<story><title>American justice system ignores science in the pursuit of convictions</title><url>https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/we-are-going-backward-how-justice-system-ignores-science-pursuit-n961256</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kstenerud</author><text>In jury trials, prosecutors have not only a huge advantage, but also a perverse incentive to lie and cheat. They know that the jurors are not going to be experienced enough in criminal law to sniff out procedural bullshit or &amp;quot;expert witness&amp;quot; gambits or bullshit science, much like a novice is unlikely to win at poker against a professional player.&lt;p&gt;And therein lies the problem. In every trial, you have professionals (lawyers) playing against novices (jurors), and since the prosecution automatically gains special believability status in the eyes of jurors, they hold the upper hand. To make matters worse, prosecutors have the automatic full cooperation of police, whereas the defense has no such guarantees. And since prosecutors are gauged by their wins, and high ranking prosecutors are the most likely to be voted&amp;#x2F;appointed into coveted judge seats, there is a perverse incentive to prosecute the innocent.&lt;p&gt;But since the system operates on the fiction that all members are equal (much like all sides are equal in a game of poker), it&amp;#x27;s easy to brush aside the reality that they are most certainly not equal, and that the more experienced has such a huge advantage that it&amp;#x27;s laughable to even call it fair.&lt;p&gt;In a system with professional judges, that wouldn&amp;#x27;t fly, as the trained judge would see through their shenanigans and rebuke them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pmoriarty</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;In jury trials, prosecutors have not only a huge advantage, but also a perverse incentive to lie and cheat.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;The prosecutorial advantage is even bigger in grand juries (ie. the juries that decide whether the suspect will be charged or &amp;quot;indicted&amp;quot; with a crime), where only the prosecution&amp;#x27;s side is heard and the standard used to indict is much lower than the &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;beyond a reasonable doubt&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt; standard used in a real trial.  The running joke being that a good prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s after indictment but before trial that the prosecution pressures the defendant to take a plea deal (ie. plead guilty to reduced charges) to avoid risking going to jail for a much longer time and bearing the insane expenses of a trial.&lt;p&gt;To my memory, in the US only something like 6% of indictments actually go to trial, where (as you point out) the prosecutors have a huge advantage.  94% of the time inicted defendants plead guilty and never actually get a trial.  In some cases, like with Aaron Swartz, they commit suicide.&lt;p&gt;So for the overwhelming majority of cases, it&amp;#x27;s not what happens at trial that matters (as they never get a trial), but rather what happens in the even more skewed for prosecutorial advantage grand jury that matters -- a grand jury where defendants and defense attorneys are not even present and where their side is not heard.</text></comment>
<story><title>American justice system ignores science in the pursuit of convictions</title><url>https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/we-are-going-backward-how-justice-system-ignores-science-pursuit-n961256</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kstenerud</author><text>In jury trials, prosecutors have not only a huge advantage, but also a perverse incentive to lie and cheat. They know that the jurors are not going to be experienced enough in criminal law to sniff out procedural bullshit or &amp;quot;expert witness&amp;quot; gambits or bullshit science, much like a novice is unlikely to win at poker against a professional player.&lt;p&gt;And therein lies the problem. In every trial, you have professionals (lawyers) playing against novices (jurors), and since the prosecution automatically gains special believability status in the eyes of jurors, they hold the upper hand. To make matters worse, prosecutors have the automatic full cooperation of police, whereas the defense has no such guarantees. And since prosecutors are gauged by their wins, and high ranking prosecutors are the most likely to be voted&amp;#x2F;appointed into coveted judge seats, there is a perverse incentive to prosecute the innocent.&lt;p&gt;But since the system operates on the fiction that all members are equal (much like all sides are equal in a game of poker), it&amp;#x27;s easy to brush aside the reality that they are most certainly not equal, and that the more experienced has such a huge advantage that it&amp;#x27;s laughable to even call it fair.&lt;p&gt;In a system with professional judges, that wouldn&amp;#x27;t fly, as the trained judge would see through their shenanigans and rebuke them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wonderwonder</author><text>Further compounding this is the sheer amount of work and cases public defenders have to contend with, they are over whelmed. In New Orleans, they have 50 public defenders for 22,000 cases, to the point where they are refusing to represent on certain felony cases. Which means the accused gets to hang out in jail.&lt;p&gt;Article is a quick read and does a good job explaining the mindest of people who plead guilty to crimes they did not commit:
&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cbsnews.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;inside-new-orleans-public-defenders-decision-to-refuse-felony-cases&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cbsnews.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;inside-new-orleans-public-defen...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>