From the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences


Rate of false conviction of criminal defendants who are sentenced to death


Abstract

The rate of erroneous conviction of innocent criminal defendants is often described as not merely unknown but unknowable. We use survival analysis to model this effect, and estimate that if all death-sentenced defendants remained under sentence of death indefinitely at least 4.1% would be exonerated. We conclude that this is a conservative estimate of the proportion of false conviction among death sentences in the United States.

So they somehow know when the Court is wrong?

They probably got away with a murder they did commit. So all works out in the end.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/0...l.pdf+html


It's a fairly straight-forward statistical analysis. They have a reasonably large sample and consistent data. We deal with survivorship bias all the time in our data, and they are merely making an adjustment for a similar statistical phenomena.

Death is a messy business.

http://www.newsadvance.com/news/local/tr...f6878.html

This dude is getting ready to possibly get the chair and the police haven't been able to find a body for 9 months. She's possibly still alive.

The courts and prosecutors don't care as long as someone takes the wrap.

Did I mention he's white and she's black. Racists.

I question the death penalty for this reason but I don't buy how they came to their conclusion.

(04-30-2014 09:04 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  I question the death penalty for this reason but I don't buy how they came to their conclusion.

Agreed. New methodology has been overturning a surprising amount of death row convictions and calling into question the forensics of the 1970-90's.

Had a case right here in Shreveport where a black man was sentenced to death for the murder and torture of a white Fire Chief that walked into the house this man was robbing at gun point. He was let off of death row because the Shreveport Courthouse had a statue of a Confederate soldier holding a Confederate flag and ONE jury member was too offended by that flag to appear in court during the trial. The NAACP came to town and not only got this murderer off of death row, but he's having a retrial and possibly could be released.

(04-30-2014 07:46 AM)UM2001GRAD Wrote:  From the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences


Rate of false conviction of criminal defendants who are sentenced to death


Abstract

The rate of erroneous conviction of innocent criminal defendants is often described as not merely unknown but unknowable. We use survival analysis to model this effect, and estimate that if all death-sentenced defendants remained under sentence of death indefinitely at least 4.1% would be exonerated. We conclude that this is a conservative estimate of the proportion of false conviction among death sentences in the United States.

100% of the people killed on the street were done so without a legal trial, conviction, or sentence.

Actually this is pretty meaningless academic drivel.

It's an example of using statistics to try and prove something not at all in evidence (not by the authors, but by people who try and use the study to claim some proof)

Among many things that could explain the differences... It addresses, but then ignores that DNA was not part of many of the convictions, but absolutely part of many of the exonerations, and extrapolates that forward, despite the fact that virtually all new convictions have DNA evidence.

It notes that some people have been exonerated, but were guilty (and has an actual case) and then merely assumes that someone was innocent, but executed, despite lacking proof of that. In fact, it assumes that MORE have been wrongly executed than wrongly exonerated, despite lacking any evidence to support this, or the general presumption of our court system.

The primary driver of the conclusion (by their own admission page 5 second column toward the bottom) is the presumption that the process of death row exonerations is assumed to favor keeping innocent people in jail... ignoring that the legal process itself favors exoneration of the guilty in the first place (innocent until PROVEN guilty by a unanimous jury in such cases). They later say themselves that the system favors freeing the guilty and talks about the changes in the process (page 6 first paragraph) which immediately brings the quoted conclusion into question... and thus they don't actually make the claim that the paper says they do. They merely take issue with Scalia's comment... and in that context, and that context alone, they MAY have a point.

It's a nice academic piece and shows that we should continue to be vigilant to the risk and keep trying to refine the process, but proves absolutely nothing. The margin of error on their statistical assumptions is likely greater than the claimed incidence rate, meaning 'zero' is entirely likely.