Capital punishment

[Robert]

I wonder whether there were teething errors with other breakthroughs, e.g. fingerprints.

[GUT]

No shot, Sher****!

I think we won the Netball world cup today, that must count for something.

[GUT]

I wonder whether there were teething errors with other breakthroughs, e.g. fingerprints.

Yes.

[Sam Flynn]

I think we won the Netball world cup today, that must count for something.

Certainly does - kudos to anyone who represents their country at international level, regardless of the sport.

[GUT]

Certainly does - kudos to anyone who represents their country at international level, regardless of the sport.

So true.

We sem to being doing OK in the women's cricket too.

[Wickerman]

...

That such results cause so much dissention should make us really question how accurate they are by themselves. Keep in mind we are only in the first generation of DNA students and users, which means mistakes can be and will be made.

Jeff

Indeed, the process is open to abuse and error through mislabeling or contamination, to name a few. It is by no means proof-positive of guilt or innocence.
Parallel testing through independent labs is the best way to circumvent the possibility of errors, but that is expensive.

If a life sentence meant 'Life', all these uncertainties about DNA become mute.

[Mayerling]

I wonder whether there were teething errors with other breakthroughs, e.g. fingerprints.

Hi Robert,

Actually yes there were plenty.

Except for crime historians like us, and police scholars, most people have forgotten the first big breakthrough - Alphonse Bertillion's "Bertillionage", which photographed and measured various parts of the face and hands and such of the criminals who were captured, and kept very good card catalogues of such measurements to compare when "new" criminals were being arrested - it was a godsend in that one could verify if the new criminals were recidivists or actual new criminals.

Unfortunately the system fell apart between 1900 and 1906. The big cases were the Leavenworth case in 1901 when a criminal named Will West was convicted and being processed in Leavenworth prison in Kansas. One of the police officers thought he had seen West before, and confronted him with this. West said this robbery conviction was his first. A card was found with the name "William West" on it, and it had a photo and the measurements. The officer confronted the prisoner with this, but he insisted that he was telling the truth. Then the angry officer turned the card around for the first time, and saw 1) William West had been convicted for murder, and 2) he was currently serving a life sentence in Leavenworth. This William West was brought down, and astoundingly looked like Will West, and had almost totally identical physical measurements. After the notoriety of this case American police were a bit leery about "Bertillionage", although Bertillion thought it was just a crazy rarity.

Then came the better remembered "Beck" Case of 1902 - 1905. Actually this was several cases involving the arrest of a Norwegian sailor named Adolph Beck, who was charged with robbing several women while pretending to be an English aristocrat. Beck had a checkered career in Norway and other countries, but he insisted he did not know the ladies. They insisted they knew him, and the jury believed the ladies. So Beck convicted, and spent two years in prison. He was released, only to be rearrested for the same crime within a few months. However, this time the actual culprit got caught as well - a man called "William Thompson". I've seen photos of both men, and while they have similar ruddy countenances and moustaches, they really don't look alike, but to the victims of Thompson they look close enough for the mistake to occur. The measurements of skull bones, hands, etc. matched again, and the only difference was Thompson was circumcised, while Beck wasn't. Beck was given a large sum of money by the British government to make up for his forced imprisonment. Because the Beck case was in Great Britain, it got more scrutiny than the Leavenworth Case in distant America. Slowly the use of "Bertillionage" decreased (the 1905 Stratton Case that established fingerprinting helped speed the decline). Only France, where Bertillion was a force of importance in the Surete, was it still used beyond it's real worth. In 1914 Alphonse Bertillion died. Within a month the French switched to fingerprinting.

I should add, for the defense of M. Bertillion, the system (which he actually called "anthropomage") never has been totally been discarded. It is now in criminal records that we find photographs (as Bertillion used, as did his contemporary Inspector Thomas Byrnes of the New York Police Department - Byrnes called it "the Rogues Gallery"), some of the measurements like ear lobes, noses, eye distances, various bones, and fingerprinting. Eventually they will add DNA. But it is as a combination that the system works - if all of these fit we know we have the right predator.

Jeff

[Robert]

Thanks Jeff. It's amazing how often these weird coincidences occur.

[alkuluku]

On the other hand, how convinced are you (anybody) that DNA is so reliable that these so-called wrongly convicted prisoners are truly innocent?

If DNA evidence is so reliable, and so convincing, then why can't it be used to convict, and then impose the death sentence? - DNA can't be wrong, so I'm told.

So by our new logic, the reliance on DNA, we can safely impose the death penalty where DNA has been used to convict.

DNA evidence does work both ways.

The mtDNA (that was also used in the shawl thing) gives way too many matches so it's only used to prove innocence.

[alkuluku]

Those of who you haven't seen the Paradise Lost documentaries, please do watch them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Memphis_Three

No physical evidence. Mentally handicapped "witness". Death sentence. So sick.

[Pcdunn]

Those of who you haven't seen the Paradise Lost documentaries, please do watch them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Memphis_Three

No physical evidence. Mentally handicapped "witness". Death sentence. So sick.

This is a very good example of why people in the United States can sit on Death Row for decades. We are so afraid of killing an innocent person, or of misconduct by officials "railroading" someone to the death chamber.

Bizarre case-- thank you for the link, Alkuluku.

[jason_c]

Those of who you haven't seen the Paradise Lost documentaries, please do watch them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Memphis_Three

No physical evidence. Mentally handicapped "witness". Death sentence. So sick.

And in all likelihood guilty as hell.

Oscar Pistorius was due to be released from prison today under house arrest after serving 10 months of his 5 year sentence. There is some sort of glitch that is now putting this release on hold at least temporarily. I realise this is not a capital punishment case, but a penal system perceived as this soft does piss off a lot of people.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...te-put-on-hold

[GUT]

And in all likelihood guilty as hell.

Oscar Pistorius was due to be released from prison today under house arrest after serving 10 months of his 5 year sentence. There is some sort of glitch that is now putting this release on hold at least temporarily. I realise this is not a capital punishment case, but a penal system perceived as this soft does piss off a lot of people.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...te-put-on-hold

The glitch is an appeal by the crown.

He was convict of what we call manslaughter they want murder.

[jason_c]

The glitch is an appeal by the crown.

He was convict of what we call manslaughter they want murder.

Yes, I realise this. I called it a glitch because it may still yet be only a glitch. If the appeal fails Pistorius will be out very soon. Too soon for many reasonable minded people. I don't think one needs to be seething reactionary to be annoyed at this proposed release. Had it not been for the high level media interest this release would likely have been carried by now.

[alkuluku]

And in all likelihood guilty as hell.

Are you serious? None of their DNA was found on the site and most likely the kids were killed elsewhere and brought there -> The story of the witness is almost certainly bullshit and fed to him by the cops.