Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System

There has been an explosion of junk science resulting in countless lives thrown into the meat grinder of the US criminal justice system. It's only been within the last decade or two that the truth has come out and innocent people are becoming freed.

My complaint with this book is that it goes from talking about the history of various junk science elements, but ends with long transcripts of cross examinations of “experts” in court cases the author participated in. Meanwhile he drops a bomb about how apparently shaken baby syndrome is junk science? But doesn't go into it at all while going way into bite mark matching. Very frustrating. I wish it were more equally thorough about the history of each junk science concept. Other than that, the book is great, though sad.

Here are some quotes and thoughts:

Everyone wants to live in a just society. The scientific method has the best track record for discovering objective truth. No one wants to see an innocent person sent to prison for a crime they didn't commit. But it is nearly impossible for people to live with unsolved violent crimes, especially the victims of said crimes. And our police system is designed first and foremost to “solve” crimes and convict “criminals,” not to find objective truth.

“Good science is objective; it has no stake in the outcome of the trial; it rests on research grounded in the scientific method, rather than simply ‘training and experience.' ‘Junk science' sounds like science but there is no empirical basis for the ‘expert opinion'; it is subjective speculation masquerading as science, typically tilted in the government's favor against an indigent person of color.”

There are people locked away in prison forever that were sent there thanks to junk science. Many have been freed, but likely not all of them. There have also undoubtedly been people executed by the state thanks to junk science. This is one of the many reasons why the death penalty should be abolished. No matter how certain we are on the day of sentencing, there is a likely chance that the tools used to prove guilt were actually faulty. The risk of killing an innocent person is too high. The number of innocent people the state has killed via the death penalty should be zero. They have already surpassed that number, proving they cannot be trusted with that authority. Therefore, the death penalty should be abolished.

“Few appreciate that the ‘subdisciplines' of forensic odontology [dentistry] have nothing whatsoever to do with each other, though they can be made to sound like they do: Forensic dentists identify people through their teeth, and through the bite marks their teeth make. That sounds straightforward, but it's actually more like a geologist claiming that because he can identify rocks, he can identify the rock that was used to bash in someone's skull.”

“Forensic science in the United States [...] is an entirely unregulated industry. The only thing standing between the use of ‘scientific' evidence and a jury is a judge. The judge, however, will almost certainly rely on legal precedent—not science—to make a decision.” So once they got the made up bite mark analysis into a courtroom, it opened the floodgates for other bullshit: “ballistics, shoe prints, tire treads, and especially microscopic hair comparison evidence. All without requiring empirical evidence of reliability.”

“Forensic boards, like most guilds, are extremely hierarchical and largely dominated by older white men. Aspiring experts are dependent on the mentorship the guilds offer for credentials and professional development. Second-generation practitioners seek to make their contributions to the field by building on their mentors' work—not by questioning it. The cultural norms create powerful disincentives to challenging orthodoxy or asking the guild masters tough questions. Questions like, What evidence is there that this method works?“

Everything in the below list is junk science with no basis in factual reality:
• Psychological profiles of violent killers
• Hypnosis to unlock memories
• Bite-mark analysis
• Microscopic hair matching
• blood spatter analysis
• comparative bullet lead analysis
• polygraphs
• voice spectrometry
• handwriting

Through police manipulation and coaxing, even things like...
• eyewitness testimony
• false confessions
• snitch testimony
...can be made up. Police often manipulate suspects and witnesses into making false confessions. It happens all the time.

“'Snitch testimony' and junk science [...] are two of the leading causes of wrongful conviction.”

“The ‘confession' Walker signed bore all the hallmarks of a false confession, which we know today to be the third-leading cause of wrongful conviction. And we know why innocent people can be compelled to confess, even to capital crimes: personal character traits such as age, intelligence, race, and fear of authority play a role; and coercive interrogation tactics—physical and psychological—also contribute. Young, naive, fearful, isolated suspects are particularly susceptible to coercive questioning.“

And in case you think you are immune from the risk of being falsely accused, know this: “Though Walker was uniquely vulnerable, psychologically coercive interrogations like the one he endured are effective against far more empowered suspects. Lies, threats, and more subtle manipulations, coupled with physical isolation, can break down anyone's defenses, even in the absence of physical coercion, the ‘third degree.' It takes time and pushing the right buttons.”

From the 1970's to the 1990's, the US saw “the exponential growth of the American legal system, fueled by two parallel forces: the rise of mass incarceration, and the explosion of personal injury litigation. In both the criminal and civil arena, litigants relied evermore on scientific evidence to ‘win.' These dynamics created the expert witness industry as we know it today, and board-certification entities proliferated to meet the demand. Bald assertions of scientific validity made by board-certified experts were never seriously questioned by the courts. Judges deferred to the forensic boards, few of which vetted their members beyond the ability to pay dues. Virtually none engaged in basic scientific research.”

With the erosion of regulations, unions, and the social safety net, the only option for recommence against a negligent employer or business became the courts. With the conservative “tough on crime” laws, the number of people (mostly black and brown men) in prison exploded.

DNA analysis, while having a rocky start, is a legitimate science. With every person proven guilty via DNA, countless more have been proven innocent, including the currently incarcerated. The number of people being proven innocent, including men on death row and even men who've already been executed is astounding. This is evidence alone to abolish the death penalty.

One's philosophy on criminal justice boils down to how you answer this question: ‘Is it worse for society if an innocent person is imprisoned or a guilty person set free?' I think most people, when you frame it like that, will say it would be theoretically worse if we imprison innocent people. But in practice, the criminal justice system in this country, at every level, prioritizes results. Coupling that with people in power who materially benefit from trusting the infallibility of the system, despite its obvious biases, bullshit, and corruption, results in countless innocents dragged through it.

There's this idea in criminal prosecution called the “Principle of Finality,” which basically means that whatever the jury decides is the final truth no matter what. This philosophy is so counter-intuitive to justice I find it horrifying. This is authoritarian absurdity with no basis in reality. And it's the principle that's kept falsely imprisoned people from seeking justice.

“Long before forensic evidence is delivered to the crime lab, implicit and explicit biases conspire against people of color, drawing them into the
criminal justice system—or to their deaths at the hands of police officers. [...] ‘Afrocentric features' are given longer prison sentences than defendants perceived to have fewer ‘Afrocentric features'; prospective jurors are more likely to interpret the same conduct as ‘aggressive' by someone with a name associated with African American culture than someone with a ‘white name'; judges set bail at 25 percent higher rates for Black defendants than similarly situated white defendants.”
We've always been a racist country.

“[...] most state district attorneys and judges are elected officials, answerable as much to constituents as to the rule of law, and convicting innocent people is bad politics. Careers, reputations, municipal liability, and professional pride are all on the line. Mistakes and misconduct may have stolen decades of freedom, maybe even cost a life. All of which provide powerful disincentives to even consider the possibility of a wrongful conviction.”

The system is designed to lock away innocent people and those in charge are incentivized to leave them locked up. Clinton made it harder to reversing death sentences because of course he did. Bill Clinton sucks. Prosecutors can (and often do) bury exculpatory evidence, both before trials and years after the revelation proves someone was convicted via false testimony or junk science.

Remember:
• Do not talk to the police without your lawyer present
• Do not consent to unwarranted searches under any circumstances
• Remember that the police can and will lie to you at every stage of your interaction with them
• The police have thrown lots of innocent people in jail and they can do it to you if they wanted. Don't make their job easy.