
Half of All False Convictions in US Involved Police or Prosecutor Misconduct - pseudolus
https://reason.com/2020/09/15/half-of-all-false-convictions-in-the-u-s-involved-police-or-prosecutor-misconduct-finds-new-report/
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Joking_Phantom
The original report only analyzes successful exonerations. There are many
times more cases out there of false convictions, victims who have not seen the
light of day. Those without exculpatory evidence have basically no hope. Some
of them have actual exculpatory evidence, but their appeals do not succeed.

Exculpatory evidence (evidence that proves innocence) brought up after a
criminal trial was concluded often does not lead to exoneration. The burden of
proof that is required to sustain the validity of said evidence is high, in
order to disincentivize hiding evidence until after a trial is over in order
to overturn the result. Exculpatory evidence is often thrown out on procedural
grounds, even when the evidence itself is valid. Moreover, the criminal
justice system as it operates today has little to no incentive to reopen
cases, for a multitude of reasons.

Most successful exonerations require immense amounts of legal leg work on the
part of lawyers, witnesses, and LEOs. Evidence loses value as time goes on.
Most falsely convicted criminals have no resources to pursue their innocence.
Even cases that seem like simple slam ducks, where a DNA test is all that is
logically necessary to overturn the original conviction, take years or decades
to complete.

"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer."
\- William Blackstone

~~~
RickJWagner
I wonder how many of the exonerations are 'not guilty' rather than 'innocent'.

That is, they were convicted wrongly, but still did the crime. I don't suppose
we could ever find that out.

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web-cowboy
This is just an anecdote, but when I was called up as first-time juror, I was
surprised how much the police and the prosecuting attorney were pushing for
something that just wasn't there.

Incentives are everything, and these groups of people get paid to put people
in jail. And it shows.

~~~
danceparty
I had a similar experience on a grand jury in new york (where you decide
whether or not a felony case should go to trial at all) and was shocked to see
a prosecutor come back 4 times on the same case, each time with a slightly
less serious charge (ie, starting with level 1 felony assault and ending with
some lesser assualt charge). So even after we the grand jury decided there was
not enough evidence for the felony assault case to go to trial, they attempt
it over and over again, with the same evidence, though requesting a slightly
lesser charge, desperate for a different result.

~~~
cordite
This sounds like debugging with printfs.

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edoceo
I work closely with a government agency. It's nearly impossible to sue
(expensive, no punitive recovery) and yet still it's impossible to get them to
admit any possibility of mistakes. They'll double down on the BS and circle
wagons to protect individual actors and move folks around to ensure they still
get pension. And this isn't even some front of line law enforcement stuff,
it's boring small department stuff. Legislators and Governor are too busy to
give any attention. (Even after I spending many thousands on campaigns and
lobbying)

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vmception
One overlooked area are the incentives for fixing it: the state requires
legitimacy and respect. They need it to feel odd that they could do any wrong.
They need it to be an absurd debate that they could be wrong, that they can
arbitrarily ruin your life, and that there is no real or likely capability of
appeal or review that results in your freedom.

This misaligned incentives need to be addressed as well.

Judges, district attorneys, mayors, governors, and prosecutors all hem and haw
at the idea of revisiting a case.

It isn't possible for there to be enough podcasts and documentaries that gain
the public interest in a case.

~~~
bmitc
This and many other things lead me to believe the U.S. is much less free than
people would like to admit it to be. It’s just a different flavor of such
unfreedom.

~~~
vmception
> lead me to believe

well, that's a start. it has the largest amount of people in prison in both
per capita and in absolute numbers.

many of those people are taking plea deals simply because they cannot afford
their rights.

the primary difference between the US and other systems is that we are
apologists for the US system and simply don't respect other systems and thats
the only distinction.

people are conditioned to retort by comparing the US with the worst countries
in the world, to rationalize why we're the best in a race nobody is even in.
this is a mental disease.

they're conditioned to dismiss flaws by saying "but at least we can _talk_
about it", deflecting further discussion about the state of the system to a
comfortable imagined assurance of consequence free speech, ignoring the
exceptions to that part of the Bill of Rights and the _other_ 9 amendments in
it, amongst every other article and procedural gaff

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tzs
I'm confused by the example at the end:

> On Monday, after 37 years in prison, Robert DuBoise was formally exonerated
> in Florida for a rape and murder from 1983 that DNA evidence now proves he
> did not commit. He was convicted partly due to testimony from unreliable
> jailhouse informants and controversial, discredited bite mark analysis. His
> case is a perfect example of how much our justice system is plagued by bad
> behavior.

But reading the story they link to for more detail, I didn't see any obvious
description of misconduct or bad behavior.

Yes, bite mark analysis is considered mostly bogus _now_ , but that is a
fairly recent development. In 1983 it was widely accepted.

And yes, jailhouse informants can be unreliable. They can also be reliable.
Just like any other kind of informant. Or any other person who testifies.
That's why the defense gets to cross examine them, and it is left up to the
jury to decide if a given one is reliable or unreliable.

BTW, don't infer from the apparent weakness of the article's example that the
underlying report the article is based on, from the National Registry of
Exonerations, is weak. The example from the article is _not_ from the report.

The report does contain a few examples, so I find it odd that the article did
not use one of them.

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austincheney
Part of the motivation for the bad behavior, and the subsequent lack of
reprimand, is pressure for results in a system with case overload. The
pressure to close cases quickly drives an improper need for convenience and
expediency in violation of ethical norms. The unpopular solution is to
increase available manpower to drive more thoroughly examined results and peer
oversight.

~~~
dantheman
I'd say the better solution is to reduce the number of crimes there are -
perhaps legalize drugs. If there is a victim, it's not a crime.

~~~
austincheney
The idea of elimination of victimless crimes is problematic. That doesn’t
account for second and third order consequences such as trafficking in persons
or stolen goods. It also eliminates most traffic crimes which is very bad for
personal safety.

Ultimately, yes, the number of criminals would decrease dramatically if people
are no longer prosecuted for crimes but does not mean crimes would decrease.

~~~
woodruffw
> That doesn’t account for second and third order consequences such as
> trafficking in persons or stolen goods.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you mean, but wouldn’t the trafficked person
and person stolen from be the victims in those scenarios?

I don’t believe “victimless crime” typically refers to things like trafficking
and theft — I’ve heard it more commonly used to refer to so-called “social
ills” like petty drug dealing, public intoxication, and graffiti.

~~~
austincheney
Trafficking in illicit goods and persons are more acts of criminal
facilitation, than end goals, fueled by criminal enterprises, such as
prostitution and resell of illicit goods that appear victimless.

Petty crimes and public intoxication contribute to the broken windows social
theory.

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hashtagmarkup
*more than half

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srtjstjsj
Seems obvious. What are the other options? Elaborate frame jobs? Unlikely.
Biased jurors and judges? Sometimes.

~~~
klyrs
One would hope that honest mistakes would be responsible for the vast
majority.

~~~
jeremyjh
You could have 10 times as many people in prison due to honest mistakes - if
they were still in prison their numbers would not be included in the survey.
My hypothesis is that its very hard to get a verdict reviewed by a court
unless you have evidence of police or prosecutor misconduct.

