by gbourne on 10/9/22, 6:38 PM with 177 comments
by Archelaos on 10/9/22, 11:33 PM
Is there any other modern democracy that allows deception as a method of interrogation to the same extent as the US?
In my country, Germany, deception during interrogations is forbitten even for adults. There exist only some minor exceptions, for example, that prior wrong ideas of the suspects may be exploited.
The central paragraph of the law is as follows:
(1) The accused's freedom to decide and exercise his or her will may not be impaired by ill-treatment, by fatigue, by physical intervention, by the administration of drugs, by torment [Quälerei], by deception [Täuschung] or by hypnosis. Coercion may only be used to the extent permitted by the law of criminal procedure. The threat of a measure inadmissible under its provisions and the promise of an advantage not provided for by law shall be prohibited.
(2) Measures that impair the accused's capacity to remember or to reason shall not be permitted.
(3) The prohibition in sections 1 and 2 shall apply without regard to the consent of the accused. Statements made in violation of this prohibition may not be used even if the accused consents to their use.
§ 136a StPO -- German text at https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stpo/__136a.html
by pkrotich on 10/9/22, 9:34 PM
Yes - you should be scared of ordinary prosectutors in suits doing their "best" job more than a gang member for example! They want are motivated to win at all cost... short of obviously illegal ways.
by dghughes on 10/9/22, 9:31 PM
YouTube video of 60 Minutes Australia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V5Cj8d43Yw
by woojoo666 on 10/9/22, 8:33 PM
by mijoharas on 10/10/22, 2:19 AM
One thing I'd like to know is what exactly happened here. Obviously there were multiple miscarriages of justice, but this seems like a pertinent one.
EDIT: (obviously not _the most_ pertinent one, but still one I'd like details/reasoning on. Why would the judge do that, once they had the evidence in front of them).
by twawaaay on 10/10/22, 12:02 AM
What you need is for the cigarette to have enough time in contact with right concentration of vapours (2% to 8% by volume). Too little but also too much and you will not get it ignited.
Here is a handy table listing necessary concentrations: https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/explosive-concentration-l...
Now, if you just drop the cigarette into a bucket of gasoline it will not ignite. This is because on a typical small pool/bucket of gasoline the layer with the right concentration of vapours is very thin and the cigarette does not fly long enough through it to ignite it before it reaches the surface and gets completely doused.
There is couple of ways this can be prevented, the easiest is if you let the cigarette lay close to the pool of gasoline but not exactly within it. Drop it on the part of ground that only has very little gasoline on it so that the cigarette will not immediately get doused with it and can lay there waiting for the right concentration of vapours to happen. Bonus points if part of the cigarette get damp with gasoline.
Another way is if the ground is hot and there is a lot of vapours. Or if there is very little wind. Or if the pool is somehow enclosed so that a fairly thick layer of vapour can form before it gets blown.
by mlindner on 10/9/22, 8:17 PM
This is why I'm also quite against, in the general case, post-apocalyptic movies that predict a future based on non-science impossible things happening. Many spaceflight movies and TV shows for example show very bad things in the future giving people a false impression that the future will be worse than the past even that goes against direct evidence that throughout human history things have trended better, on average, every single year with a few moments of worsening.
by pstuart on 10/9/22, 7:27 PM
They also censored themselves when they discovered a recipe for an incredibly easy and powerful explosive. I throw that out there as a case of self-regulation in the marketplace of ideas.
Edit: Adam Savage talking about it -- https://nerdist.com/article/mythbusters-destroyed-all-eviden...
Apparently it was not well known, so not an original discovery but still a legitimate use of the word.
My comment was a point about censorship in that it can be the right thing to do. I'm curious AF about what the recipe is but am ok with not knowing and and knowing that effectively no one else does.
by boomboomsubban on 10/10/22, 12:21 AM
I bet it would be a huge hit, add an extra often graphic layer to the hugely popular true crime with the added bonus of potentially creating another Serial like situation where your fan base are positive of someone's innocence.
by gnicholas on 10/9/22, 9:45 PM
by TedDoesntTalk on 10/10/22, 4:12 AM
https://www.gofundme.com/f/us2zh-free-after-35-years-in-pris...
(Click “donate now” button to see what I mean)
by hanniabu on 10/9/22, 8:39 PM
The great american justice system
by hedora on 10/9/22, 11:54 PM
by ummonk on 10/10/22, 2:05 AM
by lucb1e on 10/9/22, 11:06 PM
> When Mr. Galvan asserted his innocence, Detective Switski beat him, Mr. Galvan said. Through the walls, his older brother Isaac listened helplessly to the detective’s yelling and John’s cries. [...] Detective Switski also threatened John, telling him he would face the death penalty and end up “laying next to” his late father. [...] [The defendants] — 18, 20, and 22, respectively at the time — were all convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole [for setting one building on fire which lead to the death of two persons].
A lifetime in prison, for an 18-year-old, for setting one house on fire? Even with the intent to kill, that seems very excessive. I'd be curious how murder through arson in the USA and other countries turned out if anyone happens to know of any.
A quick check on the Dutch wikipedia for Moord reveals that the maximum sentence for murder is thirty years. Belgium and Germany have life sentences, but then the Netherlands is the only EU country where a life sentence is actually the rest of your life (from https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levenslange_gevangenisstraf). Depending on whether the person was already 18 at the time the arson was committed, in Germany the highest amount of prison you can get as a minor is 10 years. All not mild at all, and if the motive and method are all firmly established then indeed it shouldn't be, but quite a difference from "you will stay incarcerated and then you die".
> The court concluded that without John’s false confession, which he did not give voluntarily, “the State’s case was nonexistent.”
I listen to a podcast sometimes called Napleiten, which is quite interesting. It's not super legally technical, but it sounded like, in the Netherlands, it's effectively impossible to convict someone solely based on a confession. There has to be other (even if only circumstantial) evidence supporting the claim. (Edit: this is correct, already since 1926 it seems, according to https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valse_bekentenis and https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0001903/2022-10-01/0/BoekTwee...). Even without torture, false confessions are a thing, which I thought was well known.
And then to top it all off, the thing described in the confession isn't even physically possible. But fair enough, that's not something one would necessarily think to question (in the lawyer's words: "I feel like all of us have seen [this in] movies [...] and I really had never given much thought to whether or not that might be real").
Edit: as an interesting aside, I found while reading up on false confessions that, in Sweden, 130 people confessed to the same murder. The prime minister was shot in 1986, leading to the longest running murder investigation in the country. 788 firearms were tested but not one could be conclusively linked to the bullets found. 10k people were interrogated, some more than once. 130 confessions were obtained. The person who they now assume did it (but has since died) was not among the confessions. Source is unfortunately in Dutch https://nos.nl/artikel/2336792-zweedse-om-moordzaak-premier-...
by giantg2 on 10/9/22, 10:10 PM
by franga2000 on 10/10/22, 10:08 AM
TL;DR: 18 year old was forced by a detective with threats and violence to sign a false confession and despite that detective having been accused of multiple cases of forced and falsified confessions, the way he finally got out after 20 years of a life sentence later was by finding a scientific impossibility in the fabricated and coerced confession.
Like yeah, "yay science!" and it's a great thing he finally got out, but how is the real story here not that once you sign a confession, you're basically fucked no matter what the circumstances of the confession were?!? I guess this might not be a surprise to people in or more familiar with the US, but holy shit it's scary to me as an outsider from a (yes, I'll say it) actually developed county!
by silexia on 10/10/22, 4:23 PM
by awb on 10/9/22, 8:33 PM
1) Mythbusters wasn’t aware of this case
2) His confession under duress was the major factor in the release
> In 2019, the appellate court granted John post-conviction relief on the grounds of actual innocence — a rarity in Illinois — largely based on the abuse used to coerce a false confession from John.
by louwrentius on 10/9/22, 9:02 PM
The goal is to convict no matter what. That is how the incentives are lined up.
Case in point: the (famous) Serial podcast started about the (now evidently) wrongful conviction of a teenager. He was recently released after 20+ years because of a note found written by a prosecutor that pointed to other plausible suspects, information never shared with the defence.
You are very unlikely to ever be judged by a jury of your peers. You are much more likely to not 'risk' that and take the plea deal. From the perspective of a European (and we have our issues) it sounds the system is fundamentally rotten.
The mythbuster story only highlight how basic truth finding isn't really an issue.