
Standing by Their Convictions - danso
https://features.propublica.org/south-bend/wrongful-conviction-pardon-keith-cooper-christopher-parish-indiana-elkhart-police/
======
nerdponx
_Lisa Black, the state police DNA analyst who tested the shooter’s hat, wasn’t
called to testify. Instead, the two sides presented a stipulation, outlining
what they agreed Black would have said.

The stipulation said nothing of how Black had excluded Cooper as the source of
the DNA found on the hat’s sweatband. Instead, it said: “The expert opinion of
Lisa Black is that neither Keith D. Cooper nor any other person can be
eliminated as having possibly worn the hat.”_

That's completely ridiculous. Was Smeeton being bribed?

~~~
duxup
On top of that question, a judge was ok with that?

There has to be a line where the testimony is so empty (even if both sides
agree to it) that it could only be misinterpreted an would be better left just
.... out.

------
bilbo0s
As horrible as this sounds to say, I think there are a lot of political type
people at the local, state and federal level who get a lot of votes by locking
up certain demographics of males. I mean those votes translate into money,
power, even both a lot of times. So I don't see this sort of thing stopping
anytime soon. The incentive to participate and go along with this activity is
just too large in our system.

It's kind of a pipe dream to think that actual guilt should be the deciding
factor in these things when there is such a large payout for what I call
electioneering convictions. Obviously electioneering is going to become the
deciding factor.

~~~
mathattack
It’s worse. “Tough on crime” also means “Get votes by enforcing the death
penalty.”

We know that human memory is fallible yet we still enforce a punishment that
we can’t back out of.

~~~
duxup
In my view tough on crime just means mandatory sentences in most cases,
leaving judges out of that part of the process.

~~~
watwut
And giving all power to prosecutors moving actual justice process to pre-trial
guilt-plea negotiations about charges and sentences.

~~~
duxup
Yeah judges for all their faults should be in a position to weigh the
situation.

------
maxxxxx
Cases like this show what's wrong with the US justice system. There is no
internal quality control so prosecutors can try to hold on to their errors and
it's really hard to get out of jail even if it's totally obvious that the
person is innocent. I have now read about several cases where the person was
obviously innocent but prosecution kept fighting a release tooth and nails
delaying a release for years. In addition they often force a plea deal so the
person can't even get compensation.

In my (medical) company we have a quality department that's outside the normal
management hierarchy so they can override any decisions made and stop a
product release. The US really needs an institution who is motivated to make
sure that justice system works correctly and has the power and budget to do
so.

~~~
salawat
Federallythis is the role played by the Office of the Inspector General,
though they play more of an "inspect and raise awareness" role rather than the
typical "pulling of the Andon" quality assurance role.

I do think government may be benefited by an adversarial Quality Management
process, but it shouldn't be reliant purely on inspection after the fact. It
should have an involvement st all levels of the business of doing what
government does if the maximum payoff via Quality management is to be
achieved.

------
acjohnson55
What we call "justice" in the US is really just ritual sacrifice to purge the
community of the bad juju created when a crime happens. The more aspirational
the victim, the worse the juju.

Traditionally, the person sacrificed should have plausibly committed the
crime. But this is not strictly necessary, especially if they are not
considered aspirational.

The worst thing that can happen is to have the sacrifice thwarted. This
multiplies the juju. But it sometimes happens due to technicalities, like
innocence.

~~~
praptak
"US is a third world country with a thin first world layer at the top."

This is a comment I read on HN a while ago. HN seems like a filter for stories
that support this view.

~~~
orcdork
When you devalue the issues that people actually living in third word
countries face, you can make your own privilege sound a bit less like one.

