
How Many People Are Wrongly Convicted? Researchers Do the Math - jamesbritt
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/04/28/how-many-people-are-wrongly-convicted-researchers-do-the-math/#.U17c6RcradY.twitter
======
afarrell
IF you want to do something, you could support The Innocence Project:
[http://www.innocenceproject.org/](http://www.innocenceproject.org/)

Or support this defense attorney (former NYC prosecutor) who is working to
educate people about the justice system by drawing The Illustrated Guide to
the Law: [http://lawcomic.net/](http://lawcomic.net/)
[http://www.patreon.com/nathanburney](http://www.patreon.com/nathanburney)

~~~
joyce
I worked at The Innocence Project for 2 years. When I was working there, our
exoneration rate for cases that made it to DNA testing was 50%. Imagine that -
50%. This kind of failure rate is unacceptable. This is a compounded by the
fact that the majority of cases we saw never made it to DNA testing because
evidence was so old that it was typically lost.

The Innocence Project still has a huge backlog of cases. Legal cases are
incredibly long and expensive. A single DNA test costs thousands of dollars.
Donations mean everything here. Thank you.

~~~
danieltillett
Wow. This leave me think two different things - 1. How much can I donate to
help and 2. What can I do to help with getting DNA evidence out of old
samples. How many people are languishing in jail because we have not using the
best science available?

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danieltillett
I think what goes on in plea bargains is more of an issue. If I am arrested
for a minor crime and the prosecutor decides to pile on dozens of parallel
charges such that I am now facing 50 years to life if convicted, but offers me
3 month if I plead guilty, then no matter how innocent I am I am going to take
the plea. Unless you can prove beyond reasonable doubt that you are innocent
what rational person can afford to take the risk of going to trial.

~~~
higherpurpose
It annoys me that people keep saying in such cases "yeah, but you won't
_really_ get 50 years, even if they succeed".

Imagine yourself talking to those prosecutors and being threatened with 50
years, and then given that 3 months deal. What would _you_ do? Would you think
"yeah, I'm not really going to get 50 years" \- or would you be scared as hell
about spending the rest of your life in prison?

So yeah, I think such threats _absolutely_ do matter, and the system should be
changed so this doesn't happen anymore. I've also recently heard that
something like 98 percent of people charged take the plea deal (I think it was
from some documentary). That's INSANE. That's not how the justice system is
supposed to work.

Everyone should be getting a fair trial, regardless. I mean, even if the guy
is guilty - wouldn't you rather have him in a _fair_ trial to make sure he
gets what he deserves, rather than have the prosecutors offer him a much
smaller prison time?

~~~
danieltillett
>It annoys me that people keep saying in such cases "yeah, but you won't
really get 50 years, even if they succeed".

If convicted you can certainly get 50 years because the of minimum sentencing
rules. This is where you get juries saying after the trial "I had no idea he
would be sentenced to 50 years - I thought he would only get a couple of
months".

As a defendant your lawyer can't tell the jury the sentence you face if
convicted - apparently if the jury knows you face a minimum of 50 years for a
minor crime they might not be so keen to convict you!

~~~
blueskin_
That's why jury members _shouldn 't_ be the average, possibly dim, possibly
outright stupid, possibly just apathetic person, but actually be required to
posses at least a modicum of intelligence, so as to be able to research
minimum sentences etc.

~~~
danieltillett
Yes, but if we make it easy for anyone who can fog a mirror to get out of
serving in combination with throwing anyone off who the prosecution thinks
might be able fog a mirror, then we can expect that who ever is left will have
few problems.

My feeling is serving on a jury it is a bit like voting. I know it is unlikely
that I am doing any good, but it is my duty to do my best in both
circumstances.

------
downandout
The 4.1% wrongful conviction rate mentioned in this article is interesting,
but doesn't come close to displaying the gross injustices perpetrated by our
"justice" system. First, prosecutors routinely overcharge defendants in an
effort to extort guilty pleas. Second, 3 Strikes and other anti-recidivism
laws have produced barbaric sentencing results for relatively minor crimes.
Examples: In California, 30.1 percent of inmates are serving _life_ sentences.
Utah, 29.2 percent; Nevada, 21.5; Massachusetts, 19.4; New York, 18.8;
Alabama, 16.6, and Washington, 15.4.

Sadly, there is no relief in sight. The Supreme Court has ruled that "the
Eighth Amendment's prohibition of 'cruel and unusual punishments' was aimed at
excluding only certain modes [or types] of punishment, and was not a
'guarantee against disproportionate sentences." This ruling came down in a
case where they upheld the life prison sentence of a California man convicted
of shoplifting three golf clubs priced at $399.

In short: the US justice system is out of control, and the Supreme Court has
no intention of stopping it.

~~~
shenberg
Your math is all wrong: if at a given moment in time 30% of inmates are
serving life sentences, it really doesn't mean 30% of prison sentences are
life sentences! Look at the population of inmates in a year ago and now, and
the subset of life prisoners is probably mostly the same people (they don't
get out much), while a much larger percentage of the rest of the inmate
population isn't the same people.

~~~
downandout
I edited the comment and removed my confusing commentary, but I wasn't
suggesting that 30% of all sentences are life sentences. I just said that if
you are in prison in California, you have a 30% chance of dying there (which
is in fact mathematically correct). Regardless, the numbers are off the charts
vs. the rest of the world.

------
hackuser
What is outrageous, but unfortunately not shocking, is those responsible for
such a critical process are not rigorously measuring its accuracy. Android app
developers know more about their success rate. It's from a pre-scientific age,
where something that seems philosophically correct (a defense lawyer and a
jury of your peers, an independent judge, dehydrating and bleeding sick
people, the function of the pineal gland) is assumed to obtain correct
outcomes. QED.

What is shocking is that the public, especially the great many who have
interacted with the law enforcement system, continues to have faith in it. As
long there is no political pressure from the public, the judiciary won't
change.

Off the top of my head, two methods might better measure accuracy:

METHOD A

1) Take a random sample of prisoners

2) Re-examine the evidence in their cases in a highly rigorous way (the
judicial system does not do this unless the defendant can afford it).

3) Most cases will be inconclusive (I think). From the conclusive cases, you
can infer something about the accuracy of the judicial "method"

METHOD B

1) Identify kinds of evidence that meets scientific levels of accuracy, such
as DNA

2) Start with the population in jail for which that evidence is available.
Because most cases are settled by plea bargains, I expect it will be most
cases.

3) Again, most cases will be inconclusive (I think). From the conclusive
cases, you can infer something about the accuracy of the judicial "method"

------
Strilanc
> _Rarely, at least according to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. In
> a 2006 opinion he cited an approximate error rate of 0.027 percent, based on
> [...]_

I laughed out loud. 1 mistake per 3700 cases. The software industry averages 1
bug every 50 lines of code [1]. Microsoft hits ~1/2000\. The space shuttle
achieved ~1/20000, but that takes serious dedication and cost [2].

Doesn't matter what the "based on" is. Deciding court cases is not easier than
writing a line of code. That estimate is off by at least two orders of
magnitude. Which is funny until the fact that it was a supreme court justice
who repeated it sinks in.

(The article itself gives a false positive rate of 4.1%, which is much more
reasonable.)

1: [http://amartester.blogspot.com/2007/04/bugs-per-lines-of-
cod...](http://amartester.blogspot.com/2007/04/bugs-per-lines-of-code.html) 2:
[http://www.fastcompany.com/28121/they-write-right-
stuff](http://www.fastcompany.com/28121/they-write-right-stuff)

~~~
lukev
While that number also seems low to me, comparing the failure rate of a court
case with a single line of code is a ludicrous analogy. I, a distracted and
harried developer, will write hundreds of lines of code a day and not think
twice about them, whereas each criminal trial is, for some period of time, the
subject of undivided attention of at least one judge, two lawyers and a jury.

Errors certainly happen, but they're almost certain not to be dominated by
errors of simple oversight, which explain the vast majority of bugs.

~~~
Strilanc
I agree that the style of the typical errors differs, although there are
definitely cases decided by some stupid mistake made when collecting evidence.

But even when I _try_ and _test_ I don't hit 1 bug per 2000 lines of code. For
example, I wrote a collapsing futures library for obj-c [1]. It only has about
1000 lines of non-test non-header code. The code is tested, I've used it in
projects, and I re-read it now and then trying to come up with ways to break
it. Is it reasonable for me to lay 50:50 odds on a bug being present? I don't
think so.

(Are you the owner of the github repo statsd.net [2]?
`someGraphiteLine.Equals(null)` returns false but
`someGraphiteLine.Equals((GraphiteLine)null)` throws an exception.)

1: [https://github.com/Strilanc/ObjC-
CollapsingFutures](https://github.com/Strilanc/ObjC-CollapsingFutures) 2:
[https://github.com/lukevenediger/statsd.net](https://github.com/lukevenediger/statsd.net)

~~~
lukev
Nope. I'm [http://github.com/levand](http://github.com/levand).

------
DerpDerpDerp
This 4% error rate (which doesn't necessarily translate to other kinds of
cases, particularly ones with plea bargains) would mean the US had
approximately 91,000 people incarcerated who were innocent (using 2011
numbers). If you count in people on probation and parole, the number raises to
290,000 people (using 2008 numbers).

I don't know what the error rate actually is in these cases, but the numbers
are staggering if even approximately correct - an entire city of innocent
people are tied up in the criminal justice system.

~~~
gnoway
I think the 4% rate refers to inmates on death row, only. Not to the criminal
population as a whole.

~~~
glimcat
The criminal population as a whole is:

* subject to far less stringent controls

* much less likely to be participating in a lengthy appeals process

* subject to corrupting influences such as for-profit prisons

* vastly dominated by "plea agreements" in which people are convicted via coercive influence rather than any evidentiary process (and far worse if socioeconomically disadvantaged or non-white).

If 4% only refers to death row errors, the overall error rate for wrongful
convictions is likely in the double digits.

Also, the error rate probably goes up again for non-incarceration results
which let the system "slap people on the wrist" since that is seen as less
serious (despite high incidental cost to life, career, mental & physical
health). It's the legal system's equivalent of closing a support ticket.

And this is only classifying "correct judgement" vs. "wrongfully convicted."
It fails to model cases where a criminal conviction was a really stupid way to
deal with the problem, which could have been addressed via non-criminal means.

~~~
gnoway
I agree w/ the stupidity of treating certain issues as criminal. This is, I
think, where the bulk of the problem really lies. The judicial system is
overstressed and trying cases is very expensive, leading to lower quality
investigations and the plea situation you mention.

I guess what bugs me about this is that the wrongful conviction issue is
always presented alongside the capital punishment issue. They are separate
issues and, I think, related only in that both deal with the criminal justice
system. Wrongful conviction is awful no matter what the sentence.

------
jacquesm
And this is why most countries do not have the death penalty.

The chances of getting it wrong are never 0 and it's impossible to undo or
make reparations if you get it wrong.

~~~
Pinckney
I honestly find the idea of spending decades of my life in a prison facing
daily verbal and physical abuse from guards and inmates to be far more
terrifying than death.

No, you can't un-execute somebody, but you can't give someone years of their
life back, either.

~~~
rando289
I might not get hacker news in prison, but I would probably get some books
that I would enjoy even more. Prison can be really bad, but on average I think
it is far better than death.

~~~
makomk
Dunno about in the US, but at least here in the UK the Government has stopped
allowing people to send prisoners books full stop as part of their campaign to
get tough on prisoners.

~~~
venomsnake
Tell me you are quoting The Onion? That is begging for the human rights court.
Not allowing prisoners to read is both cruel and unusual.

~~~
andyjohnson0
The ban targets sending many articles, including books, to prisoners:

Justice Minister Chris Grayling defends prisoner book rules
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26726864](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26726864)

Ministers defend ban on sending books to prisoners in England and Wales
[http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/24/ban-books-
pri...](http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/24/ban-books-prisoners-
england-wales-authors)

The government's argument is that prisoners can still use prison libraries or
buy books from approved suppliers using their earnings from work tasks.
However, libraries are often very limited in the choice they offer, access can
be arbitrarily restricted, and their earnings (average £9.60 in 2008 [1]) are
likely to be insufficient for book purchases after paying for more essential
items.

I agree that this is cruel. It's part of an effort by the government to make
prison appear tougher to appeal to its core (right-wing) supporters.

[1]
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7275026.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7275026.stm)

------
osteele
Related:

* Non-profit: Measures for Justice ([http://measuresforjustice.org](http://measuresforjustice.org))

* Book: "Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court" ([http://www.ordinaryinjustice.com](http://www.ordinaryinjustice.com))

Plug: I'm putting together a list of developers and data scientists who are
interested in working with Measures for Justice to do something about this. If
you're one of them, let me know.

------
draugadrotten
Don't forget that the lunch break can have an impact on the outcome:

 _The [research] team found that, at the start of the day, the judges granted
around two-thirds of the applications before them. As the hours passed, that
number fell sharply (see chart), eventually reaching zero. But clemency
returned after each of two daily breaks, during which the judges retired for
food. The approval rate shot back up to near its original value, before
falling again as the day wore on._

[http://www.economist.com/node/18557594](http://www.economist.com/node/18557594)

If something as simple as a lunch break can have this type of impact on
judges, then imagine how other circumstances of their personal life can impact
longer trials.

------
dredmorbius
It's worth mentioning that prosecutorial immunity, a form of qualified
immunity, is a relatively recent creation (20th century, possibly as recent as
Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents[1], 1971), and not the eternal concept some
portray it as.

More on this: [http://www.section1983blog.com/2009/09/brief-summary-of-
pros...](http://www.section1983blog.com/2009/09/brief-summary-of-
prosecutorial-immunity.html)

________________________________

Notes:

1\.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bivens_v._Six_Unknown_Named_Age...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bivens_v._Six_Unknown_Named_Agents)

------
collyw
I did jury service in the UK once. It would terrify me being in court for
something I didn't do.

We were clearly instructed to base our decision on the evidence, which there
was very little of - just one word against another. At the end the judge
seemed to sum up, and it to me seemed that he was advising a non-guilty
verdict, based on exactly that lack of evidence. Yet a large proportion of the
jury still seemed to base their decision on tabloid headline style judgements
and non-evidence.

"OK, the times didn't add up for that bit of the story, but maybe he should be
found guilty of that other part, just in case."

Its not some sort of bargain, there is either evidence or there is not. In
this case there was not any real evidence.

As I say I would be absolutely terrified to be in that position.

------
joyofdata
What I find most hideous about every single wrong conviction is that it could
not just have prevented most of the time and that it was contrived by
overeager prosecutors - for every one wrongfully convicted the real culprit is
walking freely!

Just watch "West of Memphis"
([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2130321/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2130321/))
and see how the state solves the issue of three wrongfully convicted boys -
with something as rediculous and stupid as the Alford plea
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alford_plea](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alford_plea))
- nothing more than a sophistry with the very practical effect of that the
police doesn't even have to solve the crime anymore.

I am from Germany and we have a less extreme contemporary example of wrong
conviction of Gustl Mollath - he was basically fucked over by a network of
Bavarian judges, prosecutors, bankers and expert witnesses for denouncing the
HypoVereinsbank of fiscal evasion.

------
ben0x539
So what is an acceptable percentage of false positives for criminal
convictions resulting in incarcerations?

From "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent
suffer" I'm guessing it's at most 10%, but that already seems unrealistically
low.

------
ballard
Impossible to calculate considering "truth" is not fact.

Also war on drugs: [http://boingboing.net/2014/02/27/us-prison-population-
up-800...](http://boingboing.net/2014/02/27/us-prison-population-
up-800-s.html)

------
jmpeax
It may work for death row, but extrapolating it to other convictions doesn't
seem very rigorous. With such high stakes, could there be an unaccounted
greater prevalence of framing someone else in capital crimes compared to
lesser crimes? To put it another way, how much of the design of a crime comes
down to making it look like an innocent person is guilty?

------
harywilke
there are also the people who are innocent, but plead guilty because it is the
less worse option. [1] 1\.
[http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...](http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1116&context=clsops_papers)

