Saturday, January 6, 2018
Technology series: Part Four; Forensic statistical tool: New York City moves to create accountability for algorithms..." The algorithm’s source code was a closely held secret for years until a federal judge granted a motion filed by ProPublica to lift a protective order on it in October. We then published the code. Defense attorneys testified at the hearing, criticizing the medical examiner’s office for what they saw as a dangerous lack of transparency in the development of its DNA tools."
Friday, January 5, 2018
Technology series: Part Three: Artificial intelligence (AI) is evolving very quickly. But can it outpace the biases of its creators, humans. Kate Crawford, a Microsoft researcher and co-founder of AI Now, a research institute studying the social impact of artificial intelligence, thinks not. Freelance writer and speaker Sidney Fussell describes her "incredible keynote speech" entitled “The Trouble with Bias,” on Gizmodo..." “An allocative harm is when a system allocates or withholds a certain opportunity or resource,” she began. It’s when AI is used to make a certain decision, let’s say mortgage applications, but unfairly or erroneously denies them to a certain group. She offered the hypothetical example of a bank’s AI continually denying mortgage applications to women. She then offered a startling real world example: a risk assessment AI routinely found that black criminals were a higher risk than white criminals. (Black criminals were referred to pre-trial detention more often because of this decision.) Representation harms “occur when systems reinforce the subordination of some groups along the lines of identity,” she said—essentially, when technology reinforces stereotypes or diminishes specific groups. “This sort of harm can take place regardless of whether resources are being withheld.”
PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Crawford tied together the complex relationship between the two harms by citing a 2013 report from LaTanya Sweeney. Sweeney famously noted the algorithmic pattern in search results whereby googling a “black-sounding” name surfaces ads for criminal background checks. In her paper, Sweeney argued that this representational harm of associating blackness with criminality can have an allocative consequence: employers, when searching applicants’ names, may discriminate against black employees because search results are tied to criminals. “The perpetuation of stereotypes of black criminality is problematic even if it is outside of a hiring context,” Crawford explained. “It’s producing a harm of how black people are represented and understood socially. So instead of just thinking about machine learning contributing to decision making in, say, hiring or criminal justice, we also need to think about the role of machine learning in harmful representations of identity.”
---------------------------------------------------------------
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I think this is precisely the moment where computer science is having to ask much bigger questions because it’s being asked to do much bigger things.”
KATE CRAWFORD;
----------------------------------------------------------------
STORY: "AI Professor Details Real-World Dangers of Algorithm Bias," by freelance writer and speaker Sidney Fussell, published by Gizmodo on December 8, 2017. (Gizmodo is a design, technology, science and science fiction website that also features articles on politics.)
GIST: "However quickly artificial intelligence evolves, however steadfastly it becomes embedded in our lives—in health, law enforcement, sex, etc.—it can’t outpace the biases of its creators, humans. Kate Crawford, a Microsoft researcher and co-founder of AI Now,
a research institute studying the social impact of artificial
intelligence, delivered an incredible keynote speech, titled “The
Trouble with Bias,” at Neural Information Processing System Conference
on Tuesday. In Crawford’s keynote, she presented a fascinating breakdown
of different types of harms done by algorithmic biases. As
she explained, the word “bias” has a mathematically specific definition
in machine learning, usually referring to errors in estimation or
over/under representing populations when sampling. Less discussed is
bias in terms of the disparate impact machine learning might have on
different populations. There’s a real danger to ignoring the latter type
of bias. Crawford details two types of harm: allocative harm and
representational harm. “An
allocative harm is when a system allocates or withholds a certain
opportunity or resource,” she began. It’s when AI is used to make a
certain decision, let’s say mortgage applications, but unfairly or
erroneously denies them to a certain group. She offered the hypothetical
example of a bank’s AI continually denying mortgage applications to
women. She then offered a startling real world example: a risk
assessment AI routinely found that black criminals were a higher risk than white criminals. (Black criminals were referred to pre-trial detention more often because of this decision.) Representation
harms “occur when systems reinforce the subordination of some groups
along the lines of identity,” she said—essentially, when technology
reinforces stereotypes or diminishes specific groups. “This sort of harm
can take place regardless of whether resources are being withheld.”
Examples include Google Photos labeling black people as “gorillas,” (a harmful stereotype that’s been historically used to say black people literally aren’t human) or AI that assumes East Asians are blinking when they smile. Crawford tied together the complex relationship between the two harms by citing a 2013 report from LaTanya Sweeney.
Sweeney famously noted the algorithmic pattern in search results
whereby googling a “black-sounding” name surfaces ads for criminal
background checks. In her paper, Sweeney argued that this
representational harm of associating blackness with criminality can have
an allocative consequence: employers, when searching applicants’ names,
may discriminate against black employees because search results are
tied to criminals. “The
perpetuation of stereotypes of black criminality is problematic even if
it is outside of a hiring context,” Crawford explained. “It’s producing
a harm of how black people are represented and understood socially. So
instead of just thinking about machine learning contributing to decision
making in, say, hiring or criminal justice, we also need to think about
the role of machine learning in harmful representations of identity.” Search
engine results and online ads both represent the world around us and
influence it. Online representation doesn’t stay online. It can have
real economic consequences, as Sweeney argued. It also didn’t originate
online—these stereotypes of criminality/inhumanity are centuries old. As
Crawford’s speech continued, she went on to detail various types of
representational harm, their connections to allocation harms and, most
interestingly, the ways to diminish their impact. As is
often suggested, it seems like a quick fix to either break problematic
word-associations or remove problematic data, what’s often called
“scrubbing to neutral.” When Google image search was shown to have a
pattern of gender bias in 2015, showing almost entirely men
when users searched for terms like “CEO” or “executive,” they
eventually reworked the search algorithm so it’s more balanced. But this
technique has its own ethical concerns. “Who
gets to decide which terms should be removed and why those ones in
particular?” Crawford asked. “And an even bigger question is whose idea
of neutrality is at work? Do we assume neutral is what we have in the
world today? If so, how do we account for years of discrimination
against particular subpopulations?” Crawford opts for
interdisciplinary approaches to issues of bias and neutrality, using the
logics and reasoning of ethics, anthropology, gender studies,
sociology, etc, and rethinking the idea there there’s any one, easily
quantifiable answer. “I think this is precisely the moment where
computer science is having to ask much bigger questions because it’s
being asked to do much bigger things.”"
The entire story can be read at:
The entire story can be read at:
https://gizmodo.com/microsoft-researcher-details-real-world-dangers-of-algo-1821129334
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. 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/c
Thursday, January 4, 2018
Technology series: Part two: Do you really believe that a robot can know you are lying and that scientists have created an AI (artificial intelligence) that can detect deception in the courtroom that is already 'significantly better' than humans? Last word - at least 'last two initials' - to Mark Godsey of the Wrongful Convictions Blog.
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Several recent articles have predicted that computer technology is on the way to becoming a valuable tool for detecting lies. Take"Will augmented reality make lying obsolete? Honestly, the biggest culture-changing application for augmented reality will be always-on lie detection," by contributing columnist Mike Elgan, published by Computerworld on December 16, 2017. "Some 35 years ago, late-night talk show host Johnny Carson imagined what it would be like if politicians were hooked up to lie detectors.) Soon, you won’t have to imagine it. There will be an app for that. Old-fashioned lie detectors, called polygraphs, track blood pressure, breathing and other physiological metrics to gauge stress levels during questioning. The administrator of a polygraph asks questions to determine a baseline response, then watches for signs of stress with additional questioning. Polygraphs are unreliable and controversial. They have to be administered by an expert using expensive equipment in a controlled environment. Even then, the results are not admissible as evidence in court in the U.S. and the U.K. But the future of lie detection is A.I. A.I. can take various “signals,” such as eye movements, facial gestures, body movements, voice intonations and others, to estimate the truthfulness of a person’s statements."
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3243049/artificial-intelligence/will-augmented-reality-make-lying-obsolete.html
Then there's The Daily Mail story: 'The robot that knows when you're lying: Scientists create an AI that can detect deception in the courtroom (and it's already 'significantly better' than humans)... "The system, called DARE, was trained by watching 15 videos of people in court It was trained recognised five expressions that indicate someone is lying These are frowning, raised eyebrows, lips turning up, lips protruded and head tilt In a final test, the system performed with 92 per cent accuracy. The researchers describe this performance as 'significantly better' than humans."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5197747/AI-detects-expressions-tell-people-lie-court.html#ixzz52NPR9LbK
I prefer to leave the last word to Mark Godsey of The Wrongful Conviction Blog, in reaction to the Daily Mail piece. " December 22, 2017 Leave a comment
"Looks at this. It appears to be based on the premise that certain facial movements definitely indicate lying in all humans. That is a faulty premise. The robot is 92% accurate at picking up those facial expressions, which the manufacturer equates with 92% accuracy in lie detection. I call BS!"
#BlindInjusticeChapter6BlindIntuition.
https://wrongfulconvictionsblog.org/2017/12/22/the-robot-that-knows-when-youre-lying-scientists-create-an-ai-that-can-detect-deception-in-the-courtroom/
In truth, I think Mark has got it right on. Long live The Wrongful Conviction Blog.
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog;
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. 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/c
Wednesday, January 3, 2018
Technology series: Part One: Software Is Deciding How Long People Spend in Jail,' Truthdig reports. But is it doing a good job?..."A 2016 ProPublica study found that COMPAS is “particularly likely to falsely flag black defendants as future criminals, wrongly labeling them this way at almost twice the rate as white defendants.” The analysis also determined that white offenders were wrongly given particularly low scores that were poor predictors of their real rates of recidivism. Ellora Thadaney Israni, a former software engineer and current Harvard Law student, notes that without constant corrective upkeep to make AI programs like COMPAS unlearn their bigotry, those biases tend to be further compounded. “The computer is worse than the human,” Israni writes at the New York Times. “It is not simply parroting back to us our own biases, it is exacerbating them.” -
STORY: "Software is deciding how long people spend in jail," by Kali Holloway, published by Truthdig on December 24, 2017.
GIST: The United States jails more of its citizens, by percentage and in raw numbers, than
any other country on earth, including those we label dictatorships and
criticize as human rights violators. Judge, jury and parole board
verdicts are influenced by everything from lived experience to momentary mood to how recently participants have had a food break. Studies consistently show that being black counts against defendants, resulting in far longer, harsher penalties than white offenders get for the same crimes. So what solution are courts now employing in order to overcome those biases? Let computers make sentencing decisions. Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions,
or COMPAS, is perhaps the most widely used risk-assessment algorithm.
The program, distributed by Northpointe Inc., uses data to make
predictions about the likelihood that a criminal defendant will
reoffend. Essentially a digital questionnaire, COMPAS poses 137 queries,
then uses the answers to determine, on a scale from 1 to 10, whether a
defendant is at a high or low risk of committing more crimes. (No one,
save for the manufacturer, knows precisely how COMPAS’ proprietary
algorithm works, and Northpointe has repeatedly declined to offer greater transparency.) Risk scores are supposed to be just one of a constellation of factors
that inform sentencing decisions, but research has found those numbers
often weigh heavily on sentencing decisions. Essentially, artificial
intelligence machines are now the basis of critical life decisions for
already vulnerable humans. As you might guess, the problems with this practice have proven
myriad. The most glaring issue relates to the tendency of computer
programs to replicate the biases of their designers. That means along
with say, the ability to crunch data in the blink of an eye, racism and sexism are also built into our AI machines. A 2016 ProPublica study found that COMPAS is “particularly likely to falsely flag black defendants as
future criminals, wrongly labeling them this way at almost twice the
rate as white defendants.” The analysis also determined that white
offenders were wrongly given particularly low scores that were poor
predictors of their real rates of recidivism. Ellora Thadaney Israni, a
former software engineer and current Harvard Law student, notes that
without constant corrective upkeep to make AI programs like COMPAS
unlearn their bigotry, those biases tend to be further compounded. “The
computer is worse than the human,” Israni writes at the New York Times. “It is not simply parroting back to us our own biases, it is exacerbating them.” Beyond helping an already racist system perpetuate justice
inequalities, by reducing a defendant to a series of facts and data
points without nuance or human understanding, risk assessments miss
mitigating factors that offer a fuller picture. Israni notes that while
judges and juries are notoriously prone to human failures in reason, it
remains true that a “computer cannot look a defendant in the eye,
account for a troubled childhood or disability, and recommend a
rehabilitative sentence.” The alternative is true as well. Computers can
miss red flags, while traits that look good on paper can outweigh more
serious issues, favorably skewing a defendant’s score. “A guy who has molested a small child every day for a year could
still come out as a low risk because he probably has a job,” Mark
Boessenecker, a Superior Court judge in California’s Napa County, told
ProPublica. “Meanwhile, a drunk guy will look high risk because he’s
homeless. These risk factors don’t tell you whether the guy ought to go
to prison or not; the risk factors tell you more about what the
probation conditions ought to be.” At the end of the day, the ProPublica investigation found that COMPAS
in particular, and risk assessment programs in general, are not very
good at their jobs. Only 20 percent of the people predicted to commit violent crimes
actually went on to do so. When a full range of crimes were taken into
account — including misdemeanors such as driving with an expired license
— the algorithm was somewhat more accurate than a coin flip. Of those
deemed likely to re-offend, 61 percent were arrested for any subsequent
crimes within two years. Risk assessment tools continue to be used in courtrooms around the
country, despite so much troubling evidence and a recent court
challenge. A Wisconsin man named Eric Loomis was sentenced to six years in jail for driving a stolen car and fleeing police, with the judge in the case citing Loomis’ high COMPAS score during sentencing. Loomis appealed the ruling up to the Supreme Court,
which declined to hear the case. In doing so, the court essentially
(though not explicitly) gave its blessing to the program’s use. In an era in which the Trump Department of Justice has repeatedly
promised to push policies that make the justice system fail at even more
turns, the use of AI programs in our courts is all the more dangerous.
At the very least, courts—which don’t understand how the programs they
use make the assessments they consider—should attempt to find more
transparent systems and to mandate oversight that makes those systems
function at optimal level. But that would actually be a departure from
the way the courts have always functioned in this country, and it would
require the U.S. to develop a real commitment to justice."
The entire story can be found at:
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/software-deciding-long-people-spend-jail/
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. 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/c
The entire story can be found at:
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/software-deciding-long-people-spend-jail/
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. 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/c
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Software Is Deciding How Long People Spend in Jail
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comments are those of the authors, not Truthdig. Truthdig takes no
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The present creates the future.
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Help support our mission for 2018.
Tuesday, January 2, 2018
(Year end Part Seven): The top 10 legal tech stories of 2017, by American Bar Association Legal Affairs Writer Jason Tashea - all are important - one is of particular interest to the readers of this Blog..." In October, in a rare win for algorithmic transparency advocates, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, required the unmasking of an algorithm used in genotyping—a type of DNA comparison—called the Forensic Statistical Tool. While the judge had already allowed the defense to analyze the tool under a protective order, journalists at ProPublica filed a motion arguing there was public interest in the code. The tool’s code is now posted online."
STORY: "The top 10 legal tech stories of 2017," by ABA Legal Affairs Writer Jason Tashea, published by The American Bar Association Journal on December 22, 2017.
GIST: All ten legal tech stories are significant - and worth a read. The one which is of particular interest to the readers of this Blog runs under the heading, 'A court-ordered glimpse into a black box," as follows: In October, in a rare win for algorithmic transparency advocates, a
federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of
New York, required the unmasking
of an algorithm used in genotyping—a type of DNA comparison—called the
Forensic Statistical Tool. While the judge had already allowed the
defense to analyze the tool under a protective order, journalists at
ProPublica filed a motion arguing there was public interest in the code.
The tool’s code is now posted online. Before getting too excited about the onslaught of court-ordered
open-sourced algorithms, it should be noted that FST was created and
operated by the state of New York and had stopped being used in new
investigations earlier in the year, giving this case a unique fact
pattern and not making it the easiest cognate with many privately held
and black-box algorithms being used by government agencies."
The entire article can be found at:
http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/the_top_10_legal_tech_stories_of_2017
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. 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/c
Monday, January 1, 2018
(Year end Part Six): Rajesh and Nupur Talwar: India - a case which occupied many posts on this Blog over the past two years - was listed by the Deccan Chronicle, in an article headed: "Year-ender 2017: Joys and sorrows; judgements that left a mark this year."..."Remarkable verdicts that were welcomed heartily by people included making privacy a fundamental right, upholding death sentences of Nirbhaya rapists, special court convicting six accused in Mumbai bomb blast case to pronouncing Gurmeet Ram Rahim to be guilty of rape while decisions like releasing Rajesh and Nupur Talwar in Aarushi murder case, due to lack of evidence and acquitting all the accused in 2G scam were a few instances that left people disheartened."
STORY: "Year ender 2017: Joys and sorrows; judgements that left a mark this year," published by The Deccan Chronicle on December 27, 2018.
GIST: "2017 has been a noteworthy year with SC of India and other subordinate courts passing landmark decisions having a strong impact on people....Remarkable verdicts that were welcomed heartily by people included making privacy a fundamental right, upholding death sentences of Nirbhaya rapists, special court convicting six accused in Mumbai bomb blast case to pronouncing Gurmeet Ram Rahim to be guilty of rape while decisions like releasing Rajesh and Nupur Talwar in Aarushi murder case, due to lack of evidence and acquitting all the accused in 2G scam were a few instances that left people disheartened....The story: "Aarushi Talwar murder case: Dentist couple Rajesh and Nupur Talwar were acquitted of all charges in the murder of their daughter Aarushi by the Allahabad High Court on October 12, 2017. They walked out free from the Ghaziabad Dasna Jail after spending four years in jail. This murder mystery made news across the country as the parents, who were allegedly the main convicts in the murder were held not guilty by the court." (I feel privileged to have been able to assist the couple by helping locate an expert with a most uncommon expertise. As Nupur Talwar's cousin, Toronto Star columnist Shree Parakdar - who fought so hard for the Talwars, put it in the Toronto Star, I was one of several Canadians who helped out. "I won’t rehash the story as you can read it at thestar.com/aarushi or read the best-selling book titled Aarushi, or watch the film Talvar on Netflix or listen to the podcast Trial By Error. But it now has visible Canadian markings on it. When I first wrote it, I expected it to have the distant appeal of a foreign news story, but I had underestimated the cultural linkages between India and Canada. I had also overlooked the universality of human connection. My editor, Lynn McAuley, had not, though, and she guided my work, helped sew it up and play it big, as we say in the newsroom. My inbox was flooded for months. Photographer Spencer Wynn, who came with me to India to capture the story visually, told me working on it was a highlight of his career. A couple of years later, quite by coincidence, Cameron Bailey, the artistic director of the Toronto International Film Festival, went movie spotting with an eye out for strong independent work by women and brought Talvar to premiere at the festival. The indomitable Win Wahrer of Innocence Canada, formerly the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, once introduced me to John Artis, the man who spent 14 years in a U.S. prison with boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter for murders they did not commit. “Dream, hope, never give up,” Artis told me. Another time when I was looking for an independent forensic expert, Harold Levy, a retired investigative Star reporter and former defence lawyer, swung into action and used his unique skills to identify and track a man down — while he was on vacation in Romania."
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/10/13/my-cousin-acquitted-in-murder-of-her-daughter-aarushi-talwar-needs-space-to-grieve-paradkar.html
The entire list of stories 'Joys and sorrows; judgements that left a mark this year,' can be found at the following link
https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/in-other-news/261217/year-ender-2017-joys-and-sorrows-judgements-that-left-a-mark-this-year.html
BONUS 2017 YEAR ENDER: DALLAS NEWS: (1): Dallas News reported that Texas had sent just 4 killers to death row as
Texans lost their taste for eye-for-an-eye justice. "In
March, the U.S.
Supreme Court ordered Texas to use modern medical standards to determine
whether death row inmates are fit to be executed. The state had
used medical standards from 1992. Nationwide,
four death row inmates were exonerated in 2017 because of flawed forensics,
poor defense and prosecutorial misconduct, the national year-end report showed. The
report also showed that less than 1 percent of counties sentenced anyone to
death, and 85 percent of counties have never executed anyone. "Across
the political spectrum, more people are coming to the view that there are
better ways to keep us safe than executing a handful of offenders selected from
a random death-penalty lottery," Robert Dunham, executive director of the
Death Penalty Information Center, said in the nonprofit's year-end report.
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/courts/2017/12/30/state-sends-just-4-killers-death-row-texans-lose-taste-eye-eye-justice
BONUS 2017 YEAR ENDER (2): POST-REGISTER: IDAHO: Chris Tapp: Freed! After 7,353 days behind bars, Chris Tapp was released from prison in March. Tapp was first jailed in 1996 just before he was charged with the rape and murder of Angie Dodge. But a slew of experts, and Angie’s mother, Carol Dodge, have been adamant that Tapp was wrongfully convicted after being coerced into a false confession. Tapp’s DNA was never found at a crime scene where many samples were left, including semen and hair. All of the samples taken to date point to a single, unknown killer. An outside investigator hired by prosecutors found that virtually all the details in Tapp’s confession were fed to him during the course of his long interrogation and polygraph sessions. Tapp’s release came in a resentencing deal with prosecutors. Under the terms of the deal, the murder conviction remains on Tapp’s record (though he maintains that he is innocent). The rape charge was dismissed. He was released from prison 10 years before his first scheduled parole date. In the wake of his release, wrongful conviction experts suggested that Idaho examine creating a conviction review board, a set of investigators and lawyers who would look into suspected wrongful convictions to determine whether there is enough evidence against a convicted person to keep them in prison. Experts also recommended the press examine its pre-trial coverage practices, especially in high-profile cases."
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. 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/cBONUS 2017 YEAR ENDER (2): POST-REGISTER: IDAHO: Chris Tapp: Freed! After 7,353 days behind bars, Chris Tapp was released from prison in March. Tapp was first jailed in 1996 just before he was charged with the rape and murder of Angie Dodge. But a slew of experts, and Angie’s mother, Carol Dodge, have been adamant that Tapp was wrongfully convicted after being coerced into a false confession. Tapp’s DNA was never found at a crime scene where many samples were left, including semen and hair. All of the samples taken to date point to a single, unknown killer. An outside investigator hired by prosecutors found that virtually all the details in Tapp’s confession were fed to him during the course of his long interrogation and polygraph sessions. Tapp’s release came in a resentencing deal with prosecutors. Under the terms of the deal, the murder conviction remains on Tapp’s record (though he maintains that he is innocent). The rape charge was dismissed. He was released from prison 10 years before his first scheduled parole date. In the wake of his release, wrongful conviction experts suggested that Idaho examine creating a conviction review board, a set of investigators and lawyers who would look into suspected wrongful convictions to determine whether there is enough evidence against a convicted person to keep them in prison. Experts also recommended the press examine its pre-trial coverage practices, especially in high-profile cases."
BONUS 2017 YEAR ENDER; (3): HERALD-WHIG: ILLINOIS: "Lovelace situation still commands attention." The case involving former Quincy attorney Curtis Lovelace continued to capture the region's attention. Lovelace, a former Adams County assistant
state's attorney and Quincy School Board president, was found not guilty
by a Sangamon County jury March 10 in connection with the Feb. 14,
2006, death of his first wife, Cory Lovelace. It was the second time he
was tried in the case. An Adams County jury was unable to reach a
verdict after two days of deliberations in February 2016, and a mistrial
was declared. Lovelace subsequently filed an 11-count civil
rights lawsuit against the city of Quincy, multiple officers with the
Quincy Police Department, Adams County and two county officials. The
trial is set to start Oct. 15, 2019. Lovelace's claims included that
evidence was withheld and fabricated by the Quincy Police Department in
the two murder trials. his case attracted national attention on a number of fronts, including NBC "Dateline" and CBS "48 Hours" specials. Lovelace and his current wife, Christine, have relocated to the Champaign area."
BONUS 2017 YEAR ENDER (4): CORSICANA DAILY SUN: (TEXAS): No. 7: Jury rules in Jackson's favor in civil judicial- misconduct trial; Jurors in the civil judicial-misconduct trial of John Jackson ruled 11 to 1 in his favor Wednesday, May 10, at the Navarro County Courthouse. Jackson helped send Cameron Todd Willingham to death row, but the jury had to decide if he hid evidence that could have spared Willingham. The civil judicial-misconduct trial took place in the Navarro County Courthouse where Jackson, then an assistant district attorney, in 1992 persuaded jurors to find Willingham guilty of capital murder for torching the Corsicana home in which his three young daughters died. The adequacy of the arson evidence in Willingham’s high-profile trial was the subject of several critical investigations after the conviction. But it’s the circumstances surrounding a purported jailhouse confession that prompted the New York-based Innocence Project to file a grievance against Jackson with the state bar association’s Commission for Lawyer Discipline.
BONUS 2017 YEAR ENDER (4): CORSICANA DAILY SUN: (TEXAS): No. 7: Jury rules in Jackson's favor in civil judicial- misconduct trial; Jurors in the civil judicial-misconduct trial of John Jackson ruled 11 to 1 in his favor Wednesday, May 10, at the Navarro County Courthouse. Jackson helped send Cameron Todd Willingham to death row, but the jury had to decide if he hid evidence that could have spared Willingham. The civil judicial-misconduct trial took place in the Navarro County Courthouse where Jackson, then an assistant district attorney, in 1992 persuaded jurors to find Willingham guilty of capital murder for torching the Corsicana home in which his three young daughters died. The adequacy of the arson evidence in Willingham’s high-profile trial was the subject of several critical investigations after the conviction. But it’s the circumstances surrounding a purported jailhouse confession that prompted the New York-based Innocence Project to file a grievance against Jackson with the state bar association’s Commission for Lawyer Discipline.
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