4 ms·

It's really not about the bugs. The bugs were unfortunate, but bugs happen. The problem is taking the word of the system at face value and not investigating fur

It's really not about the bugs. The bugs were unfortunate, but bugs happen. The problem is taking the word of the system at face value and not investigating further even when dozens of people's livelihood and freedom are hanging in the balance. Oh, and also the bit about spending 2 decades covering everything up and trying to clamp down on the investigation rather than admitting you got it wrong, once again at the expense the subpostmasters..

giantg2 5y ago
"The problem is taking the word of the system at face value and not investigating further even when dozens of people's livelihood and freedom are hanging in the balance." We do the same thing with breathalyzers in most of the US. No independent people allowed to inspect the system for bugs.
- deepspace 5y ago
  The breathalyser issue is immensely frustrating. In the few cases where the software has been allowed to be examined, they found egregious bugs. Not to mention that the one-size-fits-all measurement model is inaccurate for people outside a very narrow metabolic range. The trouble is that if you speak up about it, people ask: "why are you defending drunk drivers?" It's like innocent until proven guilty flies out the window.
  - matheusmoreira 5y ago
    All sorts of police field tests have significant rates of false positives. People actually get arrested on the basis of such "evidence" all the time. The justice and law enforcement systems essentially operate on the notion that these things are "good enough".
    - giantg2 5y ago
      I've just recently had a trooper make 4 "mistakes" in court and in official reports. One of which I believe was an outright lie. The system doesn't care. If this were any other witness they would be discredited, but because they are law enforcement, they get a free pass. The agencies won't even handle the complaints correctly or file this information as Guglio data for when future cases request it (if found to be unreliable they can lose thier job). The system actors (law enforcement and judicial) in most states have special privileges in keeping information private - so special in many cases that if a complaint against a judge turns up exculpatory evidence that you have no right to it. The reason they state is to uphold the integrity of, and the public trust in, the system. I would think transparency would do that better. The only way that transparency would hurt those objectives is when wrongdoing is ignored or the punishments are so lenient to offend the public sense of justice. But hey, I'm just a stupid peon, so what do I know.
      - matheusmoreira 5y ago
        > The reason they state is to uphold the integrity of, and the public trust in, the system. Here's another dangerous idea: the justice system has false positive rates. A judgement is a test with two possible results: innocent or guilty. Every test has false positives and false negativies. For every judge, there is a chance they'll condemn the innocent or absolve the guilty. How likely is it? We'll never know.
        rkangel 5y ago
        The logic behind "innocent until proven guilty" is that one false positive is worse than ten false negatives. The principle is that freedom is such a basic right that removing it unjustly is a crime in itself.
        giantg2 5y ago
        Appeals and Innocence Project type data should give some idea. Some states even have official programs to investigate peoples innocence after conviction. So it definitely happens more than it should and there should be some data out there. From my personal experience, it seemed like everyone I dealt with who was part if the system was either incompetent, made mistakes, or might have even been covering things up. The trooper I already mentioned. The corporal investigating him said the trooper's lie was just a misunderstanding, but offered no reasoning or evidence to support that. He also overlooked some other things that were violations of policy (they only cited him for one reg when he fit several). The Sargent who approved the citation said he couldn't do anything about it even if it's incorrect, which is wrong because he can take action based on what the LT told me later. The LT investigated a follow up complaint (the trooper never took the corrective actions listed in first complaint). He didn't follow the correct complaint procedures since he closed the complaint without any notes or findings. I had to call IA, then I assume IA called him since the LT called me a day or two later. He can't even answer basic questions like what laws he used to determine the rules of criminal procedure weren't broken and if he investigated the trooper's conduct as prosecutorial misconduct since he acted as the prosecution and knowingly held an incorrect charge and made several misstatements in court (that we have evidence for). The first magistrate we got gave a continuance. He was arrested on unrelated charges. The second magistrate gave another continuance and thought that we were calling him prejudice when asking to dismiss with prejudice (most magistrates in my state are not lawyers). The third magistrate was a retired police cheif who showed bias, wouldn't let us present a motion, misapplied the law, and was yelling at us to the point his face turned red and he was not understandable due to a lack of air. The ADA originally assigned to the case had an email complaint and the information to confirm that the trooper knew this was an incorrect charge and that the citation didn't even claim the elements of the offense were met, yet they took no action and allowed us to be subjected to those pretrial restrictions. At the appeal, the new ADA tried to misapply the law, with some success. They also told the court administrator/scheduling not to talk to us and not to accommodate any of our witnesses without their approval, which normal for other types of cases with standard discovery procedures, but those don't apply here. The judge actually contradicted his himself in some of his reasons for his determinations - at one point saying a trial de novo is a complete do-over so he won't allow any record from that trial to be used and later saying you would need a record of the previous trial in order to have the charge dismissed. He then misapplied the law and would not even look at, or accept as evidence, an official letter from a state agency that helps define an ambiguous term in the law, which would show us to be in compliance with the law. Even without the letter, the principle of lenity and the rules of statutory construction were blatantly ignored. There were also some paperwork and administrative mishaps, like some information not being recorded and later spending 30 minutes on a moot motion, or the court refusing to provide us with the amended citation with the new charge because "we don't have anything to give you" eventhough it's in the file. The other party was in violation of two similar laws the this one, yet the trooper and DA office decided not to investigate/prosecute even when she admitted being in violation for one offense. So much for the law applying equally. So yeah, in my view the system has no integrity and is severely broken. I have little faith in justice actually being carried out. I guarantee many people have been convicted who were innocent. I think it's mostly due to the fact that innocent until proven guilty doesn't exist anymore.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    "It's like innocent until proven guilty flies out the window." Honestly, this is now the public perception (and the system) operates these days. I had a trooper recently hold a charge that he knew was incorrect and it carried with it pretrial restrictions that no other charge would. The state police say there's nothing wrong with subjecting people to pretrial restrictions under charges that they know to be incorrect. The attitude is "screw you, criminal" (just a summary offense). Some states actually get it right and use blood tests. That means that some blood is saved if the defense wants to have it tested (evidence preservation).
mcguire 5y ago
"It's really not about the bugs. The bugs were unfortunate, but bugs happen." Once upon a time, computer programming attempted to be a profession. Fortunately for all of us who write code for a living, we no longer have to live under the threat of that responsibility.
damau 5y ago
This is the majority reaction. Computer says no = okay it’s your fault. It’s the equivalent of ‘works on my local’ so get lost you deal with it. Computers may be binary but the people who make them aren’t. This failing of understanding and with the advent of easy ML will only add to the problem. Askimov’s multivac would end the human race before it helped it. Applications are starting to get to the point of dogma for many of us at a certain level. Still love the film ‘Idiocracy’ becoming more and more prescient.

giantg2 5y ago

"The problem is taking the word of the system at face value and not investigating further even when dozens of people's livelihood and freedom are hanging in the balance." We do the same thing with breathalyzers in most of the US. No independent people allowed to inspect the system for bugs.

deepspace 5y ago
The breathalyser issue is immensely frustrating. In the few cases where the software has been allowed to be examined, they found egregious bugs. Not to mention that the one-size-fits-all measurement model is inaccurate for people outside a very narrow metabolic range. The trouble is that if you speak up about it, people ask: "why are you defending drunk drivers?" It's like innocent until proven guilty flies out the window.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  All sorts of police field tests have significant rates of false positives. People actually get arrested on the basis of such "evidence" all the time. The justice and law enforcement systems essentially operate on the notion that these things are "good enough".
  - giantg2 5y ago
    I've just recently had a trooper make 4 "mistakes" in court and in official reports. One of which I believe was an outright lie. The system doesn't care. If this were any other witness they would be discredited, but because they are law enforcement, they get a free pass. The agencies won't even handle the complaints correctly or file this information as Guglio data for when future cases request it (if found to be unreliable they can lose thier job). The system actors (law enforcement and judicial) in most states have special privileges in keeping information private - so special in many cases that if a complaint against a judge turns up exculpatory evidence that you have no right to it. The reason they state is to uphold the integrity of, and the public trust in, the system. I would think transparency would do that better. The only way that transparency would hurt those objectives is when wrongdoing is ignored or the punishments are so lenient to offend the public sense of justice. But hey, I'm just a stupid peon, so what do I know.
    - matheusmoreira 5y ago
      > The reason they state is to uphold the integrity of, and the public trust in, the system. Here's another dangerous idea: the justice system has false positive rates. A judgement is a test with two possible results: innocent or guilty. Every test has false positives and false negativies. For every judge, there is a chance they'll condemn the innocent or absolve the guilty. How likely is it? We'll never know.
      - rkangel 5y ago
        The logic behind "innocent until proven guilty" is that one false positive is worse than ten false negatives. The principle is that freedom is such a basic right that removing it unjustly is a crime in itself.
      - giantg2 5y ago
        Appeals and Innocence Project type data should give some idea. Some states even have official programs to investigate peoples innocence after conviction. So it definitely happens more than it should and there should be some data out there. From my personal experience, it seemed like everyone I dealt with who was part if the system was either incompetent, made mistakes, or might have even been covering things up. The trooper I already mentioned. The corporal investigating him said the trooper's lie was just a misunderstanding, but offered no reasoning or evidence to support that. He also overlooked some other things that were violations of policy (they only cited him for one reg when he fit several). The Sargent who approved the citation said he couldn't do anything about it even if it's incorrect, which is wrong because he can take action based on what the LT told me later. The LT investigated a follow up complaint (the trooper never took the corrective actions listed in first complaint). He didn't follow the correct complaint procedures since he closed the complaint without any notes or findings. I had to call IA, then I assume IA called him since the LT called me a day or two later. He can't even answer basic questions like what laws he used to determine the rules of criminal procedure weren't broken and if he investigated the trooper's conduct as prosecutorial misconduct since he acted as the prosecution and knowingly held an incorrect charge and made several misstatements in court (that we have evidence for). The first magistrate we got gave a continuance. He was arrested on unrelated charges. The second magistrate gave another continuance and thought that we were calling him prejudice when asking to dismiss with prejudice (most magistrates in my state are not lawyers). The third magistrate was a retired police cheif who showed bias, wouldn't let us present a motion, misapplied the law, and was yelling at us to the point his face turned red and he was not understandable due to a lack of air. The ADA originally assigned to the case had an email complaint and the information to confirm that the trooper knew this was an incorrect charge and that the citation didn't even claim the elements of the offense were met, yet they took no action and allowed us to be subjected to those pretrial restrictions. At the appeal, the new ADA tried to misapply the law, with some success. They also told the court administrator/scheduling not to talk to us and not to accommodate any of our witnesses without their approval, which normal for other types of cases with standard discovery procedures, but those don't apply here. The judge actually contradicted his himself in some of his reasons for his determinations - at one point saying a trial de novo is a complete do-over so he won't allow any record from that trial to be used and later saying you would need a record of the previous trial in order to have the charge dismissed. He then misapplied the law and would not even look at, or accept as evidence, an official letter from a state agency that helps define an ambiguous term in the law, which would show us to be in compliance with the law. Even without the letter, the principle of lenity and the rules of statutory construction were blatantly ignored. There were also some paperwork and administrative mishaps, like some information not being recorded and later spending 30 minutes on a moot motion, or the court refusing to provide us with the amended citation with the new charge because "we don't have anything to give you" eventhough it's in the file. The other party was in violation of two similar laws the this one, yet the trooper and DA office decided not to investigate/prosecute even when she admitted being in violation for one offense. So much for the law applying equally. So yeah, in my view the system has no integrity and is severely broken. I have little faith in justice actually being carried out. I guarantee many people have been convicted who were innocent. I think it's mostly due to the fact that innocent until proven guilty doesn't exist anymore.
- giantg2 5y ago
  "It's like innocent until proven guilty flies out the window." Honestly, this is now the public perception (and the system) operates these days. I had a trooper recently hold a charge that he knew was incorrect and it carried with it pretrial restrictions that no other charge would. The state police say there's nothing wrong with subjecting people to pretrial restrictions under charges that they know to be incorrect. The attitude is "screw you, criminal" (just a summary offense). Some states actually get it right and use blood tests. That means that some blood is saved if the defense wants to have it tested (evidence preservation).

mcguire 5y ago

"It's really not about the bugs. The bugs were unfortunate, but bugs happen." Once upon a time, computer programming attempted to be a profession. Fortunately for all of us who write code for a living, we no longer have to live under the threat of that responsibility.

damau 5y ago

This is the majority reaction. Computer says no = okay it’s your fault. It’s the equivalent of ‘works on my local’ so get lost you deal with it. Computers may be binary but the people who make them aren’t. This failing of understanding and with the advent of easy ML will only add to the problem. Askimov’s multivac would end the human race before it helped it. Applications are starting to get to the point of dogma for many of us at a certain level. Still love the film ‘Idiocracy’ becoming more and more prescient.