7 ms·

FBI announces review of 2,000 cases featuring hair samples

74 points by 1337biz 13y ago

dangero 13y ago
How many times do things like this have to happen before we decide to stop using the death penalty in the US?
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  Many people who support the death penalty are OK with a few false positives. Mind you, these people also think that 'it's a deterrent because you can't reoffend if you're dead' is a logical argument.
  - Afforess 13y ago
    That's why we don't let people make the laws. People are myopic, panicky creatures. We elect representatives who make educated decisions for us. At least, that's how it works in the USA.
    - mcantelon 13y ago
      Like the decision to spy on us.
    - arjie 13y ago
      Ah yes, representatives. Representatives who are not people. That may well be true.
      - eli 13y ago
        You'd rather pass laws by ballot initiative? I encourage you to go check the public opinion polls on a couple of issues you care about.
        arjie 13y ago
        Ha ha, no. I just found it amusing to imply that our representatives are not human.
    - oconnor0 13y ago
      It is, certainly, a relief that the representatives we elect aren't people.
    - greenyoda 13y ago
      In all the states that still have the death penalty, a majority of the elected representatives favors the death penalty (or at least they don't want to risk displeasing the voters by trying to get it abolished). Otherwise, the death penalty would no longer exist. And the same is true at the federal level, since there's still a federal death penalty[1]. Those people who are "OK with a few false positives" include legislators, the president, governors, district attorneys, prosecutors, police, etc. In some cases, DAs and other law enforcement officials have fought tooth and nail to prevent old cases from being reopened, since they feared being embarrassed by the truth more than they feared an innocent person being in prison or getting executed. (I think that if anyone deserves the death penalty, it's those who knowingly send innocent people to be executed to further their own careers. That should be considered murder.) Why shouldn't every case that was based on hair evidence (not just the 2000 that had technical legal errors) deserve to get a DNA test? If they still have the hair sample, they can test the hair's DNA against that of the prisoner. I'd suspect the reason they don't do this is that the government fears that exposing how fallible the legal system is will lead to massive public unrest. And then there's the whole corrupt plea-bargaining system that induces people to plead guilty to crimes they didn't commit because they're afraid of being hit with the death penalty if they go to trial and lose (which is a high probability for poor people represented by public defenders). All of these things are possible because of laws which our elected representatives have enacted and enforce. [1] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/federal-laws-providing-death-penalty http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/federal-laws-providing-death...
      - anigbrowl 13y ago
        the government fears There are (at least) 51 governments in the USA. For the nth time, it's not a monolithic entity. After all, we have a good numbers of states that have banned or imposed moratoria on the death penalty too, and those states obviously have no compelling interest in preventing scrutiny of its reliability. massive public unrest No chance. People (collectively speaking) are indifferent to perfectly well-documented failures of the legal system as it is.
    - anigbrowl 13y ago
      We elect representatives who make educated decisions for us. At least, that's how it works in the USA. Chance would be fine thing.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- citricsquid 13y ago
  For anyone (hopefully everyone) against the death penalty there's a charity called Reprieve that do a lot of great work defending people on death row all around the world, they have some active cases in the US at the moment: http://www.reprieve.org.uk/ http://www.reprieve.org.uk/. They've been a part of the release of over 60 Guantanamo Bay detainees and have represented over 300 US death row inmates.
  - Robin_Message 13y ago
    I've just decided to run a Spartan Race (5K obstacle race) in aid of Reprieve in September in case anyone wants to donate: http://justgiving.com/SpartanRobin http://justgiving.com/SpartanRobin
- Taylorious 13y ago
  Someone innocent being sentenced to death is a tragedy. However, there are innocent people who get charged with life sentences or many decades, and they end up dying in prison from natural causes, murder, suicide, etc. Even if you get rid of the death penalty there will still be some innocent people who die in prison, or they spend a good part of their life in prison before they are exonerated. Sure they get a big fat settlement, but who cares if you went into prison at 20 and came out at 70 a millionaire. Not worth it. The point is I'm not sure getting rid of the death penalty would statistically save that many innocent lives, as harsh as that sounds.
  - citricsquid 13y ago
    Statistics don't matter, even if one innocent person is saved it's worth it. There is absolutely no advantage to the death penalty. I'm sure if you told any death row survivor (eg: Damien Echols) that you don't think it's worth abolishing it because their lives were over anyway they would have a strong disagreement. An important consideration is the way death row inmates are treated too, 10 years on death row is not good for a person so if they are found innocent they will have suffered serious damage (Damien Echols again), it's a complete waste. Damien Echols did an AMA on reddit last year: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/107jib/iam_damien_echols_death_row_survivor_ama/ http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/107jib/iam_damien_echo...
    - forsaken 13y ago
      It saves money. That's at least one advantage.
      - citricsquid 13y ago
        If you include the cost of appeals (which are part and parcel of the death penalty in the US) the cost of executing a death row inmate becomes greater than the cost of incarceration for life. For example: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/20/california-death-penalty-execution-costs http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/20/california-death...
      - 13y ago
- conroy 13y ago
  Sadly, California had a chance to ban the death penalty last election via Proposition 34. The outcome wasn't even close, with 52% voting against the proposition [1]. Compared to other states, California executes very few criminals. Over the last 10 years, only three inmates have been killed. Compared to Texas which, over the same time frame, has executed 263 inmates [2]. However, California currently has the most inmates on death row (727) of any state. Since California doesn't execute the inmates it puts on death row, they end up costing the tax payers. An inmate on death row costs the state almost four times as much as a regular inmate ($175k versus $47k)[3]. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_34_%282012%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_34_%2820... [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_people_executed_in_Texas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_people_executed_in_Tex... [3]: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/02/death-penalty-california-stats-infographic http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/02/death-penalty-califo...
kumarski 13y ago
I've always wondered if the perfect murder involved pouring a large number of hair follicles on the scene.
- Alex3917 13y ago
  For a while I've thought it would be a good idea to make drug paraphernalia that had something like 'Google jury nullification' handwritten on it, and maybe also a brief explanation. The idea is that if it were ever seized then it would have to be read as evidence in the court. You could also add several other features to create reasonable doubt, e.g. an inked thumbprint of another person, someone else's name on it, etc. I think it would make a good Kickstarter project. It would be cool to make 10,000 baggies and a few vaporizers and then to wait for someone to actually get arrested to see how it would work in practice, as sort of a participative art project.
  - DannyBee 13y ago
    " The idea is that if it were ever seized then it would have to be read as evidence in the court." What? I'm trying to follow this logic, help me out here :) Among other things (like the fact that there is zero reason anyone would read it to a jury), judges have broad discretion to let evidence in/out. http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/fre/rule_403 http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/fre/rule_403 They would just not let it be read to a jury as evidence. There are a small number of things not subject to 403's balancing rules, i don't think this would fall into any of them. (Most states have evidence codes based on the federal rules)
    - Alex3917 13y ago
      Maybe for the jury nullification part. But if the cops claimed they had seized a baggy of drugs from your car, and that baggy said in handwritten letters on it "property of X", and your name was not X, it's hard to see a judge preventing that from being admitted. And even for the jury nullification part I think you'd have a decent shot of getting it admitted. Do you really think a judge could prevent you from arguing that it's not your handwriting without creating grounds for an appeal? If there is nothing to indicate that you actually knew the drugs were in your car then this could be a significant point of evidence. Anyway I'm not saying it would work in all cases, I just think there is enough of a chance of it working in some cases (or at least creating drama) that it would make for a decent art project.
rjvir 13y ago
It takes a lot of guts to admit that people may have wrongfully died in the past in an attempt to potentially save innocent people in the future. It would have been very easy to be stubborn and let even more injustice occur.
- pjbrunet 13y ago
  That's nice but you still have to worry about tampering with evidence, planted evidence, bad assumptions, bogus experts, etc. Or maybe I just watch too many movies ;-) Like after watching the movie Gattaca, I wonder how much of our DNA is just out there floating around? If there are any good books on DNA matching that are worth reading, post some links please.
- Mordor 13y ago
  and yet not so easy to ban the death penalty

74 points by 1337biz 13y ago

dangero 13y ago

How many times do things like this have to happen before we decide to stop using the death penalty in the US?

anigbrowl 13y ago
Many people who support the death penalty are OK with a few false positives. Mind you, these people also think that 'it's a deterrent because you can't reoffend if you're dead' is a logical argument.
- Afforess 13y ago
  That's why we don't let people make the laws. People are myopic, panicky creatures. We elect representatives who make educated decisions for us. At least, that's how it works in the USA.
  - mcantelon 13y ago
    Like the decision to spy on us.
  - arjie 13y ago
    Ah yes, representatives. Representatives who are not people. That may well be true.
    - eli 13y ago
      You'd rather pass laws by ballot initiative? I encourage you to go check the public opinion polls on a couple of issues you care about.
      - arjie 13y ago
        Ha ha, no. I just found it amusing to imply that our representatives are not human.
  - oconnor0 13y ago
    It is, certainly, a relief that the representatives we elect aren't people.
  - greenyoda 13y ago
    In all the states that still have the death penalty, a majority of the elected representatives favors the death penalty (or at least they don't want to risk displeasing the voters by trying to get it abolished). Otherwise, the death penalty would no longer exist. And the same is true at the federal level, since there's still a federal death penalty[1]. Those people who are "OK with a few false positives" include legislators, the president, governors, district attorneys, prosecutors, police, etc. In some cases, DAs and other law enforcement officials have fought tooth and nail to prevent old cases from being reopened, since they feared being embarrassed by the truth more than they feared an innocent person being in prison or getting executed. (I think that if anyone deserves the death penalty, it's those who knowingly send innocent people to be executed to further their own careers. That should be considered murder.) Why shouldn't every case that was based on hair evidence (not just the 2000 that had technical legal errors) deserve to get a DNA test? If they still have the hair sample, they can test the hair's DNA against that of the prisoner. I'd suspect the reason they don't do this is that the government fears that exposing how fallible the legal system is will lead to massive public unrest. And then there's the whole corrupt plea-bargaining system that induces people to plead guilty to crimes they didn't commit because they're afraid of being hit with the death penalty if they go to trial and lose (which is a high probability for poor people represented by public defenders). All of these things are possible because of laws which our elected representatives have enacted and enforce. [1] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/federal-laws-providing-death-penalty http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/federal-laws-providing-death...
    - anigbrowl 13y ago
      the government fears There are (at least) 51 governments in the USA. For the nth time, it's not a monolithic entity. After all, we have a good numbers of states that have banned or imposed moratoria on the death penalty too, and those states obviously have no compelling interest in preventing scrutiny of its reliability. massive public unrest No chance. People (collectively speaking) are indifferent to perfectly well-documented failures of the legal system as it is.
  - anigbrowl 13y ago
    We elect representatives who make educated decisions for us. At least, that's how it works in the USA. Chance would be fine thing.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
citricsquid 13y ago
For anyone (hopefully everyone) against the death penalty there's a charity called Reprieve that do a lot of great work defending people on death row all around the world, they have some active cases in the US at the moment: http://www.reprieve.org.uk/ http://www.reprieve.org.uk/. They've been a part of the release of over 60 Guantanamo Bay detainees and have represented over 300 US death row inmates.
- Robin_Message 13y ago
  I've just decided to run a Spartan Race (5K obstacle race) in aid of Reprieve in September in case anyone wants to donate: http://justgiving.com/SpartanRobin http://justgiving.com/SpartanRobin
Taylorious 13y ago
Someone innocent being sentenced to death is a tragedy. However, there are innocent people who get charged with life sentences or many decades, and they end up dying in prison from natural causes, murder, suicide, etc. Even if you get rid of the death penalty there will still be some innocent people who die in prison, or they spend a good part of their life in prison before they are exonerated. Sure they get a big fat settlement, but who cares if you went into prison at 20 and came out at 70 a millionaire. Not worth it. The point is I'm not sure getting rid of the death penalty would statistically save that many innocent lives, as harsh as that sounds.
- citricsquid 13y ago
  Statistics don't matter, even if one innocent person is saved it's worth it. There is absolutely no advantage to the death penalty. I'm sure if you told any death row survivor (eg: Damien Echols) that you don't think it's worth abolishing it because their lives were over anyway they would have a strong disagreement. An important consideration is the way death row inmates are treated too, 10 years on death row is not good for a person so if they are found innocent they will have suffered serious damage (Damien Echols again), it's a complete waste. Damien Echols did an AMA on reddit last year: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/107jib/iam_damien_echols_death_row_survivor_ama/ http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/107jib/iam_damien_echo...
  - forsaken 13y ago
    It saves money. That's at least one advantage.
    - citricsquid 13y ago
      If you include the cost of appeals (which are part and parcel of the death penalty in the US) the cost of executing a death row inmate becomes greater than the cost of incarceration for life. For example: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/20/california-death-penalty-execution-costs http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/20/california-death...
    - 13y ago
conroy 13y ago
Sadly, California had a chance to ban the death penalty last election via Proposition 34. The outcome wasn't even close, with 52% voting against the proposition [1]. Compared to other states, California executes very few criminals. Over the last 10 years, only three inmates have been killed. Compared to Texas which, over the same time frame, has executed 263 inmates [2]. However, California currently has the most inmates on death row (727) of any state. Since California doesn't execute the inmates it puts on death row, they end up costing the tax payers. An inmate on death row costs the state almost four times as much as a regular inmate ($175k versus $47k)[3]. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_34_%282012%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_34_%2820... [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_people_executed_in_Texas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_people_executed_in_Tex... [3]: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/02/death-penalty-california-stats-infographic http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/02/death-penalty-califo...

kumarski 13y ago

I've always wondered if the perfect murder involved pouring a large number of hair follicles on the scene.

Alex3917 13y ago
For a while I've thought it would be a good idea to make drug paraphernalia that had something like 'Google jury nullification' handwritten on it, and maybe also a brief explanation. The idea is that if it were ever seized then it would have to be read as evidence in the court. You could also add several other features to create reasonable doubt, e.g. an inked thumbprint of another person, someone else's name on it, etc. I think it would make a good Kickstarter project. It would be cool to make 10,000 baggies and a few vaporizers and then to wait for someone to actually get arrested to see how it would work in practice, as sort of a participative art project.
- DannyBee 13y ago
  " The idea is that if it were ever seized then it would have to be read as evidence in the court." What? I'm trying to follow this logic, help me out here :) Among other things (like the fact that there is zero reason anyone would read it to a jury), judges have broad discretion to let evidence in/out. http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/fre/rule_403 http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/fre/rule_403 They would just not let it be read to a jury as evidence. There are a small number of things not subject to 403's balancing rules, i don't think this would fall into any of them. (Most states have evidence codes based on the federal rules)
  - Alex3917 13y ago
    Maybe for the jury nullification part. But if the cops claimed they had seized a baggy of drugs from your car, and that baggy said in handwritten letters on it "property of X", and your name was not X, it's hard to see a judge preventing that from being admitted. And even for the jury nullification part I think you'd have a decent shot of getting it admitted. Do you really think a judge could prevent you from arguing that it's not your handwriting without creating grounds for an appeal? If there is nothing to indicate that you actually knew the drugs were in your car then this could be a significant point of evidence. Anyway I'm not saying it would work in all cases, I just think there is enough of a chance of it working in some cases (or at least creating drama) that it would make for a decent art project.

rjvir 13y ago

It takes a lot of guts to admit that people may have wrongfully died in the past in an attempt to potentially save innocent people in the future. It would have been very easy to be stubborn and let even more injustice occur.

pjbrunet 13y ago
That's nice but you still have to worry about tampering with evidence, planted evidence, bad assumptions, bogus experts, etc. Or maybe I just watch too many movies ;-) Like after watching the movie Gattaca, I wonder how much of our DNA is just out there floating around? If there are any good books on DNA matching that are worth reading, post some links please.
Mordor 13y ago
and yet not so easy to ban the death penalty