The FBI faked an entire field of forensic science (2015)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron_Todd_Willingham

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/trial-by-fire

In 2005, Texas established a government commission to investigate allegations of error and misconduct by forensic scientists. The first cases that are being reviewed by the commission are those of Willingham and Willis. In mid-August, the noted fire scientist Craig Beyler, who was hired by the commission, completed his investigation. In a scathing report, he concluded that investigators in the Willingham case had no scientific basis for claiming that the fire was arson, ignored evidence that contradicted their theory, had no comprehension of flashover and fire dynamics, relied on discredited folklore, and failed to eliminate potential accidental or alternative causes of the fire. He said that Vasquez’s approach seemed to deny “rational reasoning” and was more “characteristic of mystics or psychics.” What’s more, Beyler determined that the investigation violated, as he put it to me, “not only the standards of today but even of the time period.” The commission is reviewing his findings, and plans to release its own report next year. Some legal scholars believe that the commission may narrowly assess the reliability of the scientific evidence. There is a chance, however, that Texas could become the first state to acknowledge officially that, since the advent of the modern judicial system, it had carried out the “execution of a legally and factually innocent person.”

The fact that the justice system of the mightiest and wealthiest country in the history of the planet uses methods no better than pricking is quite disturbing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pricking).

For example if someone is imprisoned in another's basement for 10 years we accept their right to sue the person who kept them imprisoned - even many years later. But when faced with systematic slavery we classify the problem as a systemic failure and move on, the idea of reparation seems crazy.

Another example would be the crash of 2009, once the flaw was discovered (high risk debt rolled up into low risk securities) very few people accepted it was a problem to fix even when shown the facts; in part because 'everybody is doing it', what can we do. I.e. the problem was systemic not localised to a small group of people. Interestingly a lot of the same bad practises appear to be continuing and are often reported - but again, what to do, it's a failure in the system!

And finally it's also like the story of the discovery of Yellowstone caldera - the scientists couldn't work out where exactly the volcano was in Yellowstone initially they didn't believe/realise it was in fact all of Yellowstone.

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13163

It was written by the National Academies as a guide for federal judges (i.e., for non-scientists), so it's based on deep scientific expertise and yet is pretty readable. Also, the first section on how science really works in practice, relative to theories of scientific method, is unique (AFAIK) and exceptional.

EDIT: If there's not a free version available at that link, I'm pretty sure you can find one from a credible source elsewhere, I think from one of the other organizations involved. However, consider paying and supporting the National Academies' work.

Sadly prosecutors too often see their job as winning cases rather than serving justice.

As my friend is close to being indited by the FBI and a "Star Witness" just plead guilty for bribery, tax evasion and bribery. The FBI released one recording where my friend was pissed at a company and the "Star Witness" who was wired was the one saying he would do illegal activities. Also FBI "You will find that (my friend) did not have direct contact with other people and kept himself separated from other people who did illegal activities.

So far the "Star Witness" has brought down 6 people after he got caught for tax evasion.

Shades of operation mockingbird.

In fields like medicine or air travel errors happen but it's part of the system to address them and make sure they don't happen again. That doesn't seem to be the case at all in the justice system.

Just like with torture and other criminal failures of government, nobody goes to jail; there is no incentive to avoid corruption next time someone has a choice like this one.

I don't think I agree with the "not unreasonably" part. At what point do we as a society expect more from jurors? Ask yourself: If you or one of your close friends is called to be on a jury, do you think you'll just take some song-and-dance at face value without carefully weighing the ostensible expertise of each witness?

Rather, it seems to me that the process of juror selection has become so obtuse - yet so routine - that critical jurors who might lead the jury away from swallowing this kind of hogwash are filtered out before the case makes it to trial.

> There were no scientifically accepted standards for forensic testing, yet FBI experts routinely and almost unvaryingly testified, according to the Post, “to the near-certainty of ‘matches’ of crime-scene hairs to defendants, backing their claims by citing incomplete or misleading statistics drawn from their case work.”

...and nobody questioned this? No defense attorney or jury foreperson over the years brought any serious attention to this? That's the broken part.

That the government will lie is to be expected and is part of the nature of government. That people will unflinchingly proceed as though its lies are actually veracious and sober elements of a criminal trial - this is fixable.

> There is no lack of good ideas for reform. (Journalist Radley Balko and Roger Koppl, a professor of finance at Syracuse University’s Whitman School of Management and a fellow at Syracuse’s Forensic and National Security Sciences Institute, offered up a laundry list of fixes in Slate—almost seven years ago.)* These solutions are not all that expensive or complicated. Among them: giving defendants their own forensic experts, untethering crime labs from the prosecutors and cops to which they now answer, verification and standards.

Radley has been so tireless in his reporting. Glad to see his work mentioned here. He's a true hacker and a great speaker and researcher. The recommendations mentioned here are so obvious and so easy that it's unthinkable that the failure to implement them is attributable to anything but the desire to continue to convict, truth be damned.

“Of 28 examiners with the FBI Laboratory’s microscopic hair comparison unit, 26 overstated forensic matches in ways that favored prosecutors in more than 95 percent of the 268 trials reviewed so far.”

The justice system isn't a science system and never has been.

- How does this compare to other countries?

- Do other countries make use of similar lines of evidence in similar ways?

- Have other countries made the same mistake of over-interpreting the evidence and subsequently overhauled it?

The World contains a convenient set of correlated pseudo-replicates of western societies. Discourse in the USA often fails to make use of them.

Fair and balanced? It's pretty disgusting actually, but so is the NFL depending on how offensive you feel it is to taint studies on concussions. The analogy goes further than one might expect, with the justice system struggling with their image just like any other professional sport institution. It's the Justice League. Justice is a brand.

The real question is, are we really that desperate? Or rather, why wouldn't we be? When you're forced to win, you're forced to do a lot of things.

Instead, we should just be forced to get it right.

I have no sympathy for them AT ALL, and I think they should be personally prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Which would be all of them.

No FBI agent has ever been found in the wrong for killing anyone, ever.