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This happens because the police aren't intelligent people. In a Sherlock Holmes story, the protagonist uses forensic evidence but he thinks about what the evid

This happens because the police aren't intelligent people. In a Sherlock Holmes story, the protagonist uses forensic evidence but he thinks about what the evidence means. The police, on the other hand, want a magic oracle device that spits out names and current addresses, and they treat forensics like it was such. In the United States, having a valid explanation for why your fingerprints were on some object wouldn't necessarily get you freed, it wouldn't necessarily prevent prosecution. Some asshole DAs here would take that to trial (or extort you into a plea bargain, at least).

pixl97 11y ago
>The police, on the other hand, want... someone to get arrested so it looks like they are doing a good job so the chief gets off their back, the chief wants this because re-election is coming soon and doesn't want to look weak on crime. Neither one of them can go pick up some random black guy for the crime any longer without too much media attention so 'forensic' evidence is what they try to use today.
- TallGuyShort 11y ago
  I'm sure many police are not like this, but they also want the power trip. I was once pulled over by a cop who was driving incredibly recklessly on icy roads to get behind me fast (when I saw him swerving in my mirror I actually thought he must be on his way to an active shooter situation or something). He yelled at me to give him my license, and then ordered me to get out of the car and sit on the curb because he thought it was a fake. When it turned out to be authentic, he politely informed me that one of the lights illuminating my license plate were out and that my registration was expired. He wrote me a ticket. My registration was not expired, and I fixed the light the next day. The judge was laughing his head off at the ticket and called people in from the hallway to see how silly it was. But my complaint about the officer was just "noted".
  - drostie 11y ago
    I was pulled over by a cop because I essentially "cut him off" at an intersection, pulling from my complete stop at a stop sign across the intersection while he, further behind but with no stop sign, was turning into the same road: he therefore couldn't keep so much of his momentum but once he got into the road he needed to slow way down to match my speed. Fortunately, I had a tail light out -- not a brake light, just the ones that idle on when the car is running. When he asked "do you know why I pulled you over?" I said "Because I have this tail light out: but the brake lights are fine, I have this appointment to fix them tomorrow, and here is this warning that this other officer gave me about the problem, which clearly says that it has to be fixed by the end of the week." He said out-right "no, that's not why I pulled you over, you ran that stop sign," and I said, "no, I came to a complete stop, I always do, it's one of those disciplines I have that really annoys my girlfriend..." and such. Probably I shouldn't have even tried to argue it? But I did. In the end, he came back with a ticket for "driving a defective vehicle" -- because the tail light was out, and despite the fact that he should have ideally deferred to the earlier warning. I asked him about it and he said, "you didn't fix it fast enough!" brusquely. Probably he wanted to lean on my immediate statement of "this is broken but I am fixing it tomorrow" in any trial, like, "he immediately confessed to the crime." This turn of events was quite fortunate as when the county prosecutor saw both pieces of paper side-by-side (the warning, "fix by the 9th", and the ticket issued on the 7th, or whatever), she agreed to drop the case before it went to trial. (I had also been told by a police clerk that the judge was pretty lenient about traffic violations, so that may have also been in her mind.)
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - LordKano 11y ago
      Probably he wanted to lean on my immediate statement of "this is broken but I am fixing it tomorrow" in any trial, like, "he immediately confessed to the crime." That's precisely why he asked the question in the first place. Never admit to anything. A few years ago, I got a ticket for driving with an expired inspection sticker. I knew it was expired and it was my fault so I wasn't going to try to argue my way out of it but when the officer asked if I knew why he pulled me over, I said "I have a pretty good idea, officer but I'm not going to say it out loud."
ISL 11y ago
Every law enforcement officer I've talked with at length has been an intelligent person. I think we all want tools that help us do our jobs quickly and more reliably. Forensic science is, in aggregate, a tool for discovering what's true. Improvements in forensic science are, on balance, a net positive. In the United States, nothing prevents prosecution. The state can bring whatever charges it wants. The bulwarks of our freedom are in the courts, the ballot box, and in the enumerated Bill of Rights. It's the jury of our peers and a speedy trial that check the ability of prosecutors to do us individual harm. As a society, it's our power at the ballot box that determines who we admit into the job of prosecution.
- biomcgary 11y ago
  The intelligence of individual officers is not the issue even though smart candidates are actively discriminated against in some locations (see: http://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836 http://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/sto...). Prosecutors control the entire process and have largely negated trial by jury through the use of multiple charges and plea bargains (see: http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-procedure/plea-bargain-pros-and-cons.html http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-procedure/plea-bargain-...). Many prosecutors are not directly elected, so the ballot box does not provide a direct path to a solution. Furthermore, I doubt many voters vote for candidates based on who they will appoint as a prosecutor.
- rahimnathwani 11y ago
  "Every law enforcement officer I've talked with at length has been an intelligent person." This could be selection bias at work. Perhaps you terminate conversations with less intelligent officers earlier, without realising the reason you do so. So, these less intelligent ones are forgotten, or removed from your sample because the conversation was not long enough to find strong evidence about intelligence.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 11y ago
    > Every law enforcement officer I've talked with at length has been an intelligent person. No. He's just poor at judging intelligence, like everyone else. If they are polite and don't raise their voice and there are no obvious deficiencies in their vocabulary or pronunciation, and they seem to be minimally informed on current events and trends, you couldn't tell an idiot from a genius. You have no ability to see their thought processes, and you've never really bothered to try to infer them. Studies even suggest you don't know what's going on in your own brain either. This despite the fact that you are actually privy to at least some of your own thought process.
rayiner 11y ago
Would a DA take you to trial based on a single fingerprint on a phonebook? Even in the article at issue, an example of justice system at its worst, the prosecution was based on an eye-witness identification in addition to the tenuous forensic evidence.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 11y ago
  I read an article a year or so ago about a prosecutor who, once DNA evidence revealed that the defendant (convicted prior) was innocent started theorizing that he was one of two rapist, but wore a condom. So yeh. There are no limits and no meaningful rules as to what they can and will do. Certainly many feel no moral or ethical constraints on their actions.
  - harryh 11y ago
    And what actually ended up happening in that situation? Did the DA take the defendant to trial under that theory?
    - MertsA 11y ago
      I think he's referring to the case of Roy Criner. What was ridiculous is that I remember watching a documentary that focused in part about this case and they interviewed the district attorney who was denying an appeal of the case after the DNA analysis of the semen confirmed that it didn't belong to Roy Criner. The DA was adamant that he was obviously guilty because he was given a fair trial and that the DNA evidence just meant that the victim also had sex with someone else recently before she was raped and murdered by Criner. http://www.law.northwestern.edu/legalclinic/wrongfulconvictions/exonerations/tx/roy-wayne-criner.html http://www.law.northwestern.edu/legalclinic/wrongfulconvicti... http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/case/etc/update.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/case/etc/updat...

pixl97 11y ago

>The police, on the other hand, want... someone to get arrested so it looks like they are doing a good job so the chief gets off their back, the chief wants this because re-election is coming soon and doesn't want to look weak on crime. Neither one of them can go pick up some random black guy for the crime any longer without too much media attention so 'forensic' evidence is what they try to use today.

TallGuyShort 11y ago
I'm sure many police are not like this, but they also want the power trip. I was once pulled over by a cop who was driving incredibly recklessly on icy roads to get behind me fast (when I saw him swerving in my mirror I actually thought he must be on his way to an active shooter situation or something). He yelled at me to give him my license, and then ordered me to get out of the car and sit on the curb because he thought it was a fake. When it turned out to be authentic, he politely informed me that one of the lights illuminating my license plate were out and that my registration was expired. He wrote me a ticket. My registration was not expired, and I fixed the light the next day. The judge was laughing his head off at the ticket and called people in from the hallway to see how silly it was. But my complaint about the officer was just "noted".
- drostie 11y ago
  I was pulled over by a cop because I essentially "cut him off" at an intersection, pulling from my complete stop at a stop sign across the intersection while he, further behind but with no stop sign, was turning into the same road: he therefore couldn't keep so much of his momentum but once he got into the road he needed to slow way down to match my speed. Fortunately, I had a tail light out -- not a brake light, just the ones that idle on when the car is running. When he asked "do you know why I pulled you over?" I said "Because I have this tail light out: but the brake lights are fine, I have this appointment to fix them tomorrow, and here is this warning that this other officer gave me about the problem, which clearly says that it has to be fixed by the end of the week." He said out-right "no, that's not why I pulled you over, you ran that stop sign," and I said, "no, I came to a complete stop, I always do, it's one of those disciplines I have that really annoys my girlfriend..." and such. Probably I shouldn't have even tried to argue it? But I did. In the end, he came back with a ticket for "driving a defective vehicle" -- because the tail light was out, and despite the fact that he should have ideally deferred to the earlier warning. I asked him about it and he said, "you didn't fix it fast enough!" brusquely. Probably he wanted to lean on my immediate statement of "this is broken but I am fixing it tomorrow" in any trial, like, "he immediately confessed to the crime." This turn of events was quite fortunate as when the county prosecutor saw both pieces of paper side-by-side (the warning, "fix by the 9th", and the ticket issued on the 7th, or whatever), she agreed to drop the case before it went to trial. (I had also been told by a police clerk that the judge was pretty lenient about traffic violations, so that may have also been in her mind.)
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - LordKano 11y ago
    Probably he wanted to lean on my immediate statement of "this is broken but I am fixing it tomorrow" in any trial, like, "he immediately confessed to the crime." That's precisely why he asked the question in the first place. Never admit to anything. A few years ago, I got a ticket for driving with an expired inspection sticker. I knew it was expired and it was my fault so I wasn't going to try to argue my way out of it but when the officer asked if I knew why he pulled me over, I said "I have a pretty good idea, officer but I'm not going to say it out loud."

ISL 11y ago

Every law enforcement officer I've talked with at length has been an intelligent person. I think we all want tools that help us do our jobs quickly and more reliably. Forensic science is, in aggregate, a tool for discovering what's true. Improvements in forensic science are, on balance, a net positive. In the United States, nothing prevents prosecution. The state can bring whatever charges it wants. The bulwarks of our freedom are in the courts, the ballot box, and in the enumerated Bill of Rights. It's the jury of our peers and a speedy trial that check the ability of prosecutors to do us individual harm. As a society, it's our power at the ballot box that determines who we admit into the job of prosecution.

biomcgary 11y ago
The intelligence of individual officers is not the issue even though smart candidates are actively discriminated against in some locations (see: http://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836 http://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/sto...). Prosecutors control the entire process and have largely negated trial by jury through the use of multiple charges and plea bargains (see: http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-procedure/plea-bargain-pros-and-cons.html http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-procedure/plea-bargain-...). Many prosecutors are not directly elected, so the ballot box does not provide a direct path to a solution. Furthermore, I doubt many voters vote for candidates based on who they will appoint as a prosecutor.
rahimnathwani 11y ago
"Every law enforcement officer I've talked with at length has been an intelligent person." This could be selection bias at work. Perhaps you terminate conversations with less intelligent officers earlier, without realising the reason you do so. So, these less intelligent ones are forgotten, or removed from your sample because the conversation was not long enough to find strong evidence about intelligence.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 11y ago
  > Every law enforcement officer I've talked with at length has been an intelligent person. No. He's just poor at judging intelligence, like everyone else. If they are polite and don't raise their voice and there are no obvious deficiencies in their vocabulary or pronunciation, and they seem to be minimally informed on current events and trends, you couldn't tell an idiot from a genius. You have no ability to see their thought processes, and you've never really bothered to try to infer them. Studies even suggest you don't know what's going on in your own brain either. This despite the fact that you are actually privy to at least some of your own thought process.

rayiner 11y ago

Would a DA take you to trial based on a single fingerprint on a phonebook? Even in the article at issue, an example of justice system at its worst, the prosecution was based on an eye-witness identification in addition to the tenuous forensic evidence.

NoMoreNicksLeft 11y ago
I read an article a year or so ago about a prosecutor who, once DNA evidence revealed that the defendant (convicted prior) was innocent started theorizing that he was one of two rapist, but wore a condom. So yeh. There are no limits and no meaningful rules as to what they can and will do. Certainly many feel no moral or ethical constraints on their actions.
- harryh 11y ago
  And what actually ended up happening in that situation? Did the DA take the defendant to trial under that theory?
  - MertsA 11y ago
    I think he's referring to the case of Roy Criner. What was ridiculous is that I remember watching a documentary that focused in part about this case and they interviewed the district attorney who was denying an appeal of the case after the DNA analysis of the semen confirmed that it didn't belong to Roy Criner. The DA was adamant that he was obviously guilty because he was given a fair trial and that the DNA evidence just meant that the victim also had sex with someone else recently before she was raped and murdered by Criner. http://www.law.northwestern.edu/legalclinic/wrongfulconvictions/exonerations/tx/roy-wayne-criner.html http://www.law.northwestern.edu/legalclinic/wrongfulconvicti... http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/case/etc/update.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/case/etc/updat...