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&
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.
Crime is a common public issue for people living in the inner city, but is not limited to only urban or highly populated cities as it can undoubtedly happen in small community and rural areas as well. In The Real CSI, the documentary exemplified many way in which experts used forensic science as evidence in trial cases to argue and to prove whether a person is innocent or guilty. In this paper, I explained the difference in fingerprinting technology depicted between television shows and in reality, how DNA technology change the way forensics evidence is used in the court proceedings, and how forensic evidence can be misused in the United States adversarial legal system.
“The prospect that innocent people will be executed in America is horrifyingly likely.” In Alan Berlow’s article, “The Wrong Man”, Alan gives an unsparing report on the criminal-justice system and the death penalty. Although many believe the execution of an innocent person is impossible and many advocate that it is so, Alan gives a detailed look at the death penalty and how possible it is. The purpose of this article is to show the flaws in our criminal justice system and how common an innocent can be sentenced to death.
Test of the “harmless error” rule. Law and Human Behavior Vol. 21, No. 1, p.
“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
Today, DNA testing has become more evident in solving cases by proving guilt or innocence. I am focusing on a case of three boys convicted of murder with no substantial evidence to prove guilt and how DNA evidence could help them receive an acquittal they have anticipated for eighteen years. According to the Innocence Project website, there have been 272 post conviction DNA exonerations in the United States (“Innocence”). Since the late 1980’s, DNA testing has exonerated more than 250 wrongly convicted people, who spent an average of 13 years in prison for crimes they didn’t commit (Rosen, New York Times, 2011). There are a total of 205 exonerations that have been won in 34 states since 2000, and 35 percent of those confessions were done by a person that was eighteen years old or younger (“Innocence”).
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...
Barr, C., Doyle, M., Clifford, J., De Leo,T., Dubeau, C. (2003). "There is More to Math: A Framework for Learning and Math Instruction” Waterloo Catholic District School Board
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.
“ ….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).
...ct on sound knowledge. Therefore it is unfair to determine that a student may perform poorly at college simply because of one standardized test they took at high school.
Explain problem solving court and their essential elements. Are they effective? “Many problem-solving strategies have been shown to be an efficient and effective use of court resources, resulting in increased positive outcomes, however, courts must exercise caution and seek to balance traditional versus problem solving-type roles “(Carey, and Munsterman,2008). Courts must be enthusiastic to acclimate some problem-solving lessons learned into conventional management. Implausible growth in problem solving court has developed. Problem solving court uses therapeutic jurisprudence to handle cases. According to the read section in unit two “problem solving courts five essential elements and they are immediate intervention, nonadversarial adjudication,
In his 1955 experiment, he had participants analyze the similarities in line length out loud, but planted “confederates” to give incorrect answers. To his surprise, 32% of participants conformed to the obviously incorrect answers per trial, and 76% conformed at least once (McLeod, 2008).
the same length. Control subjects with no exposure to a majority view had no trouble giving the correct answer. In other words the Asch experiment objective was to identify which of the three lines on a card were equal to the length of a comparison line. A few of the confederates were instructed to give the same wrong answer as the others. Asch had found that 76 percent of the subjects, who weren’t confederates, also ended up giving the same incorrect response even though the majority response was more than obvious it was wrong (M, Venkatesan: pg. 1,
As a secondary subject, society often views mathematics a critical subject for students to learn in order to be successful. Often times, mathematics serves as a gatekeeper for higher learning and certain specific careers. Since the times of Plato, “mathematics was virtually the first thing everyone has to learn…common to all arts, science, and forms of thought” (Stinson, 2004). Plato argued that all students should learn arithmetic; the advanced mathematics was reserved for those that would serve as the “philosopher guardians” of the city (Stinson, 2004). By the 1900s in the United States, mathematics found itself as a cornerstone of curriculum for students. National reports throughout the 20th Century solidified the importance of mathematics in the success of our nation and its students (Stinson, 2004). As a mathematics teacher, my role to educate all students in mathematics is an important one. My personal philosophy of mathematics education – including the optimal learning environment and best practices teaching strategies – motivates my teaching strategies in my personal classroom.