Reason Writers Around Town
Over at Slate, Radley Balko looks at the pitiful state of Mississippi's forensics system.
Comments to "Reason Writers Around Town":
Wow. Nobody wants to touch this, huh? Or are the rest of you actually busy with something else.
Michael Pack | February 25, 2008, 1:06pm | #
Radley,Every day in this country people are convicted on fake science.Breath machines have a known error rate of 20% either way and don't test for alcohol.Just chemicals in the same group.Of course,we are told to hate drunk drivers and murders so most people could care less.Until they are the accused.Michael Pack | February 25, 2008, 1:16pm | #
I meant people accused.It seems accused and guilty are one in the same these days.Shannon Love | February 25, 2008, 1:22pm | #
One key problem is that forensics labs often fall under the auspices of prosecutorsForensic labs evolved gradually out of the work of police, medical examiners and hired consultants. It's really only been in the last 15 years that we've seen the entire crime scene hyper-analysis take off. Unfortunately. organizationally, were still in the past. The labs still work as adjuncts of the police and prosecutors. That creates powerful institutional incentives to distort the science.
Ideally, forensic scientist would work under a separate organization entirely. Prosecutors and defendants alike should have access to their services. I think they should be placed under the courts. Police, prosecutors and defendants could petition the courts to examine crime scenes for evidence and provide neutral findings.
Shannon Love | February 25, 2008, 1:27pm | #
Michael Pack,Breath machines have a known error rate of 20% either way and don't test for alcohol.Just chemicals in the same group.
Um, no. Contemporary bearthalysers have a 98% accuracy in detecting ethyl alcohol under field conditions. They might be thrown off by the presence of other alcohols but since they are all highly poisonous, anyone who drank enough of them to score drunk on a bearthalysers test would have much bigger problems than a fraudulent DWI arrest i.e they wouldn't live long enough to be booked.
If the bearthalysers are as bad as you say you could easily prove it and make a fortune suing the manufactures for fraudulent claims.
Michael Pack | February 25, 2008, 1:39pm | #
Shannon Love,no there not.They test for a group of chemicals that include alcohol.Exposure to gasoline,paint thinner or acid reflux are known to cause false positives.There are many other problems as well.As far as suing,the companies do not promise that type of accuracy and have went to court to keep their code secret.In Florida many cases were held up due to the company refusing to explain how it's machine works.Shannon Love | February 25, 2008, 4:47pm | #
Michael Pack,This company advertises:
This model is trusted by many professional organizations for employee screening, emergency room care, and roadside testing. The semiconductor sensor accuracy is ±0.01%BAC at 0.10% BAC and is DOT / NHTSA approved as an alcohol screening device. The AlcoHawk Pro is also 510(k) Certified by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Prove them wrong and make your fortune. I doubt you will because I am somewhat familar with this technology and it is widely used in many industrial sensor, scientific and medical technology.
In Florida many cases were held up due to the company refusing to explain how it's machine works.
You don't have to know how it works, you just need to prove it can't accurately measure blood alcohol levels. Feed alcohol to a couple of dozen frat boys, then measure their blood alcohol levels by both breathalyzer and blood test. If the two don't agree to within the required precision, you win.
Skeptic | February 25, 2008, 5:40pm | #
Mr/Ms Love:Type "breathalyser inaccuracy" into your favorite search engine and enjoy the reading. Or, if you're too lazy to do that, try this site to start:
http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/DrivingIssues/1106182337.html
I'm glad to see your work being presented to a wider audience, Radley; now get busy on a no-knock raid story for Salon.
Colonel_Angus | February 25, 2008, 8:18pm | #
"He has compared his bite-mark virtuosity to Jesus Christ and Itzhak Perlman. And he claims to have invented a revolutionary system of identifying bite marks using yellow goggles and iridescent light that, conveniently, he says can't be photographed or duplicated."Sounds more like Joseph Smith virtuosity to me.