Bad math in court is something that happens over and over again and because of it, many innocent victims have been jailed and punished unjustly over the years. The problem is not some sort of miscalculation, but the refusal of the court to recalculate. More than often enough, the judge refuses to reexamine the collected DNA in an investigation case. What the people of the court fail to realize at times is that probability is not a one off thing, it is something that should be repeated at least more than once and can even be repeated over and over again. The flipping of a coin is frequently used to explain this logic and will be explained in following paragraphs. Sometimes statistician will state that there is only a one in a million chance (or some other ludicrously large number) that the defendant is innocent; but then they fail to examine: what is that 1, what are the chances that the accused that that one in a million? In this paper, I will be discussing the issue of ‘bad math in court,’ why it happens and how something as simple as probability can get innocent people out of jail.
I chose to explore the idea of bad math in court’ because ever since I was a child, my mother always said to me: “No matter what you choose to do in life, it’ll always require mathematics.” She said this as a way to encourage me to take my math classes more seriously (and it worked!) When watching an episode of criminal minds, my mom’s saying came into mind and I was left wondering if what my mom said was true. Once my teacher introduced this Math IA project, I took it as the perfect opportunity for me to explore an issue that had been bugging me for a while, which was: Math in Court. However, when I was doing a little but of background information...
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...entity beyond a reasonable doubt, then neither could a second test on an even smaller sample.”
The judge exhibited a strong mathematical fallacy when he assumed that repeating the test could not tell us anything about the reliability of the first results. What he didn’t realize was that by doing a test twice and obtaining the same result, it would tell us something about the possible accuracy of the original result.
I mean lets say we made a tree diagram based on how many heads and tales we got. We would do this test over and over again till we could determine the likelihood that we had a higher or lower prospect of spinning a head or a tail:
http://ibmathsresources.com/2013/05/03/amanda-knox-and-bad-maths-in-courts/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22310186
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/opinion/when-judges-cant-do-math-justice-suffers.html?_r=4&
test twice. If there appears to be a set of results that does not fit
Wrongful conviction is an issue that has plagued the Canadian Justice System since it came to be. It is an issue that is hard to sort out between horrific crimes and society’s desire to find truth and justice. Incidences of wrongful conviction hit close to home right here in Saskatchewan as well as across the entire nation. Experts claim “each miscarriage of justice, however, deals a blow to society’s confidence in the legal justice system” (Schmalleger, Volk, 2014, 131). Professionals in the criminal justice field such as police, forensic analyst, and prosecutors must all be held accountable for their implications in wrongful convictions. There are several reasons for wrongful convictions such as racial bias, false confessions, jailhouse informants, eyewitness error, erroneous forensic science, inappropriate, professional and institutional misconduct and scientific limitations that society possessed prior to the technological revolution (Roberts, Grossman, 2012, 253 – 259). The introduction of more advanced DNA analysis has been able to clear names and prevent these incidences from occurring as often. As well as the formation of foundations such as The Association of Defense for the Wrongly Convicted (AIDWYC). Unfortunately, mistakes made in the Canadian Justice System have serious life altering repercussions for everyone that is involved. Both systematic and personal issues arise that require deeper and more intense analysis.
“ ….Judgments, right or wrong. This concern with concepts such as finality, jurisdiction, and the balance of powers may sound technical, lawyerly, and highly abstract. But so is the criminal justice system….Law must provide simple answers: innocence or guilt, freedom or imprisonment, life or death.” (Baude, 21).
Test of the “harmless error” rule. Law and Human Behavior Vol. 21, No. 1, p.
The question of whether luck should play a role in our assessment of other people is fundamental to human society. Our judicial laws express the view that we are responsible for our actions-in other words, luck does have a bearing on the determination of legal guilt; since legal guilt is theoretically based on moral guilt, this means that luck is usually considered to have a bearing on moral guilt as well. However, there are serious difficulties with this system of judgment. Indeed, I believe that it is neither advantageous nor even logically plausible to accede to either side of this debate: simply admitting to one extreme (e.g., that luck should never be considered when assessing others, or vice versa) automatically creates a multitude of problems. If we do consider luck when assessing someone's moral character, we open ourselves to the very real possibility of punishing two people unequally for the same exact action or intention, which is incompatible with our notion of justice. Yet if we decide that luck should not be a factor, we are in effect embracing the notion that we are not responsible for our actions, and in such a case, punishment would be futile; without legal guilt and punishment, however, society would be chaotic, which again assaults our notion of justice. We shall see that this issue is closely tied in with the more general idea of free will vs. determinism, which itself is a fundamentally disturbing problem. As long as the free will debate remains inconclusive-as most people feel it is-so too will the debate over moral luck remain unresolved.
...tz et. al. 1997). “The standard of proof in a trial is one such fundamental tenet of criminal law.” (Horowitz et. al. 1997).
“In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same”.(Albert Einstein).Many people have different points of view of what is justice of what happens in the courtroom. Opinions have been heard of whether or not DNA evidence should be admissible in murder trials. Not only have people try to introduce this kind of evidence in their case, but some have been trying to avoid of DNA evidence in their case. Like any important matter they all have their own pros and cons to conclude whether or not it’s worth presenting to a courtroom full of juries. It takes hard workers to give background information
Every time an innocent person is exonerated based on DNA testing, law enforcement agencies look at what caused the wrongful convictions. There are many issues that contribute to putting guiltless lives behind bars including: eyewitness misidentification, false confessions, imperfect forensic science, and more (Gould and Leo 18). When a witness is taken into a police station to identify a suspect, it is easy for their memories to be blurred and their judgment influenced. This can lead the witness to identify a suspect who is actually innocent. Flawed forensic science practice also contributes to wrongful imprisonments. In the past, analysts have been inaccurate due to carelessness, testified in court presenting evidence that was not based on science, and participated in misconduct. False confessions have also been known to cause unlawful convictions. In some instances, police departments took part in transgression and interviewed their suspects in such an intense manner that a false confession was used cease the interrogation. To imagine that there are innocent people rotting in prison is appalling and something must be done. To prevent wrongful convictions, legislatures should form commissions and policies to reform flawed procedures.
There is no true way to know the amount of individuals who have been wrongfully convicted (Neubauer, 2011). Contrary to popular belief, justice and law are not coexisting (Gershman, 1993, pp. 502-515). Most individuals feel and believe that the Criminal Justice System would have steps in place to catch and rectify this issue (Neubauer, 2011). The advent of DNA testing not only generated more attention for, and research about wrongful convictions (Gould, 2010, pp. 825-868). This also pushed for academicians from simply research to a hybrid of research and advocacy’s (Gould, 2010, pp. 825-868). Virtually no one denies the existence of wrongful convictions (Gould, 2010, pp. 825-868). Wrongful convictions challenge the integrity and legitimacy of criminal justice and call out for solutions (Davis, 2007). It acts a policy change catalyst wrongful convictions are a research field that touches upon many disciplines (Davis, 2007). The pretrial processing of criminal defendant is extremely important because most criminal cases are resolved before trial (Stolzenberg, 2012).
Every year, innocent people are given prison sentences to crimes they did not commit. Statistics are kept by the Criminal Justice Department on the number of wrongful convictions but according to research, it has been estimated to 5% of the cases tried have resulted in a false conviction. Reasons due to false convictions are misidentification from a witness, false confessions, forensic mistakes, DNA testing, coercion, and more. A number of ideas will be argued as possible solutions to help lower the number of wrongful convictions that are given the innocent people who fall trapped to this system. A study by Barry Scheck [2008] on forensic evidence revealed that not more than 20% of the felony cases involved biological evidence [Scheck, 2008, p.4]. Although the number seems low, the proper handling and testing of biological evidence can offer some hope to an innocent suspect. Other variables that lead to wrongful convictions are false statements and confessions. Which that can be taken from suspects through questionable actions of methods. [Leo, Ofshe, 1998] or that pooled from jailhouse snitched, informants, or cooperators. Many people believe that the use of evidence has been corrupted in the system while others believe that cases where evidence is used are deviations from the typical process. “Eyewitness misidentifications were a factor in over 70% of wrongful convictions.” The knowledge that a free citizen could be unreasonably sentenced to prison or executed by the State is totally opposed the thought of shrewd treatment likely in the United States. DNA is the leading cause to wrongful convictions. If the problem is to be talked and fixed, it must first be understood; not as it is seen, but as it is. It is difficult to express...
Criminal Law declares what conduct is illegal and proscribes a penalty. Although, we rely on our court system to administer justice, sometimes the innocent are convicted (Risinger). Most people would not be able to imagine a person who is convicted of a crime as innocent, sometimes that is the case. Imagine what a variance that is: an innocent criminal. In an article by Radley Balko he asks the question, “How many more are innocent?” In his article, he questions America’s 250th DNA exoneration and states that it raises questions about how often we send the wrong person to prison. The other issue that follows is the means of appealing the court’s decision and who they can turn to for help.
The test used under the M’Naghten standard, commonly referred to as the "right/wrong" test, to determine if a defendant can distinguish right from wrong is based on the idea that the defendant must know the difference of each...
Evidence collection is a crucial part of forensics. Its reliability can be compromised by input bias from law
... a trial that lead to small changes in performance that seek to reduce the error on the next trial” (Gluck et al., 2014, p. 133). As students of psychology, it is important to realize that all tests are not fail proof. We shouldn’t become dependent on the results of the tests and surveys that we provide to the general public as though it is a “reliable indicator of the test taker’s ability and knowledge” (Gladwell, 2005, p. 56).
Today’s justice system is broken and flawed, with a history of falsely convicting innocent people due to a variety of things, including eyewitness misidentification, invalid or improper forensic testing, and even racial bias on the jury. Many wrongful convictions happen as a result of a combination of these things, and other causes can contribute in each individual case (“causes”). Countless people throughout history have been punished for crimes they did not commit, and with recent advancements in DNA testing bringing about hundreds of exonerations of the wrongfully convicted, one has to wonder how many innocents have languished in prisons throughout history. With all the flaws and potential for error in our courtrooms today, justice can not be brought about by our current system; in order to repair it, we need governmental reform to promote true equity and prevent future miscarriages of justice.