PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Historically, investigators have often sought tools to detect when people are not telling the truth by analyzing verbal and nonverbal cues. But research has repeatedly shown that these methods lack a valid scientific basis — human behavior is simply too complex to allow us to distinguish between lies and truth with a simple, one-size-fits-all test. We're seeing this play out with existing research on 911 call analysis, which confirms that this approach does not come close to meeting the standards for evidence admissibility that must be applied when life and liberty are at stake. Although this method was unreliable from the beginning, 911 call analysis has spread to police and prosecutor offices in at least 26 states, according to ProPublica's reports. It's alarming that so many in law enforcement are embracing this unscientific method that weaponizes the language used by people experiencing the worst moment of their lives against them. And, in doing so, investigators may end up overlooking other suspects, leading to tunnel vision that opens the door to wrongful convictions."
COMMENTARY: : "911 Call Scrutiny Should Not Be Used To Identify Suspects," by Miriam Aroni Krinsky and Isabella Cohn, published by law360.com, on February 2, 2024. (Miriam Aroni Krinsky is the executive director of Fair and Just Prosecution. She formerly served as a federal prosecutor, and is the author of "Change from Within: Reimagining the 21st-Century Prosecutor." Isabelle Cohn is a forensic science policy associate at Innocence Project.)
For example, in 2019, Jessica Logan,[4] a young mother in Illinois, called 911 when her child stopped breathing. Shockingly, her attempt to seek help in this desperate moment of need was later used as evidence to convict her of first-degree murder of her baby, and she was sentenced to 33 years in prison. A key part of the prosecution's case against Logan was a detective's testimony analyzing her call for help using Harpster's unproven method.
According to an exhaustive investigatory series by ProPublica,[5] 911 call analysis has now been used by law enforcement to develop suspects in more than 100 known cases across 26 states. This concerning approach continues to spread across the country, despite the risk it poses to innocent people who were simply calling 911 to seek help.
In light of increased awareness over problems associated with 911 call analysis, prosecutors would be well advised to review any investigation and prosecution that relied on this questionable technique. And policymakers and law enforcement leaders should consider banning this technique nationwide.
In his training, Harpster promises to teach people to ascertain "indicators of guilt or innocence"[6] from the words people use when they ask for help, the tone and cadence of their call, and how they are processing their circumstances.
According to Propublica, "[s]uch linguistic detection is possible, [Harpster] claims, if you know how to analyze callers' speech patterns. ... [A] misplaced word as innocuous as 'hi' or 'please' or 'somebody' can reveal a murderer on the phone."
Not only does this questionable analysis fail to consider how people may speak when under duress, shock or pain, but it also takes data from an exceedingly small sample of just 100 callers to create a general theory of how innocent or guilty people speak on 911 calls.
Furthermore, it doesn't take into account differences in speech that can stem from one's cultural background, regional dialect, education level or socioeconomic status.
Researchers who attempted to verify this technique could not do so, and Harpster has not shared his data, despite requests for independent review.
Historically, investigators have often sought tools to detect when people are not telling the truth by analyzing verbal and nonverbal cues. But research has repeatedly shown that these methods lack a valid scientific basis — human behavior is simply too complex to allow us to distinguish between lies and truth with a simple, one-size-fits-all test.
We're seeing this play out with existing research on 911 call analysis, which confirms that this approach does not come close to meeting the standards for evidence admissibility that must be applied when life and liberty are at stake.
Although this method was unreliable from the beginning, 911 call analysis has spread to police and prosecutor offices in at least 26 states, according to ProPublica's reports. It's alarming that so many in law enforcement are embracing this unscientific method that weaponizes the language used by people experiencing the worst moment of their lives against them. And, in doing so, investigators may end up overlooking other suspects, leading to tunnel vision that opens the door to wrongful convictions.
It's sadly not surprising that this unproven method has spread. The American legal system lacks sufficient guardrails to ensure that forensic and investigative methods are based on a strong scientific foundation.
Strategies that are used to identify suspects but are not later introduced as expert testimony in court due to judicial concerns that they don't meet the standard of admissibility — as we are now seeing with 911 call analysis — escape the safeguards that do exist.[7]
As a result, unfounded or outright discredited methods can be used by police and prosecutors across the country in ways that profoundly affect the trajectory of criminal cases, and are subject to almost no meaningful oversight.
Because police and prosecutors are not in a position to conduct scientific analysis of the methods and technologies on which they rely, the availability of scientifically unproven methods — and the promise that they will help catch and convict people who commit crimes — creates the very real risk that police and prosecutors will unknowingly use flawed methods to accuse and charge innocent people of crimes.
Indeed, a quarter of people exonerated since 1989 were wrongfully convicted based on false or misleading forensic evidence, like bite mark analysis.[8]
But that hasn't stopped some in law enforcement from ushering in new and unproven methods of suspect development, which are often deployed before they are adequately tested, and many have already been demonstrated to have disparate impacts on people of color.[9]
For example, in the past year, facial recognition technology led to the wrongful arrests of a pregnant woman, Porcha Woodruff in Detroit,[10] and Randal Reid,[11] who spent nearly a week in jail in Georgia after being falsely accused of stealing.
We must ensure that suspect development methods used by police and prosecutors, including 911 call analysis, are thoroughly researched and scientifically vetted before being deployed. Failure to do so causes drastic harm and the unacceptable risk of wrongful convictions.
Elected prosecutors and law enforcement leaders have an obligation to review the investigative methods used in their offices and departments and ensure that they are reliable and based on sound science.
All parts of our justice system, as well as our local and national leaders, have a role to play in addressing these concerns. A national scientific oversight entity should be established to evaluate the validity, reliability and equity of technologies prior to their implementation in the criminal legal system.
The federal government should also establish and fund a research agenda to ensure that extant and future development of criminal investigative and forensic methods and technologies, including 911 call analysis, are properly tested and evaluated before they are widely used.
Lastly, as noted above, we call for a review of every case in the country that involves 911 call analysis and an immediate nationwide moratorium on the technique so it can be fully evaluated before it creates any further harm.
Any one of us could need to call 911 for help in a moment of crisis. Doing so should never be a pathway to a wrongful conviction.
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater's attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, "Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it's the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.
https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-12348801
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
---------------------------------------------------------------
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
—————————————————————————————————
FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
---------------------------------------------------------
YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater's attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, "Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it's the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.
https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-12348801
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