

FBI announces review of 2,000 cases featuring hair samples - 1337biz
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/07/18/197069/fbi-announces-review-of-2000-cases.html

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

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Taylorious
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.

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citricsquid
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...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/107jib/iam_damien_echols_death_row_survivor_ama/)

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

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citricsquid
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...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/20/california-death-
penalty-execution-costs)

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rjvir
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.

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pjbrunet
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.

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

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Alex3917
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.

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DannyBee
" 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)

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Alex3917
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.

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DannyBee
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.

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belorn
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?

