I have a nice bridge I would like to sell you. I still recall the Attorney General of Florida, faced with an exoneration by DNA of a guy on death row, who said his job was to see the guy executed and he was going to fight in court for the right of the state of Florida to execute him even if he were presented with, and I quote, “absolute proof of innocence”. The thing is that prosecutors get reelected on the basis of their “success rate” and success doesn’t mean doing justice, but getting convictions, no matter by what means.
Let me mention another case I recall from many years ago. A guy was convicted of murder in a suburb of Toronto. He had an alibi for the actual time of the murder (he left work at a certain time, it took a certain time to drive home, etc.). The prosecutor convinced the murdered girl’s that her kitchen clock had mysteriously advanced by 20 minutes before her daughter went out of the house and then equally mysteriously moved back by 20 minutes later on. I guess the mother was sufficiently distraught to buy into this. Or she wanted a conviction, any conviction, to achieve “closure”. This misplaced the time of the murder by enough that the poor guy could have gotten home in time to do it. With this and no actual other evidence (except the guy was French-Canadian and considered a shady character) they got a conviction. Somehow the case fell apart after the guy had spent a decade of so in prison and the mother finally admitted what had happened.
It’s for things like this that I don’t trust cops or prosecutors.
Maybe not post-conviction, but I know a guy who confessed to a crime his friend had been arrested for.
He served almost three years of a five to seven (?) year sentence. Had his buddy been convicted, it would have fallen under the third strike law in California.
The studies showed nothing of the sort. Both sides knew the other was there voluntarily and getting paid for it. And, everyone knew this was at a University were actual torture wouldn’t be allowed. I am sure a large number of “evil torturers’ were just playing along.
Have you ever seen Jay Leno’s “Jaywalking” where he asks simple questions but gets stupid answer/ The dudes being questioned know damn well that it’s all a game and that only those with really stupid but funny answer have a chance of getting on the Tonight show.
Umm, no. if it can be shown there is a criminal conspiracy you don’t need to prove exactly who did what. Murder trial out here where one hood was the driver the other was the shooter, both claimed that the other guy was the shooter, both went to prison for murder.
Agreed, but that wasn’t the kind of example I was trying to describe.
Let’s say three friends are playing poker, but guys A and B have made a plan and one of them shoots C. In questioning, A claims B flipped out and pulled out a gun, and though A did everything he could, he couldn’t stop the shot being fired. B says the opposite.
There’s no other evidence to go on; no prints, no apparent motive, no evidence of collusion between A and B, and they played poker every week so it’s not like just being there implies anything. Neither story has any obvious holes.
I don’t see how this could be a conviction, even though we know at least one man is guilty.
I do appreciate that. Indeed I think they can even offer you leniency. Certainly the Reid technique involves impressions of offering leniency.
I totally recommend reading Criminal Investigations and Confessions by the way, which describes various things but mostly the Reid technique. It’s amazing. I got it from an appendix in doper ianzin’s* amazing book about cold reading.
*who I THINK was the first to mention me the SDMB during a lecture when he spoke of goat felching.
How would it work out if both people were charged and tried and convicted? One of them is guilty but not both. Would the second trial end as soon as the first was found guilty? What about the case of a plea bargain and both sides agree to it? Both figure it is better to serve less time than risk a longer sentence. Do the proceedings of the second one end as soon as the first one concludes?
If you want examples of prosecutorial misconduct, then I have some real nice stories to share with you. Then again, I also have stories of doctors acting more like glorified drug dealers, pilots being inebriated on duty and Army officers running a gun running operation. The fact that a handful of professionals violate and breach codes of conduct and standards does not mean that all or indeed most do. For every Mike Nifong, you have hundreds of state counsels who do their duty in difficult circumstances.
Also, you seem to misunderstand the role of a prosecutor. A prosecutor does not make a determination of guilt nor doe s/he decide whether a person actually goes to trial, that is a determination made by the Court after viewing evidence. The system has in built checks and balances, a witch hunting prosecutor wkill eventually run afoul of Judges, whether trial or Appellate and also his own supervising authority, to say no mention of being hauled up before the regulator on professional misconduct charges (like the aforementioned Mr Nifong, and I sure the examples that you gave.).
“I’m sure” is not a valid basis in which to do science. The actual studies showed people actually acting very much like they thought the torture was real, being very reluctant to choose, sweating, showing fear responses. All the data shows they thought they were actually hurting the other person.
You are making excuses to discount experimental data you are uncomfortable with.