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How an ex-FBI profiler helped put an innocent man behind bars
- neaden 9y agoProfiling, like much of "criminal science" such as Arson Investigation is a large part unsubstantiated bullshit. It's amazing how poorly regulated all of it is and how many innocent people are in prison, or executed, because of it.
- gaius 9y agoDNA testing too, complete nonsense
- devdzy 9y agoCan you elaborate? Do you mean the science of DNA testing as a whole is complete nonsense, or just DNA testing as it relates to criminal prosecution?
- gaius 9y agoNot sure why I'm being downvoted, does noone remember this? https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/fbi-overstated-forensic-hair-matches-in-nearly-all-criminal-trials-for-decades/2015/04/18/39c8d8c6-e515-11e4-b510-962fcfabc310_story.html?utm_term=.c2cd7f1c9269 https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/fbi-overstated-fo... Of 28 examiners with the FBI Laboratory’s microscopic hair comparison unit, 26 overstated forensic matches in ways that favored prosecutors ... The cases include those of 32 defendants sentenced to death. Of those, 14 have been executed
- codezero 9y agoHair isn't DNA. The tests done on it are comparative afaik. In fact, in the linked article it says that DNA exonerated people tried based on hair comparison – 25% of those exonerated to boot. Sounds like DNA is great. What you seem to have a problem with, which is valid, is procedures, how evidence is introduced, and how the authority/validity of that evidence is communicated to the court, correct me if I'm wrong.
- Hasknewbie 9y agoHair testing is not considered proper DNA testing, as far as I understand. In fact the article you linked to mentions that wrongfully convicted persons were often exonerated via subsequent DNA tests.
- jstewartmobile 9y agoUnfair sarcasm. DNA is one of the very few forensic tools with any hard science behind it. Even fingerprints can lead to highly conflicting "expert" opinions.
- louithethrid 9y agoYou can get "DNA" at every barbershop. Every overtrusted tool will become a weakspot.
- loeg 9y agoAnd you leave fingerprints on everything you touch. But, it's all we've got as far as hard evidence aside from testimony and camera recording.
- matwood 9y agoBasically all we have is camera recordings because 'eye-witness' testimony is notoriously bad.
- syshum 9y agoMachine Learning will put a stop to that there are several project right now working completely fabricate audio and video in realistic ways...
- justinjlynn 9y agowe can already do video (pretty well, anyway) : http://www.graphics.stanford.edu/~niessner/thies2016face.html http://www.graphics.stanford.edu/~niessner/thies2016face.htm...
- gaius 9y agoYep check these guys out: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/24/voice_stealing_lyrebird/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/24/voice_stealing_lyre...
- WillPostForFood 9y agoShould we disallow use of DNA to exonerate the wrongfully convicted? If it is complete nonsense we should shut down the Innocence Project.
- dragonwriter 9y agoProfiling is probably better-than-nothing as an investigative technique, that is, e.g., as a tool to choose where to focus resources to look for meaningful evidence. What it probably should not be mistaken for is a scientific source of evidence on its own.
- WillPostForFood 9y agoRight, use it as a tool in investigations, but ban it from being used in a trial (no testimony from profilers).
- ollieshmollie 9y agoThis is a great article about an arson investigation that turned out to be bogus, leading to someone's execution. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/trial-by-fire http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/trial-by-fire
- mattnewton 9y agoThat was one of the most heart-wrenchingly awful stories I've read. And everyone who took part in the killing just walked away. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2017/05/11/jury-clears-the-prosecutor-who-sent-cameron-todd-willingham-to-death-row#.NigjYBODL https://www.themarshallproject.org/2017/05/11/jury-clears-th...
- danso 9y agoWorth noting that the submitter of this story, user ClintEhrlich, played a main role in freeing the wrongly-convicted man. He posted about it on HN a couple years back, in a highly upvoted and discussed thread (500+ upvotes, 200+ comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12010760 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12010760 Edit: it's an ironic coincidence that this follow-up feature was published on the same day of the news of O.J. Simpson's parole: http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-oj-simpson-parole-board-20170720-story.html http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-oj-simpson-parole-board-... Simpson is being paroled for a robbery conviction 9 years ago but of course his most famous run-in with the law was when he was acquitted of double-murder despite a huge amount of forensic evidence linking him to the homicides (he later lost a civil suit, which has a lower standard of evidence). In the case described by the OP, the jury voted to convict in the total absence of physical, forensic evidence. It's astonishing that this profiler's beliefs were enough to sway the jury beyond a reasonable doubt but even more grotesque is how a clusterfuck of dumb, unverified assumptions led the profiler to his conclusions. He blames the detectives for not doing "Investigation 101", and says he would not have testified if only he had known the detectives were so negligent. As much blame as the profiler deserves (he basically comes off as reliable as a psychic), seems like a large portion of blame should go to the district attorney, who presumably knew he was so short of evidence that he had to base his case on the profiler's testimony. Can't imagine what was going through the jury's heads; prosecutors often complain how modern juries demand the presence of DNA because of how TV dramas like CSI portray and hype DNA and other evidence as ubiquitous and unimpeachable, but this jury seems to have had the completely opposite mindset.
- Zigurd 9y agoIt's shocking how much "evidence-ish" stuff is permitted, and how evidence is processed by labs integrated with law enforcement and prosecuting bodies. In an era of big data, it's easy to see how "profiling" will turn out to be about as good as a divining rod.
- GreaterFool 9y agoI think this is even more scary: https://blog.simplejustice.us/2017/05/08/short-take-magic-cop-powers-or-lab-tests-are-for-losers/ https://blog.simplejustice.us/2017/05/08/short-take-magic-co... tl;dr: cop goes for a 160h course, gets a Drug Recognition Expert certificate, then his opinion "based on his training" is enough to establish probable cause and make an arrest and then you sit in jail for however long it takes for tests to get back (if that even helps because "tests come back wrong all the time")
- gumby 9y agoThe big crime is how little epistemological support there is for some of the big forensic tools (fingerprints, DNA, bite marks, arson spread, etc), how little interest there is in researching these areas, and how trusted they are. But I am curious: apart from TV shows, how important is this kind of evidence in most trials? Is it actually uncommon?
- ch4s3 9y agoFrom what I understand DNA has gotten pretty good when used responsibly, but the rest are no better than reading a chicken's entrails. Have I perhaps been misinformed about DNA?
- pyre 9y agoIs comparing fingerprints really "no better than reading a chicken's entrails?" I could understand things like trying to guess based on similarities with a partial print, but comparing two full prints seems like it would be pretty easy.
- maxxxxx 9y agoSome years ago I worked on a project where they wanted to do fingerprint classification and comparison with computer vision. I was amazed how much human judgment is involved in the process. Even with full prints a lot is up to the examiner and two examiners won't necessarily give you the same result.
- NumberSix 9y agoRegarding fingerprints, in the wake of the Brandon Mayfield case which raised serious questions about the accuracy of fingerprint identification by the FBI, the National Academy of Sciences was asked to perform a scientific assessment. Initial results were published in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) Bradford T. Ulery, 7733–7738, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1018707108 Accuracy and reliability of forensic latent fingerprint decisions Bradford T. Ulerya, R. Austin Hicklina, JoAnn Buscagliab,1, and Maria Antonia Robertsc Edited by Stephen E. Fienberg, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, and approved March 31, 2011 (received for review December 16, 2010) ABSTRACT The interpretation of forensic fingerprint evidence relies on the expertise of latent print examiners. The National Research Council of the National Academies and the legal and forensic sciences communities have called for research to measure the accuracy and reliability of latent print examiners’ decisions, a challenging and complex problem in need of systematic analysis. Our research is focused on the development of empirical approaches to studying this problem. Here, we report on the first large-scale study of the accuracy and reliability of latent print examiners’ decisions, in which 169 latent print examiners each compared approximately 100 pairs of latent and exemplar fingerprints from a pool of 744 pairs. The fingerprints were selected to include a range of attributes and quality encountered in forensic casework, and to be comparable to searches of an automated fingerprint identification system containing more than 58 million subjects. This study evaluated examiners on key decision points in the fingerprint examination process; procedures used operationally include additional safeguards designed to minimize errors. Five examiners made false positive errors for an overall false positive rate of 0.1%. Eighty-five percent of examiners made at least one false negative error for an overall false negative rate of 7.5%. Independent examination of the same comparisons by different participants (analogous to blind verification) was found to detect all false positive errors and the majority of false negative errors in this study. Examiners frequently differed on whether fingerprints were suitable for reaching a conclusion. http://www.pnas.org/content/108/19/7733.full http://www.pnas.org/content/108/19/7733.full Authors Bradford T. Ulery aNoblis, 3150 Fairview Park Drive, Falls Church, VA 22042; R. Austin Hicklin aNoblis, 3150 Fairview Park Drive, Falls Church, VA 22042; JoAnn Buscaglia bCounterterrorism and Forensic Science Research Unit, Federal Bureau of Investigation Laboratory Division, 2501 Investigation Parkway, Quantico, VA 22135; and Maria Antonia Roberts cLatent Print Support Unit, Federal Bureau of Investigation Laboratory Division, 2501 Investigation Parkway, Quantico, VA 22135 One might wonder why such an assessment was not done a long time ago. This is a report on the Brandon Mayfield case: https://oig.justice.gov/special/s0601/exec.pdf https://oig.justice.gov/special/s0601/exec.pdf Bottom line is fingerprints are much more accurate than chicken entrails but hardly infallible as used to be widely believed.
- SeanDav 9y agoMight as well convict a person based on tea leaves....
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 9y agoOr HN Karma
- Steeeve 9y agoI remember this case from when it happened. I can't believe it's been that long. It seemed pretty obvious at the time that the parking lot guard was innocent. The DA was stuck on the idea that if he was doing his job he would have made her leave. And if he didn't make her leave, he must have murdered her. It just didn't pass the sniff test.
- nerpderp83 9y agoDoes he float? If he sinks, he wasn't a witch.
- Zigurd 9y agoEvidence handling and testing should be independent of law enforcement and prosecution. It should be handled the way environmental testing or weights-and-measures are tested by state authorities - with no incentive to "win" on behalf of prosecutors.
- winter_blue 9y agoIs there any possibility of this man Safarik being punished? Can Safarik be sued and held accountable for destroying eleven years of an innocent man's life? I feel like some sort punishment is due towards ruthless opportunistic people like these. (I would say the same about the people who pursued Swartz even after MIT & JSTOR dropped the case.)
- marcoperaza 9y ago>I feel like some sort punishment is due towards ruthless opportunistic people like these. (I would say the same about the people who pursued Swartz even after MIT & JSTOR dropped the case.) How could you possibly prosecute people for the Swartz case? They were simply seeking the punishment that the law specifies. If you don't like the law, then lobby to have it changed. If you want it to be less vigorously enforced, then vote for a President/Governor/DA that will enforce it less vigorously. You can't put people in jail for following the law.
- Retric 9y agoThere is following the law, and there is knowingly conviction of an innocent. This is the second one, and IMO there really should be penalties for this.
- stevenh 9y agoNow I'm wondering what it would be like if fake honeypot cases with actors scripted with an obviously inappropriate implicit offer of a seemingly lucrative reward for straying from true justice were routinely run as a part of policy to catch bad lawyers and judges. I don't see how it could hurt for them to be subjected to ongoing surprise tests of whether they're worthy of being involved in the justice system. Heck, let's extend it to politicians while we're at it.
- oh_sigh 9y agoThis Safarik guy sounds like a real piece of shit. Absolutely zero remorse for telling a tall tale in front of a judge and jury which led to a man spending 11 years in prison for something he didn't do. > “Like other killers I’ve known, he’s also arrogant and narcissistic — fatal traits that led to his demise,” Safarik says. “This was all his doing…. Ultimately, he was responsible for it.” I only see arrogance and narcissism coming from one person in the story told, and it wasn't from Jennings.
- warent 9y agoHis ego does seem completely out of control. Safarik seems to take himself way too seriously while simultaneously treating other people with little regard
- zaroth 9y agoWell, after all, he worked for the FBI.
- krylon 9y agoThank you! That same thought had been sitting at the back of my head, but I could not quite put it into words. If I had made a mistake - even an honest mistake, the kind where one could not have done any better - that caused somebody to be falsely convicted - not even of murder: any kind of crime that is serious enough to end up in court! - I strongly think that I would feel absolutely terrible about it and at the very least apologize to that person. Beg for forgiveness, actually.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- nerpderp83 9y agoSo a good story teller who can weave physical items into a cohesive narrative. Shouldn't these folks work for Disney and not the justice system?
- kens 9y agoI've been skeptical of FBI profilers ever since they declared that the Unabomber had attended college or trade school but not graduated. [1] It turned out that he had a PhD and had been a professor. [1] http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Mixed-Success-for-FBI-Agents-in-Profiling-2987140.php http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Mixed-Success-for-FBI-Age...
- icelancer 9y agoWhat is fair compensation for innocent victims put behind bars? When wrongly convicted inmates are freed from prison, I think it reasonable to remunerate them per year of jail time, with accelerating penalties (as more years are lost to jail, opportunity is taken away at an accelerating rate; 20 years lost to prison is far more than 10 times worse than 2 years lost to prison, for example). The base rate of $550,000 tax-free per year for lost work/family/life opportunity and pain/suffering seems eminently fair to me, with escalating amounts per year, as stated before. Probably could get behind a permanent waiver of personal income tax for life on any income under $200,000/year as well.
- goodells 9y agoI agree that the victims of false imprisonment deserve a heck of a lot more than they get now, but one thing to consider is that mandating things like this may lead to fewer convictions being overturned due to the costs it would incur. It wouldn't help at all if the requirements just keep more innocent people in prison longer.
- arkh 9y agoIt should depend on age: 10 year behind bars for a 18yo destroys more than 10 years for a 65yo.
- peterburkimsher 9y ago"Safarik spent more than a decade studying serial killings, sexual assaults and stalking cases." no history of gang crime, "didn't have a boyfriend or a criminal record", "wallet left", "Mustang wasn’t taken", "parking lot was lighted and patrolled", Her tube top was pulled down exposing her breasts." -> "sexual assault”. "wipes his hand over his brow" -> guilty. Imagine Safarik was a Machine Learning algorithm. More than a decade's worth of training data led to a model that predicted Jennings to be guilty. The counter-evidence (phone missing, no scratch marks) wasn't part of the model. In his defence, Safarik denies "assigning too much weight to [evidence]. It was the totality of things that shaped his finding." Likewise, it is difficult to fix errors in a Machine Learning model once it is trained. The "totality of things" is the history of other crimes the model has investigated. Can Deep Learning do the same job as criminal profilers? Are they as accurate? Should their predictions be trusted, when the consequence of failure is 11 years of prison for an innocent man?