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The currently ongoing UK trial of Nurse Lucy Letby has made a number of such statistical claims plus other allegations. Is this article submitted because of th

The currently ongoing UK trial of Nurse Lucy Letby has made a number of such statistical claims plus other allegations. Is this article submitted because of this or is it (also) co-incidence?

OldManAndTheCpp 4y ago
Yes, that seems to be a consideration. From the article: In a report peer reviewed and distributed by the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) in September 2022, Gill and colleagues detailed the statistical missteps in past medical murder trials and made recommendations for how legal systems can do better. Gill hopes the report will help with the case of another British nurse, Lucy Letby, who is now on trial for the alleged murder of seven babies and attempted murder of 10 more in a neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
- extasia 4y ago
  I thought Lucy letby literally had a confession note at her house? [0] It seems this was in fact the case. I agree with your broader point however. 0. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/lucy-letby-nurse-note-picture-b2202448.html?amp https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/lucy-letby-nurse...
  - lazyasciiart 4y ago
    I don't know anything about her, but that suicide note also says "I haven't done anything wrong", which indicates at best confusion on her part.
    - h0l0cube 4y ago
      How tragic would it be if someone’s deep empathic nature made them feel personally responsible for a death beyond their control – to the point of suicidal ideation - and was then imprisoned for it?
      - eyelidlessness 4y ago
        Too common and too tragic.
      - WeylandYutani 4y ago
        There was a case in the Netherlands in which they got a nurse to confess to a killing spree. Unfortunately it is impossible to explain to people that a confession is meaningless.
        api 4y ago
        Good investigators withhold details about a crime from the public mostly to filter out false confessions. This speaks to the fact that false confessions are common enough to make filtering techniques common practice.
        Eleison23 4y ago
        That's not the only goal. This also reduces the effectiveness of copycat crimes, and differentiates any would-be copycats from the original. Also, it enhances the ability of authorities to receive and authenticate tips from the general public. In fact, in a high-profile case, it's common practice to deliberately plant misinformation in the form of slight immaterial errors, for many of the same purposes.
        smolder 4y ago
        Can you stop writing these garbage GPT comments, please? No one wants to waste time reading this shit.
        ArnoVW 4y ago
        I think you're talking about Lucia de B. The first sentence of the article : When a Dutch nurse named Lucia de Berk... In fact, she never confessed. As per her Wikipedia page: Important evidence at the appeal was to be the statement of a detainee in the Pieter Baan Center, a criminal psychological observation unit, where de Berk had said during outdoor exercise, "I released these 13 people from their suffering". However, during the appeal, the man withdrew his statement and stated that he had made it up.
  - chrischen 4y ago
    Assuming those kids did die in her care the notes do sound like anguish rather than guilt.
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    That sounds like a troubled, mentally unwell person? Let’s say someone who’s mentally unwell wrote notes to confess to crimes, is it enough to convict them based on that evidence alone? And if so, should it be?
    - aidenn0 4y ago
      In the US, at least, a confession is always considered sufficient evidence. It probably shouldn't be, since interrogators have managed to get people to confess to crimes that evidence was later found to exonerate.
      - public_defender 4y ago
        This is not true. Many states have what is called a corpus delicti rule, which requires that a confession be corroborated by other evidence in order to sustain a conviction. I am inclined to assert that this is actually the law in most US states, but I haven't researched it.
        watwut 4y ago
        The other evidence can be quite weak. And fairly often it is pseudoscience.
        public_defender 4y ago
        Of course I agree with that. It's not an argument for relying more heavily on confession "evidence."
        aidenn0 4y ago
        IANAL, but I thought corpus delicti only means there needs to be evidence that the crime has been committed, not that the crime has been committed by the person confessing to it. So if they find a body with multiple stab wounds and I go in and say I stabbed the person, I can be convicted. If I say I murdered Audrey Farber, and the police can't even find a record of an Audrey Farber gone missing, then I can't be convicted because there's no evidence than an Audrey Farber was murdered at all.
YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
>> Is this article submitted because of this or is it (also) co-incidence? The submission on HN is coincidence. I don't know about the publication of the article.

The currently ongoing UK trial of Nurse Lucy Letby has made a number of such statistical claims plus other allegations. Is this article submitted because of this or is it (also) co-incidence?

OldManAndTheCpp 4y ago

Yes, that seems to be a consideration. From the article: In a report peer reviewed and distributed by the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) in September 2022, Gill and colleagues detailed the statistical missteps in past medical murder trials and made recommendations for how legal systems can do better. Gill hopes the report will help with the case of another British nurse, Lucy Letby, who is now on trial for the alleged murder of seven babies and attempted murder of 10 more in a neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital.

extasia 4y ago
I thought Lucy letby literally had a confession note at her house? [0] It seems this was in fact the case. I agree with your broader point however. 0. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/lucy-letby-nurse-note-picture-b2202448.html?amp https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/lucy-letby-nurse...
- lazyasciiart 4y ago
  I don't know anything about her, but that suicide note also says "I haven't done anything wrong", which indicates at best confusion on her part.
  - h0l0cube 4y ago
    How tragic would it be if someone’s deep empathic nature made them feel personally responsible for a death beyond their control – to the point of suicidal ideation - and was then imprisoned for it?
    - eyelidlessness 4y ago
      Too common and too tragic.
    - WeylandYutani 4y ago
      There was a case in the Netherlands in which they got a nurse to confess to a killing spree. Unfortunately it is impossible to explain to people that a confession is meaningless.
      - api 4y ago
        Good investigators withhold details about a crime from the public mostly to filter out false confessions. This speaks to the fact that false confessions are common enough to make filtering techniques common practice.
        Eleison23 4y ago
        That's not the only goal. This also reduces the effectiveness of copycat crimes, and differentiates any would-be copycats from the original. Also, it enhances the ability of authorities to receive and authenticate tips from the general public. In fact, in a high-profile case, it's common practice to deliberately plant misinformation in the form of slight immaterial errors, for many of the same purposes.
        smolder 4y ago
        Can you stop writing these garbage GPT comments, please? No one wants to waste time reading this shit.
      - ArnoVW 4y ago
        I think you're talking about Lucia de B. The first sentence of the article : When a Dutch nurse named Lucia de Berk... In fact, she never confessed. As per her Wikipedia page: Important evidence at the appeal was to be the statement of a detainee in the Pieter Baan Center, a criminal psychological observation unit, where de Berk had said during outdoor exercise, "I released these 13 people from their suffering". However, during the appeal, the man withdrew his statement and stated that he had made it up.
- chrischen 4y ago
  Assuming those kids did die in her care the notes do sound like anguish rather than guilt.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  That sounds like a troubled, mentally unwell person? Let’s say someone who’s mentally unwell wrote notes to confess to crimes, is it enough to convict them based on that evidence alone? And if so, should it be?
  - aidenn0 4y ago
    In the US, at least, a confession is always considered sufficient evidence. It probably shouldn't be, since interrogators have managed to get people to confess to crimes that evidence was later found to exonerate.
    - public_defender 4y ago
      This is not true. Many states have what is called a corpus delicti rule, which requires that a confession be corroborated by other evidence in order to sustain a conviction. I am inclined to assert that this is actually the law in most US states, but I haven't researched it.
      - watwut 4y ago
        The other evidence can be quite weak. And fairly often it is pseudoscience.
        public_defender 4y ago
        Of course I agree with that. It's not an argument for relying more heavily on confession "evidence."
      - aidenn0 4y ago
        IANAL, but I thought corpus delicti only means there needs to be evidence that the crime has been committed, not that the crime has been committed by the person confessing to it. So if they find a body with multiple stab wounds and I go in and say I stabbed the person, I can be convicted. If I say I murdered Audrey Farber, and the police can't even find a record of an Audrey Farber gone missing, then I can't be convicted because there's no evidence than an Audrey Farber was murdered at all.

YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago

>> Is this article submitted because of this or is it (also) co-incidence? The submission on HN is coincidence. I don't know about the publication of the article.