FBI announces review of 2,000 cases featuring hair samples | Hacker News Reader

FBI announces review of 2,000 cases featuring hair samples

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74 points1337biz49 comments

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

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.

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.

Like the decision to spy on us.

Ah yes, representatives. Representatives who are not people. That may well be true.

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.

Ha ha, no. I just found it amusing to imply that our representatives are not human.

It is, certainly, a relief that the representatives we elect aren't people.

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...

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.

We elect representatives who make educated decisions for us. At least, that's how it works in the USA.

Chance would be fine thing.

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/. They've been a part of the release of over 60 Guantanamo Bay detainees and have represented over 300 US death row inmates.

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

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.

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_echo...

It saves money. That's at least one advantage.

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...

Anyone arguing for the death penalty on the grounds of financial probity is so morally and intellectually bankrupt that it is fairly safe to disregard their opinion on this subject entirely and to consider their opinions on all others to be at best deeply suspect.

Statistics matter. Not everyone on death row is innocent. How many people on death row kill other inmates?

EDIT: I meant to say how many people serving life sentences. But I suppose it applies to people on death row who never actually get put to death.

It amazes me that people defend the US system, especially in this way. If a statistical majority of a group do something, is treating the whole group the same a good idea? Using the same logic, most US citizens didn't commit any crime punishable by imprisonment, so why imprison anyone?

In fairness, the parent poster said "There is absolutely no advantage to the death penalty" and (s)he retorted. Not sure it is a 100% defense as much as refuting the "absolutely no advantage".

Perhaps people are under the impression that I am pro-death penalty because of my posts here. I am pro-death penalty in theory/philosophy, but I am not for it in the real world. Simply for practical reasons (cost of appeals process, and yes the possibility of false positives, etc.). I just posted to show that the issue of the death penalty isn't as black and white as people claim, and that the people who are for it aren't necessarily knuckle dragging blood thirsty fools. There are logical arguments for both sides, and the parent post didn't seems to recognize that.

"Statistics don't matter, even if one innocent person is saved it's worth it. "

You realise you could use the same statement to defend the death penalty? There are dozens of people in the UK who have been killed by people on life sentences that have been released but in earlier times would have face the death penalty.

I'm not pro-death penalty. I don't trust governments enough. I'd be happy with whole of natural life (i.e. no release ever) sentences.

Yeah, I think a long time in prison is better, be it 50 years or a whole life, though it will be more expensive for the government.

In the US, the costs really depend on the state. Some states take years upon years and allow many appeals. They also provide lawyers (if you can't afford it). Not to mention keeping the prisoner in death row is more expensive than regular.

>Sure they get a big fat settlement

Actually not that many do: http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=90978&page=1

So because doing X would only solve x% of the problem (without significant cost, as noted by another poster) for x < 100, we shouldn't do it? That's an absolutely insane argument. Apply it to business, software development, or whatever field you work in. The real key here is that commuting every death sentence to life in prison would cost almost nothing. So if it saves even one life, there isn't even a callous cost-benefit argument in favor of the death penalty! I myself am swayed by the moral arguments, no cost-benefit needed, but that's just me.

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_%2820...

[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_people_executed_in_Tex...

[3]: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/02/death-penalty-califo...

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.

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.

and yet not so easy to ban the death penalty

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

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.

" 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

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)

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.

First, I mainly care about the jury nullification part.

The rest is essentially you suggesting that you can manufacture non-reliable evidence and introduce it.

The problem with this is that the evidence must have probative value, and generally be reliable, to be 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 your intent is to corrupt, confuse, or otherwise mislead a jury, yes, i think a judge will prevent you.

Even if he doesn't prevent you, he will strongly admonish the jury about it, and if another juror believes a given juror is not following instructions, they are likely to report them, and it will get dealt with.

This happens all the time.

As for grounds for appeal, generally, evidence rulings are reviewed for abuse of discretion. Basically, the appellate court must find that the decision was wholly unsupported by the evidence, illegal, or clearly incorrect. Even then, it is likely to be found to be harmless error anyway, unless this is the only evidence.

Of course, you are welcome to believe what you want, what do I know.

While I don't dispute your analyzes of the legal system, it do paint a rather grim picture. Evidence in this case can then only ever be used in one direction.

Had the handwriting and name been that of the suspect, it would without doubt be used as evidence to crucify the suspect. However, if the handwriting and name is about someone else, then the evidence is regarded as confusing and thus discarded.

It looks to me as a realistic, maybe a bit cynical view of the legal system. Is this really how empirical evidence should be used?

> The rest is essentially you suggesting that you can manufacture non-reliable evidence and introduce it.

I have no doubt that a judge can and would block the evidence if they thought the intent was to 'corrupt, confuse, or otherwise mislead.' What I do doubt is that the judge would automatically think that this was doing that.

E.g. how is this any different from "If the glove don't fit, you must acquit?"

Someone should just make a Hollywood blockbuster about jury nullification.

If I ever had a bunch of spare advertising inventory, pro jury nullification would be the PSA I'd run. I wish someone would do a really catchy viral video about it. It wouldn't even need to run nationally; assuming jurors in many cases are drawn from the local county, you could blanket high-drug-prosecution counties with the message, information about how drug convictions don't actually solve the problems of the ghetto or drug abuse, etc., and probably be fairly effective.

I wonder if there would be a way to run retargeting on likely jurors and then just follow them around the web.

As long as you do it before they are selected. Mark Schmidter got imprisoned for distributing jury nullification information to empaneled jurors; I'm not really into finding out what the worst possible judge things is contempt anywhere in the US.

http://www.activistpost.com/2013/02/jury-nullification-activ...

Interesting. Do you think generically retargeting anyone looking for directions to a courthouse would be kosher?

I think you'd be a lot safer doing it from outside the jurisdiction of the court in question. I really don't know -- it seems like jury tampering/contempt of court have a lot of power and rely on the judge being not an utter tool, which often breaks down. Going to jail and eventually winning some legal challenge is something I'd personally consider a failure, but others are willing to do.

Sure, just start with searches for "how to get out of jury duty"

Wouldn't it be cheaper to just SEO the fuck out of that (and provide something like DMV.org), rather than ads and retargeting?

Gather a bunch of different kinds of hair from a barbershop trashcan and sprinkle it everywhere.

Better make sure it's a barbershop you went to recently, and that it includes your hair. Plausible deniability and all.

"Yes thank you for that haircut - hey if you don't mind, I'd like to sweep your entire floor for no particular reason, keeping the hair and do you happen to know a store that sells... tools for... farming, like large knifes and chemicals in large quantities?"

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