I want to talk about how junk science ruins innocent lives.
The criminal legal system is overwhelmed by junk science.
IT IS AN OUTRAGE.
If you're not deeply disturbed by what's going on, I need you to pay close attention.
Let me explain. 🧵/x
The criminal legal system is overwhelmed by junk science.
IT IS AN OUTRAGE.
If you're not deeply disturbed by what's going on, I need you to pay close attention.
Let me explain. 🧵/x
Comments
There's a myth that this type of evidence is infallible. That is simply untrue and has led to wrongful convictions and even wrongful executions!
2/x
The test is pseudoscience. Most often, it's used by law enforcement to coerce confessions.
Thankfully in NY, in the criminal context, polygraph evidence is not admissible because it has not been established as sufficiently reliable.
3/x
From Innocence Project: "nearly a quarter of people exonerated since 1989 were wrongfully convicted based on false or misleading forensic evidence, like bite marks."
4/x
And that is in spite of this being one of the best scenes in the greatest movie of all time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFdJza0AbeA
5/x
Well, EVEN the FBI now admits fingerprint analysis could have a high false-positive rate.
The fact that partial prints are still being used is so egregious.
6/x
When a gun is recovered, they test it. They fire the gun multiple times in a lab and compare the grooves and scratches that the firing pin and the interior of the gun left on its cartridge casings with those on casings found at the crime scene. 7/x
Biometrics are very good at *verification* and very bad at *identification*. If you scan a stadium, you will get false positives.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/720693/tremors-in-the-blood-by-amit-katwala/
But I agree 10000%; this crap shouldn't be admitted at all. Add much DNA evidence, too - odds of false "matches" are shockingly high.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadro_Tracker