Witness Testimony: Albert Cadosche

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

That's what I thought I said. Watkins exited the Square via Mitre Street and walked up and around to the Orange Market (not through St. James Passage). Seven minutes later he met a man coming out of the passage from the direction of Mitre Square. This story has some parallels to the Steven White story.

That is not what Langdon related.

He wrote:

It was night and the policeman had passed through the square once, everything being then apparently all right. He walked on, coming to a court leading from a street out of Mitre Square. Halfway up the court he stood sideways to allow a man to pass him. The man came from the direction of the square.

Did the Ripper Carry a Lamp?

Presently - exactly seven minutes after he had been in the square previously - the policeman entered it again, and started to walk round it. Suddenly he came upon a human form huddled up in a corner. It was a woman lying dead

[GBinOz]

That's what I thought I said. Watkins exited the Square via Mitre Street and walked up and around to the Orange Market (not through St. James Passage). Seven minutes later he met a man coming out of the passage from the direction of Mitre Square. This story has some parallels to the Steven White story.

That thought also crossed my mind Scott.

Cheers, George

[Fiver]

These statistics will not tell you exactly what Albert saw, but what they will tell you, by virtue of empirical data; is that a good number of witnesses do not recollect that which actually happened. Almost 1 in 2 according to that study, which at the very least would place Albert in the bracket of doubt, 50/50 chance more or less.

That is still not what the study said.

The study mentioned in the article shows that when people were deliberately given misinformation about what they had witnessed, 47% remembered it as being part of the original event. The flip side of that is that even when given deliberate misinformation, 53% of people continued to recall that part of the event correctly.

And that deliberate misrepresentation of one part of the event did not affect people's memories of the rest of the event.

[Fiver]

It's not 'the study', the article clearly states:

Hundreds of studies have now been undertaken demonstrating the robustness of this phenomenon (Howe and Knott Reference Howe and Knott2015), which has become labelled the misinformation effect because it occurs due to the influence of misinformation provided after an event.

They reference a few studies:

Some participants were then asked how fast the cars involved in the crash were travelling when they ‘hit’ each other while others were asked how fast the cars were travelling when they ‘smashed’ into each other. Those who were asked the question using the word ‘smashed’ were more likely to falsely report that there was broken glass in the image. In another experiment, participants were also shown an image of a car at a ‘stop’ sign and then supplied with the misinformation that there was a ‘yield’ sign (Loftus et al. Reference Loftus, Miller and Burns1978). Participants provided with the misinformation were more likely than controls to claim that they recalled seeing a ‘yield’ sign. In a more recent study, participants were shown a complex event, e.g. a girl having her wallet stolen by a man (Okado and Stark Reference Okado and Stark2005). Then they were presented with misinformation about the event, e.g. that the man hurt the girl's arm when it was her neck that had been hurt. The misinformation was remembered as being a part of the original event 47% of the time.

At its core, the article is demonstrating that the human mind/memory is not a photograph for posterity. There is a process of storage, encoding and retrieval; and along the way retrieval can become distorted from the event. The information that distorts reality comes from a number of different sources, as they tell you. It's simply how the human mind works.

As for 'did not affect people's memories of the rest of the event', in the above there is no more than a car at a stop sign and they were asked which sign was it. That's not much of an event and the sign was central to it. Albert's wasn't much of an event, and two noises were central to it.

That article still completely undermines your position.

"I argue that where evidence has been presented suggesting that an eyewitness has provided testimony that includes inaccurate details, jurors are likely to lower the credence that they assign to all or a substantial part of an eyewitness testimony, concluding that the eyewitness is either motivated to deceive or lacking a good supply of true beliefs about the event about which they are testifying. However, if the error is due to the misinformation effect then the eyewitness is likely to have a good supply of true beliefs that she is motivated to provide via her testimony. In these types of cases, the juror would be more likely to make a correct credence assignment, because she would be less likely to lower the credence that she gives to all or a substantial part of the eyewitness's testimony, if she were aware of the psychological findings on the misinformation effect. These psychological findings would show that people can make errors in their testimony (due to the misinformation effect) but nonetheless be trustworthy sources of much information about the case.."

"What these studies suggest is that people tend to tell the truth when they have no motive to deceive. Moreover, where people are deceptive, it is usually in presenting information about themselves. This means that as long as the people sharing information about a crime to an eyewitness are knowledgeable about the subject matter that they are discussing, and are not talking about themselves, or aiming to achieve some goal that they cannot achieve through truth-telling, they are likely to present accurate information. If this information is integrated with other information deriving from memory, then the product is likely to be true beliefs about the crime that has been witnessed."

"As errors in the details provided within eyewitness testimony can be the result of the misinformation effect, and the misinformation effect is not caused by an intention to deceive, errors in the details of testimony can occur in the absence of an intention to deceive. Jurors who assess the credibility of an eyewitness who provides erroneous testimony due to the misinformation effect and conclude that they intend to deceive are therefore likely to inappropriately lower the credence that they give to much of the eyewitness's testimony."

"The studies suggest that at least one of a number of ‘eliciting’ or triggering conditions need to be in place for the misinformation effect to occur (Loftus Reference Loftus2005), and, for any event, these conditions might be in place for some details about the event but not others. Most obviously, for the misinformation effect to occur, misinformation about the details of an event must be made available to the person who misremembers. For example, an eyewitness must be exposed to suggestive questioning or provided misinformation from another eyewitness about the specific detail."

"Work on source-monitoring thus suggests that people often avoid the misinformation effect because they can properly identify the source of some misinformation that they have been supplied. Consequently, evidence that a person has made an error that is the result of the misinformation effect does not mean that she is likely to make numerous other errors."

"This section shows that, if leading theories in cognitive science and contemporary philosophy of memory are correct, the errors that occur due to the misinformation effect are the result of a feature of human cognitive systems which can bring substantial epistemic benefits. Moreover, the epistemic benefits gained through this feature or these features of human cognition increase the chance of any person being a good eyewitness. This means that errors in testimony can be a sign of the ordinary operation of the cognitive mechanisms that make human beings able to be good eyewitnesses."

The article repeatedly makes clear that errors in eyewitness testimony do not justify completely discarding that testimony. And you haven't shown any errors in Cadosch's testimony.

[A P Tomlinson]

It seems you're making a point of the information being 'deliberately fed'.

There is no other way to undertake a test than to introduce situations.

This is applied across all studies in all disciplines: you simply cannot undertake a test environment without test criteria.

The qualified people who undertook this study, and the hundreds of others, concluded that witness testimony is often unreliable.

Under specific circumstances. Those circumstances being... when someone has been deliberately misled. And even when they have been deliberately misled they are still accurate more than half the time. You are entirely discounting the whole of the control group who weren't fed false information.
You are lumping ALL witnesses in with thiose who have been deliberately exposed to the "Misinformation Effect" described in the document.
Show me the percentage of people who remembered a Stop sign who weren't told it was a Yield sign and prove me wrong.

It follows that at this point, you're questioning their ability to reach an informed conclusion as well as their methods. But, hundreds of studies undertaken by qualified people feel their methods and conclusions are appropriate, and in the event you google: "unreliable witness testimony', you will find link after link of studies undertaken by qualified people who are confident that placing too much confidence in witness statements is outdated thinking...

Once again. lumping them all together when there is NO material in that study that merits doing so. To tar un-tampered witnesses in with the onees fed misinformation and applying the broad term of "unreliable witness testimony" regardless of the studies' own findings.
I haven't disputed or attempted to discredit the findings at all.
Only pointed out that they have no relevence to the issue of Cadosche and Richardson, and anyone else who hasn't been exposed to incting or triggering effects and misiniformation.
I freely hold up my hands to any accusation that I have taken the piss out of the fact that they have managed to scientifically show that people who are lied to will often believe the lies they are told, (especially by figures of authority), cos... wow, that was a hard truth to learn... but nothing in the study shows any science that someone in the position of the three witness who put Chapman alive after 4.30 would be impacted by.
They were not influenced by the misniformation, triggers and issues covered.

The other fallback you're relying on is: "it does not apply to Albert because the conditions aren't the same". Well, no, of course no study has been undertaken with a 19th century person walking past a fence and hearing a noise. In the event you're going to reduce it to: "I need to see the exact same conditions otherwise it means nothing", then that won't get you anywhere and that's because you're ignoring what these qualified people are saying

I don't think I've said that. But maybe... If I did, I was talking about general conditions that might have impacted his ability to remember. The ones you claim exist but can't state. I'm talking about thinigs such as noise and awareness.
You don't need to travel back in time to a back yard to test general reliability in whether something happened or not.
It was far quieter back then, (that's fairly easy to simulate in test conditions) Cadosche and Richardson were not stressed, they were not tired to the point of apathy or excited or agitated and they were not actively trying to remember lots of individual things all happening at once.

I've said several times, something to the effect that if you show me a test where you get a bunch of people to individually walk up a corridor and have someone suddenly bang on the wall from the other side as they walk past, then later ask them if anything unusual happened when they walked up the corridor, and see how many are impacted by the "Misinformation Effect" without anyone providing any misinformation, just to see if they remember an event rather than specific details and 47% say "Nah nothing" then we'd be onto something.
Or even better do nothing and see if 47% say that something banged into the wal, which is the level of dispute we are leveling at Albert.

Show me the misinformation that confused any of those witnesses.

They are saying that the misinformation and contamination effect happens as a result of various information sources, whether deliberate or not, and whether or not someone is walking past a fence, sees an event, identifies a suspect, whatever.

Really? What are the ones that apply to Cadosh?

And of course, around 75% of convictions overturned as a result of DNA evidence were convictions as a result of witness testimony. That should tell you something. I think your response will be: "ahh, but that was identifying a suspect, nothing to do with Albert's situation".

In that event, you miss the point: witness unreliability is a result of the human mind and how human memory works as opposed to specific and particular events. It doesn't matter whether or not it is identifying a suspect, seeing an event, hearing an event, whatever; human memory is the process of storing, encoding and retrieving information and that process is subject to misinformation and contamination along the way, no matter the situation.

OK, what percentage of overall convictions are overturned? 75% is a big number, but if it's 75% of a couple of pecrent of all convictions that's very different to 75% of half of all convictions.

I saw a stat recently claiming that between 2% and 10% of all convicts in America may be innocent. If its 10% that's a lot and suggests a systemic failure, if its 2% it's not that bad for a country that lacks a single justice system while many jurisdictions employ the sorts of cowboy justice techniques the people who write the studies you keep quoting are trying to highlight and tackle. It is also increasingly down to bull**** pseudo science masquearding as reliable forensic evidence.
But it also means that over 92% of convinctions based on EYE WITNESS testimony are sound.

I've mentioned this before, but DNA evidence has put the wrong person behind bars because of bad practice and cross contaminaton at the source of testing on numerous occasions, and "Bite Mark" evidence of the sort that is often portrayed as being game breaking in the TV shows and movies, has been exposed as little better than phrenology.
Do we consider DNA or "Forensic Science" to be "Unreliable"? No, we apply better standards and protocols so that a very useful tool can be used properly.
The same should apply to witnesses, and their questioning. (A point the "Misinformation Effect" studies goes to great lengths to push.)

In the UK the rate of overturned convictions is in the region of 0.2% of all convictions and 25% of that is not down to eye witness faults, you say.
So a fairly robust 99.85% efficacy in a justice system that despite its flaws is nowhere near as resistant to overturning its mistakes as the US. (Ask Barry George, HE was freed because the forensic science was overturned...)

As Herlock, and others as well as myself have stated over an over. YES... we ALL know that witnesses can be unrelibale. Sometimes...
And more so when led and fed by bent coppers and scumbag lawyers.
But to discredit a witness, it is incumbant upon you to show how and why the science you are citing is at work.
It is not enough to wave statistics that actually supprt a pretty hig rate of acccuracy, and saying "Witnesses are unreliable"



Apologies to Herlock following your last post on this. I do agree, I know it's a pointless argument, but I wanted to take one last swing at it.

[Fiver]

Argumentum Ad Misericordiam:

To persuade an audience by purposely evoking certain emotions to make them feel the way the author wants them to feel.

It is not a reasonable, logical nor valid argument.

Before you try to take the high ground, you really should stop using the Appeal to Authority fallacy. Especially when that authority actually condradicts your position.

[Scott Nelson]

That is not what Langdon related.

He wrote:

It was night and the policeman had passed through the square once, everything being then apparently all right. He walked on, coming to a court leading from a street out of Mitre Square. Halfway up the court he stood sideways to allow a man to pass him. The man came from the direction of the square.

Did the Ripper Carry a Lamp?

Presently - exactly seven minutes after he had been in the square previously - the policeman entered it again, and started to walk round it. Suddenly he came upon a human form huddled up in a corner. It was a woman lying dead

Watkins beat time was 14 to 15 minutes.

[Fiver]

And of course, around 75% of convictions overturned as a result of DNA evidence were convictions as a result of witness testimony. That should tell you something.

It tells me you need to look at the actual statistics.

"Innocence Project statistics reveal. Looking at the DNA exoneration statistics and the nature of the supposed crimes, 130 exonerees were convicted for murders they didn’t commit.

In 40 cases, amounting to 31%, the witness’s identification was wrong. Moreover, 81 individuals falsely confessed, bringing the percentage of false confessions to 62%, and 17% involved informants."

So convictions due to witness error are less than 1/3, not 3/4 of cases overturned by DNA evidence. The biggest problem is false confessions.

The picture does change when we look at all convictions that were overturned, the vast majority of which did no involve DNA tests. Looking at the whole picture, 69% of wrongful conviction cases included eyewitness misidentification. But with multiple eyewitnesses, that dropped to 32%. The article also shows that a lot of witness misidentification is due to police tampering,

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Watkins beat time was 14 to 15 minutes.

Not according to Langdon's story.

And as I pointed out in # 106, your claim that

Seven minutes later he met a man coming out of the passage from the direction of Mitre Square

is unsupported by what Langdon actually wrote.

He did not state that the encounter occurred after seven minutes and implied instead that it took place much sooner than that.

[GBinOz]

Lloyd's Weekly News 9 Sep:
On visiting the house next door to the tragedy, 27, our representative saw Mr. Albert Cadosen, a carpenter, who resides there and works in Shoe-lane, Fleet-street. He says: I was not very well in the night and I went out into the back yard about 25 minutes past five. It was just getting daylight, and as I passed to the back of the yard I heard a sound as of two people up in the corner of the next yard. On coming back I heard some words which I did not catch, but I heard a woman say "No." Then I heard a kind of scuffle going on, and someone seemed to fall heavily on to the ground against the wooden partition which divided the yard, at the spot where the body was afterwards found. As I though it was some of the people belonging to the house, I passed into my own room, and took no further notice.

Daily News 10 Sep:
At twenty minutes past five a lodger went into the yard and noticed nothing to excite his suspicion.

The lodger who came down at 5.25 fancied he heard a slight scuffle, with the noise of someone falling against the pailings, but he took no notice of that. They take very little notice in Hanbury street, even of strangers to the house, who sometimes turn in for a sleep on the stairs before the markets open.

Albert Cadosch, who lodges next door, had occasion to go into the adjoining yard at the back at 5.25, and states that he heard a conversation on the other side of the palings, as if between two people. He caught the word “No,” and fancied he subsequently heard a slight scuffle, with the noise of a falling against the palings, but thinking that his neighbours might probably be out in the yard, he took no further notice and went to his work.

Daily Telegraph Inquest Report of Sep19 published Sep 20:
Albert Cadosch [Cadoche] deposed: I live at 27, Hanbury-street, and am a carpenter. 27 is next door to 29, Hanbury-street. On Saturday, Sept. 8, I got up about a quarter past five in the morning, and went into the yard. It was then about twenty minutes past five, I should think. As I returned towards the back door I heard a voice say "No" just as I was going through the door. It was not in our yard, but I should think it came from the yard of No. 29. I, however, cannot say on which side it came from. I went indoors, but returned to the yard about three or four minutes afterwards. While coming back I heard a sort of a fall against the fence which divides my yard from that of 29. It seemed as if something touched the fence suddenly.
The Coroner: Did you look to see what it was? - No.
[Coroner] Had you heard any noise while you were at the end of your yard? - No.
[Coroner] Any rustling of clothes? - No. I then went into the house, and from there into the street to go to my work. It was about two minutes after half-past five as I passed Spitalfields Church.
[Coroner] Do you ever hear people in these yards? - Now and then, but not often.
By a Juryman: I informed the police the same night after I returned from my work.
The Foreman: What height are the palings? - About 5 ft. 6 in. to 6 ft. high.
[Coroner] And you had not the curiosity to look over? - No, I had not.
[Coroner] It is not usual to hear thumps against the palings? - They are packing-case makers, and now and then there is a great case goes up against the palings. I was thinking about my work, and not that there was anything the matter, otherwise most likely I would have been curious enough to look over.



The story to Lloyds on the 9th appears to be how it would be imagined the murder may have taken place - a conversation, a protest, a scuffle and the sound of a body falling against the fence. Could this more dramatic account have resulted from:
1. Cadosch wishing to appear more as a relevant witness.
2. The reporter encouraging Cadosch in a more dramatic version.
3. The reporter applying some journalistic licence to make it a more dramatic account?

So why has Cadosch watered down his testimony at the inquest. The conversation from the back of the yard, is specifically denied at the inquest. The "scuffle" has disappeared, the conversation has become a single word, and what was described as a single trip to the loo on the 9th has become two trips. The heavy fall on the ground against the fence has become "a sort of a fall", or a "touch". Was Cadosch minimising his testimony due to fear of criticism over no having made more effort in investigating what turned out to be a murder case? Or were Cadosch's memories of the event being influenced by the way the news reporters were phrasing their interviews?

Cheers, George

[GBinOz]

Not according to Langdon's story.

And as I pointed out in # 106, your claim that

Seven minutes later he met a man coming out of the passage from the direction of Mitre Square

is unsupported by what Langdon actually wrote.

He did not state that the encounter occurred after seven minutes and implied instead that it took place much sooner than that.

Hi PI1,

I interpreted the article to be indicating that he encountered the man seven minutes after leaving Mitre Sq, and was back at Mitre Sq seven minutes later, although I admit that is not the way it reads. I attributed that to it being poorly written. JMO.

Cheers, George

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Lloyd's Weekly News 9 Sep:

Then I heard a kind of scuffle going on, and someone seemed to fall heavily on to the ground against the wooden partition which divided the yard, at the spot where the body was afterwards found.

That is what I meant when I wrote in # 39:


What I had in mind was something I read somewhere that Cadoche somehow indicated that the noise came from the very part of the fence where the body was found, but I cannot remember the source.

I did read somewhere the other day a reference to the scuffle, which is also noticeably absent from the record of Cadoche's testimony.

[jmenges]

Good evening, everyone.

I hope you all have a pleasant weekend.



JM

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Lloyd's Weekly News 9 Sep:
It was just getting daylight, and as I passed to the back of the yard I heard a sound as of two people up in the corner of the next yard. On coming back I heard some words which I did not catch, but I heard a woman say "No." Then I heard a kind of scuffle going on, and someone seemed to fall heavily on to the ground against the wooden partition which divided the yard, at the spot where the body was afterwards found. As I though it was some of the people belonging to the house, I passed into my own room, and took no further notice.



Daily Telegraph Inquest Report of Sep19 published Sep 20:
Albert Cadosch [Cadoche] While coming back I heard a sort of a fall against the fence which divides my yard from that of 29. It seemed as if something touched the fence suddenly.
The Coroner: Did you look to see what it was? - No.
[Coroner] And you had not the curiosity to look over? - No, I had not.
[Coroner] It is not usual to hear thumps against the palings? - They are packing-case makers, and now and then there is a great case goes up against the palings. I was thinking about my work, and not that there was anything the matter, otherwise most likely I would have been curious enough to look over.

If Cadoche really thought he heard two people, a scuffle, and the sound of someone falling heavily against the fence, then he would surely not have thought that it was nothing more serious than a packing case touching the fence.

And if he knew which part of the fence it fell against, then why did he not see the fence move?

[GBinOz]

Here is what Swanson deduced from all this:

Swanson’s report of 19th October 1888:

5.25 a.m. 8th Sept. Albert Cadosch of 27 Hanbury Street, (next door) had occasion to go into the yard at the rear of No. 27, separated only by a wooden fence about 5 feet high, and he heard words pass between some persons apparently at No. 29 Hanbury Street, but the only word he could catch was “No”.

5.28 a.m. 8th Sept. On Cadosch going back into the yard again he heard a noise as of something falling against the fence on the side next No. 29 Hanbury Street, but he did not take any notice.

Note that the report is dated the same day as that on which Cadosch testified before the inquest.

Cheers, George