# What the Innocence Project has to teach us **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 7, 2015, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-innocence-project-has-to-teach-us/730269 "2015-09-07T19:26:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2015, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-innocence-project-has-to-teach-us/730269/21 "2015-09-09T22:25:09Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Thats not that unusual, what dismayed me was a conviction reached with no physical evidence and plenty of counter evidence because that could happen to anyone really. Sometimes, they know they have the wrong guy. Sometimes, it doesn’t seem to deter them. I give the terrible case of [Reynaldo Cruz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolando_Cruz_case). ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2015, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-innocence-project-has-to-teach-us/730269/22 "2015-09-10T18:49:22Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > [**Blackstone’s Formula**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_formulation). > _“It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer”_ **Formulation** not formula. A formula would, presumably, be based on math. For example, by taking into the account the hardship endured by the innocent who were wrongly jailed and the greater harm caused by the guilty who went free, and arriving at a best compromise ratio. If you further take into account the probability that a person convicted of a crime, regardless of his guilt for that particular crime, may have genuinely been a criminal, I doubt that a computed ratio for the overall best compromise would be 10:1. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2015, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-innocence-project-has-to-teach-us/730269/23 "2015-09-10T19:03:08Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **kittenblue** : > > It seems that many of the alibi statements came from friends and relatives, and they all sounded remarkably similar and rehearsed, so they were not given as much weight as the victim identification. Which is, of course, nonsensical. Think about it: If they _didn’t_ all sound similar, then the prosecutors would have jumped on that. How can the alibis be true if they’re inconsistent? And just what does it mean for them to sound “rehearsed”? Did they rehearse it so well that they managed to make it sound just like the truth? Must be lies, then. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2015, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-innocence-project-has-to-teach-us/730269/24 "2015-09-10T19:31:44Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Which is, of course, nonsensical. Think about it: If they _didn’t_ all sound similar, then the prosecutors would have jumped on that. How can the alibis be true if they’re inconsistent? And just what does it mean for them to sound “rehearsed”? Did they rehearse it so well that they managed to make it sound just like the truth? Must be lies, then. Not necessarily… The “best” testimony would clearly be in each person’s own words, but describing the same event. (Like in elementary school, when you’re asked to define terms using your own words. Everyone should have the right answer, but they should all be different enough.) So, for example, if they all saw him swimming at the YMCA, you’d expect someone would say “the pool” others would say “the gym” while others might say “the Y.” If the they all say, verbatim “He was swimming at the YMCA” then that’s when it starts sounding rehearsed. Or it can also sound rehearsed if everyone has all the same details. If he got some soda from the refrigerator and every witness says they remember it being a 12 oz can of diet Pepsi, that seems unlikely. Surely some people only remember it was “a drink” or “a soda.” Most of the time, most of us are not paying enough attention to know too many specifics. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-innocence-project-has-to-teach-us/730269.md?page=1)