3 ms·

> Maybe we should not lock up very many people for whom there isn’t any hard evidence of their guilt. Would you consider eyewitness testimony to be 'hard evide

> Maybe we should not lock up very many people for whom there isn’t any hard evidence of their guilt. Would you consider eyewitness testimony to be 'hard evidence'? I don't have any CCTV in my house, so if a guest visiting my house beats me up, although my face is indisputable evidence that someone attacked me, the only evidence they did it is my eyewitness testimony. Would our society be a better place if my attacker was convicted, or if he wasn't?

HeyLaughingBoy 2y ago
What if you had two guests but you lied about which one beat you up while the other one was out? What if they were twins? What if the person was wearing a mask that you knew your guest owned, but it wasn't actually him? You're entering into this with the assumption that you know who beat you up. The police don't have anything other than your assertion. That's why corroborating evidence is needed.
- lazide 2y ago
  Don’t forget the chance that they beat themselves up to get the other person in trouble and/or try to extort them. (I wish this was that fantastical a scenario)
- bee_rider 2y ago
  I mean, these are sort of fanciful soap opera scenarios, haha. More likely, if a guest beats you up, there will be some other witnesses and some motives. Anyway, police can get search warrants and work it out, or like… maybe the guest will feel guilty and admit what they did, perhaps after a stern talking-to along with the implication that they’ll probably be found out after some investigation anyway.
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    It's not that fanciful. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/search/research-news/2102/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/search/research-news/2102/ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/28/kevin-karl-dugar-twins-murder-illinois-prison https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/28/kevin-karl-d...
  - HeyLaughingBoy 2y ago
    > police can get search warrants and work it out ROFLMAO!
    - bee_rider 2y ago
      It is a problem if police don’t do their job well, but we shouldn’t paper over that problem by locking people up without evidence.
zehaeva 2y ago
Eyewitness testimony has been shown to be far less reliable than most people believe it to be. Human memory is frail and subject to modification if not outright fabrication. Not to say that it should be completely discounted, only that it should be treated as evidence with a less than perfectly reliable. Not quite "hard" evidence, but definitely something that should be considered.
- grogenaut 2y ago
  A case I was a juror on, all of the witnesses were suspect. One was straight up lying I found out from the defense attorney a year later at a bar (he and the prosecutor didn't want to deal with a purjury charge for the so the defense attourney gave the prosecutor an obvious hole in the testimony to go after immediately). They were all drunk and high as hell. At the end of the day the one dude still hit his friend with his truck and threw him at least 10 feet across a wide sidewalk and into a wrought iron fence hard enough to partially impale him. Everyone agreed that the one guy was driving, and that the other guy was hit. The only real evidence was how injured the victim was. It was completely open and shut. There was plenty of supposed nuance. None of it mattered. Still drunken assault with a deadly weapon.
gizmo686 2y ago
Eyewitness testimony has been proven to be unreliable; even in cases where there is no evidence the witness attempted to be deceptive. So yes, if literally the only evidence that they were the person to assume you is your memory, then the standard of reasonable doubt means they get away with it.
- add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - bigstrat2003 2y ago
    There's nothing wild about following the principles of the Western justice system to their logical conclusion. The accused is presumed innocent until proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. "The victim could be mistaken/lying" is a pretty reasonable doubt.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> Would our society be a better place if my attacker was convicted, or if he wasn't? I’d honestly need more than that if impaneled on a jury to conclude beyond reasonable doubt that you’d correctly identified your assailant. Hell, if the only evidence is eyewitness testimony from the victim, an obviously-interested party, I’m not even sure I’d be comfortable awarding civil damages. Especially in a modern context, where every sneeze throws off a digital and/or forensic trail.
bee_rider 2y ago
I think it should be rare that a guest of yours spontaneously decides to beat you up without generating any other evidence. So I think we can wiggle out of having to totally solve this problem by emphasizing: > Maybe we should not lock up *very many people* for whom there isn’t any hard evidence of their guilt. This should be very rare, so even if we caught everybody who spontaneously beat up their hosts, there still wouldn’t be very many people in this category. This doesn’t mean we don’t have to investigate any crimes of course. It is important for the legal system to work for victims too. But if you get beat up and point to some guest of yours, an investigation can start, a search warrant can be generated, we can see if they’ve discussed it with anybody, etc etc.
- gruez 2y ago
  >I think it should be rare that a guest of yours spontaneously decides to beat you up without generating any other evidence. Are you assuming most assaults are premeditated? I'd say most aren't. Even something like burglaries/robberies are often opportunistic, without anything incriminating like a heist planning board.
  - bee_rider 2y ago
    I responded to the scenario that they brought up, a guest (not a burglar) attacking their host. It isn’t most assaults, it is a sort of weird artificial situation constructed to have a crime committed without any physical evidence, but which could be solved just assuming the victim’s testimony was 100% true and accurate.
    - gruez 2y ago
      What about something as simple as two acquaintances getting in a heated argument?
      - bee_rider 2y ago
        I think in that case, the two witnesses would have contradictory stories as to what the exact sequence of the escalation was, so it would be hard to tell which one to believe.
scarface_74 2y ago
Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. Of course if you knew your attacker that is different

HeyLaughingBoy 2y ago

What if you had two guests but you lied about which one beat you up while the other one was out? What if they were twins? What if the person was wearing a mask that you knew your guest owned, but it wasn't actually him? You're entering into this with the assumption that you know who beat you up. The police don't have anything other than your assertion. That's why corroborating evidence is needed.

lazide 2y ago
Don’t forget the chance that they beat themselves up to get the other person in trouble and/or try to extort them. (I wish this was that fantastical a scenario)
bee_rider 2y ago
I mean, these are sort of fanciful soap opera scenarios, haha. More likely, if a guest beats you up, there will be some other witnesses and some motives. Anyway, police can get search warrants and work it out, or like… maybe the guest will feel guilty and admit what they did, perhaps after a stern talking-to along with the implication that they’ll probably be found out after some investigation anyway.
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  It's not that fanciful. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/search/research-news/2102/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/search/research-news/2102/ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/28/kevin-karl-dugar-twins-murder-illinois-prison https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/28/kevin-karl-d...
- HeyLaughingBoy 2y ago
  > police can get search warrants and work it out ROFLMAO!
  - bee_rider 2y ago
    It is a problem if police don’t do their job well, but we shouldn’t paper over that problem by locking people up without evidence.

zehaeva 2y ago

Eyewitness testimony has been shown to be far less reliable than most people believe it to be. Human memory is frail and subject to modification if not outright fabrication. Not to say that it should be completely discounted, only that it should be treated as evidence with a less than perfectly reliable. Not quite "hard" evidence, but definitely something that should be considered.

grogenaut 2y ago
A case I was a juror on, all of the witnesses were suspect. One was straight up lying I found out from the defense attorney a year later at a bar (he and the prosecutor didn't want to deal with a purjury charge for the so the defense attourney gave the prosecutor an obvious hole in the testimony to go after immediately). They were all drunk and high as hell. At the end of the day the one dude still hit his friend with his truck and threw him at least 10 feet across a wide sidewalk and into a wrought iron fence hard enough to partially impale him. Everyone agreed that the one guy was driving, and that the other guy was hit. The only real evidence was how injured the victim was. It was completely open and shut. There was plenty of supposed nuance. None of it mattered. Still drunken assault with a deadly weapon.

gizmo686 2y ago

Eyewitness testimony has been proven to be unreliable; even in cases where there is no evidence the witness attempted to be deceptive. So yes, if literally the only evidence that they were the person to assume you is your memory, then the standard of reasonable doubt means they get away with it.

add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
[flagged]
- bigstrat2003 2y ago
  There's nothing wild about following the principles of the Western justice system to their logical conclusion. The accused is presumed innocent until proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. "The victim could be mistaken/lying" is a pretty reasonable doubt.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> Would our society be a better place if my attacker was convicted, or if he wasn't? I’d honestly need more than that if impaneled on a jury to conclude beyond reasonable doubt that you’d correctly identified your assailant. Hell, if the only evidence is eyewitness testimony from the victim, an obviously-interested party, I’m not even sure I’d be comfortable awarding civil damages. Especially in a modern context, where every sneeze throws off a digital and/or forensic trail.

bee_rider 2y ago

I think it should be rare that a guest of yours spontaneously decides to beat you up without generating any other evidence. So I think we can wiggle out of having to totally solve this problem by emphasizing: > Maybe we should not lock up *very many people* for whom there isn’t any hard evidence of their guilt. This should be very rare, so even if we caught everybody who spontaneously beat up their hosts, there still wouldn’t be very many people in this category. This doesn’t mean we don’t have to investigate any crimes of course. It is important for the legal system to work for victims too. But if you get beat up and point to some guest of yours, an investigation can start, a search warrant can be generated, we can see if they’ve discussed it with anybody, etc etc.

gruez 2y ago
>I think it should be rare that a guest of yours spontaneously decides to beat you up without generating any other evidence. Are you assuming most assaults are premeditated? I'd say most aren't. Even something like burglaries/robberies are often opportunistic, without anything incriminating like a heist planning board.
- bee_rider 2y ago
  I responded to the scenario that they brought up, a guest (not a burglar) attacking their host. It isn’t most assaults, it is a sort of weird artificial situation constructed to have a crime committed without any physical evidence, but which could be solved just assuming the victim’s testimony was 100% true and accurate.
  - gruez 2y ago
    What about something as simple as two acquaintances getting in a heated argument?
    - bee_rider 2y ago
      I think in that case, the two witnesses would have contradictory stories as to what the exact sequence of the escalation was, so it would be hard to tell which one to believe.

scarface_74 2y ago

Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. Of course if you knew your attacker that is different