk of misunderstanding is so great? In this particular case, it all seems to hinge on people's opinions of whether a flying can could have jumped over some barrier or shot a plume of flame in some direction and other subtle details about the scene that can't possibly be known without actually reconstructing or simulating the whole thing.

edblarney 10y ago

Question is: what is considered 'junk science' at the time it was used in court? Because I'm sure we are using some 'junk science' we just don't understand at the present time.

Tloewald 10y ago

This reminds me of a New Yorker article on the same topic (covering an even greater injustice, also in Texas -- in fact referred to in this article) http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/trial-by-fire http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/trial-by-fire