Thanks Dr. Jon... Fun fact: My name is also Jon. Your videos are always enlightening and wonderful to watch. You are a smart man and your calm demeanor in being able to explain these complex topics is very refreshing. Thanks as always!
This is frightening to think of going through. I feel awful for those who've suffered such indignity. No innocent person deserves this. I think the second president of the U.S. summed it up best: “It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished." - John Adams
@@businessreform I'm all for that! Our founding fathers are not given enough credit by the current generation. They really knew what they were doing, and more importantly, why. Hopefully his wisdom enlightens some of this generation.
Not even guilty people *_deserve_* to be convicted on fake evidence. The American _justice system_ is a steamroller that doesn't care about innocence or guilt. Only conviction rates.
Your presentation is very interesting but even more, it is deeply disturbing....I sense that the lack of forensic rigor was knowingly applied...if not, what was the supposed scientifically based crime lab at Quantico thinking...or not thinking? This must have been willful fraud, and it should be prosecuted.
I agree, I did another video called “corrupted evidence” which discussed several crime lab technicians (from several different labs) who outright falsified records in THOUSANDS of tests. One of them, after being caught falsify thousands of drug test results over several years, was sentenced to 3 years. Just THREE YEARS. That did not do anything to boost my confidence in our legal system.
I commented in one of your earlier videos about the so-called bite expert and hoped you would cover him and here it is. I remember one case that put an innocent man in prison and his, dare I say it, rabid defense of his flawed technique. The ridiculous efforts he made to get his cast of the accused man's teeth pattern to fit was insulting to watch and I wondered how a jury fell for it. I think this so-called expert is still trying to defend himself and his accuracy. He practices in Mississippi, where I grew up, and the attitude there is the arrest is the conviction. They will even claim that if a man is found not guilty he tricked the system. "Hit wuz all them damn lawyer tricks, ah gettn' that feller off. I shudda been on that jury, ah tell ya. You wunt kech me fallen fur that." Justice is blind there for sure, blind drunk.
Was that the case where the “bite marks” weren’t even human and instead were crawdad marks because the body of a murdered girl was found in a body of water?
@@businessreform No, I remember that case as well. It was another case . It was called the Case of the Snaggled Tooth Killer. The accused had a mouth full of really messed up teeth, because he was poor, and the "expert" took a cast and manipulated it to try and make it fit. He couldn't just put the cast on the bite, he had to turn and twist it trying to call it a match. I think you can find it somewhere on YT.
It's appalling to realize how easily questionable "science" gains enough status, to interfere with people's lives. In this case, people being sent to jail, because they bought ammo from the same store as a killer, is a scary prospect. Good to know the method flaws stopped its use, but that realization should have immediately brought under review all cases based on the flawed method.
100% agree. I just can’t imagine the mind set of “I have an idea, let’s match bullet composition and tell juries we have scientific certainty there is a match” without doing any validation on the idea. To me that is “criminal recklessness” on the part of the prosecution.
@@businessreform Thanks! Absolutely! And this is more serious as we keep hearing "trust the science", when we should have doubts - science is about doubt, not irrevocable certainties.
That is a related forensic technique where you match a bullet to riflings in the barrel or a shell casing to a firing pin or ejector pin. To the best of my knowledge that technique is still in use.
It still seems like this is useful evidence, even if it isn't conclusive. Knowing that the bullet found at the crime scene is consistent with ammunition found in the possession of a suspect would just be part of the case brought against the person. It wouldn't be any different from saying that the weight, brand, and caliber of a bullet matched.
I agree with that but the experts testifying claimed that they could trace a recovered bullet back to the box of bullets it came from which is a much bigger claim.
I couldn’t find a good photo of a gun store with a whole wall full of ammo boxes (or ideally a whole pallet full of ammo boxes) so I had to go with the best image I could find and get permission to use in a video.
Junk forensics used in TV shows could effect real courtrooms. If someone seen something on TV they may belive it to be true. As such they may not question such junk forensics in a real court.
I earned my PhD at Purdue in 2013. While I was a doctoral student, I was surveyed by another doctoral student in a criminal justice program. The survey was being administered to hundreds of people and it asked what TV police drama / crime scene investigation shows we watched (from a long list of then popular shows on TV) and appropriately how many episodes we had seen of each. The survey then asked what percent of real life criminal cases involved DNA evidence, fingerprint evidence, etc. After completing the survey, I contacted the woman who sent the survey and she said her hypothesis was that people who watched a lot of crime drama shows would have inflated expectations about the use of certain forensic evidence. I need to look up her dissertation and see how that study turned out. I suspect her hypothesis was correct but I never say the results of her study.
One of the reasons I stopped watching all the CSI shows. Glib pseudoscience that _solves_ the crime. All in 42 minutes! This has affected the jury pool in such a way as to negate factual evidence because "I seen on TV that forensics is unpossible to defute!" So prosecutors load up their witness lists with endless, droning _experts_ that jurors are bedazzled with and duped into thinking that _scientific_ testimony is proof absolute. Lazy prosecutors, lazy police detectives and lazy lawyers combined with downright stupid, lazy jurors makes for a lot of bad convictions.
I enjoyed the original CSI as I thought they had an interesting and entertaining show, but I never got into the Miami and New York spin-offs. However, at the time I never thought about the impact such shows were having on the collective jury pool across our nation.
@@businessreform I came to the conclusion television is 90% propaganda and social engineering. I tend to favor science fiction shows and political satire. _News_ shows delivering in-depth reports that are 5 minutes or less with an advertising break thrown in are an insult. Yet the majority of people seem to be content to consider themselves _informed_ by watching them. Demagoguery has replaced critical thought.
@@milesobrien2694 Your comment reminds me of Neil Postman’s fantastic book, “Amusing Ourselves To Death”. It was written in 1985 and it lamented the move from print media to television as our primary way of getting “news”. This led to trivial stories with beautiful people dominating TV news instead of important stories that lacked visual interest. I agree with you 100%
@@businessreform Thanks for the book recommendation, I just downloaded it. Our family didn't have a television until ~1956 or so. I listened to radio shows like Boston Blackie and the Lone Ranger and spent hours in the public library consuming the whole Science Fiction section. One of my post secondary degrees is in Film and Television production. It puts media in a whole different light. I appreciate your channel and look forward to your upcoming episodes.
Not completely useless: analysis could show that it was very unlikely that a bullet fragment had come from a specific pack of bullets. This would be even more convincing if all available bullets from the pack were analysed to show the mean and distribution of the analysis. But that evidence would tend to acquit so it is hardly useful as forensic science, at least to the police.
Are you familiar with attempts to prove empty shell case markings can be matched to specific firearms? It appears to be more junk science. Another one is matching bullets to rifling marks. While this is a well established and accepted practice, it can be abused or defeated. And let's not forget blood splatter analysis and questionable DNA results. The list goes on.
There are varying degrees of “tool marks” analysis, some more valid than others. It seems the biggest issue is exaggerated confidence that “this bullet was fired from this gun”. In reality, all they can really say is the marks on this bullet or she’ll casing are consistent with mark left on other bullets or she’ll casings fired from that gun. It would be like saying “Joe” must be guilty because he fits the description given by an eye witness… then you later learn all the eye witness said was a white male about 5’10”. Joe may be consistent with that description but so are several million other men.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_of_Heilbronn The Phantom of Heilbronn, often alternatively referred to as the "Woman Without a Face", was a hypothesized unknown female serial killer whose existence was inferred from DNA evidence found at numerous crime scenes in Austria, France and Germany from 1993 to 2009. The six murders among these included that of police officer Michèle Kiesewetter, in Heilbronn, Germany on 25 April 2007.
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 89 | คู่เอก "ยอดไอคิว vs คิริลล์"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Z3vYkHJ_5Ig/mqdefault.jpg)
Thanks Dr. Jon... Fun fact: My name is also Jon. Your videos are always enlightening and wonderful to watch. You are a smart man and your calm demeanor in being able to explain these complex topics is very refreshing. Thanks as always!
Thank you!
This is frightening to think of going through. I feel awful for those who've suffered such indignity. No innocent person deserves this. I think the second president of the U.S. summed it up best:
“It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished." - John Adams
That is a great quote, I may have to include that in my next video about bite mark analysis.
@@businessreform I'm all for that! Our founding fathers are not given enough credit by the current generation. They really knew what they were doing, and more importantly, why. Hopefully his wisdom enlightens some of this generation.
Not even guilty people *_deserve_* to be convicted on fake evidence. The American _justice system_ is a steamroller that doesn't care about innocence or guilt. Only conviction rates.
Your presentation is very interesting but even more, it is deeply disturbing....I sense that the lack of forensic rigor was knowingly applied...if not, what was the supposed scientifically based crime lab at Quantico thinking...or not thinking? This must have been willful fraud, and it should be prosecuted.
I agree, I did another video called “corrupted evidence” which discussed several crime lab technicians (from several different labs) who outright falsified records in THOUSANDS of tests. One of them, after being caught falsify thousands of drug test results over several years, was sentenced to 3 years. Just THREE YEARS. That did not do anything to boost my confidence in our legal system.
I commented in one of your earlier videos about the so-called bite expert and hoped you would cover him and here it is. I remember one case that put an innocent man in prison and his, dare I say it, rabid defense of his flawed technique. The ridiculous efforts he made to get his cast of the accused man's teeth pattern to fit was insulting to watch and I wondered how a jury fell for it. I think this so-called expert is still trying to defend himself and his accuracy. He practices in Mississippi, where I grew up, and the attitude there is the arrest is the conviction. They will even claim that if a man is found not guilty he tricked the system. "Hit wuz all them damn lawyer tricks, ah gettn' that feller off. I shudda been on that jury, ah tell ya. You wunt kech me fallen fur that." Justice is blind there for sure, blind drunk.
Was that the case where the “bite marks” weren’t even human and instead were crawdad marks because the body of a murdered girl was found in a body of water?
@@businessreform No, I remember that case as well. It was another case . It was called the Case of the Snaggled Tooth Killer. The accused had a mouth full of really messed up teeth, because he was poor, and the "expert" took a cast and manipulated it to try and make it fit. He couldn't just put the cast on the bite, he had to turn and twist it trying to call it a match. I think you can find it somewhere on YT.
It's appalling to realize how easily questionable "science" gains enough status, to interfere with people's lives. In this case, people being sent to jail, because they bought ammo from the same store as a killer, is a scary prospect. Good to know the method flaws stopped its use, but that realization should have immediately brought under review all cases based on the flawed method.
100% agree. I just can’t imagine the mind set of “I have an idea, let’s match bullet composition and tell juries we have scientific certainty there is a match” without doing any validation on the idea. To me that is “criminal recklessness” on the part of the prosecution.
@@businessreform Thanks! Absolutely! And this is more serious as we keep hearing "trust the science", when we should have doubts - science is about doubt, not irrevocable certainties.
I thought bullet matching was to the barrel, each barrel is supposed to leave a unique signature then I heard that was shot down lol.
That is a related forensic technique where you match a bullet to riflings in the barrel or a shell casing to a firing pin or ejector pin. To the best of my knowledge that technique is still in use.
@@businessreform Ok thanks, there are videos climing that is very hard to do, especially on models that are mass produced.
This can easily be not true, but if everyone is thinkung the opposite threre is significantly less incenrive to use firearm. Pure psychology.
It still seems like this is useful evidence, even if it isn't conclusive. Knowing that the bullet found at the crime scene is consistent with ammunition found in the possession of a suspect would just be part of the case brought against the person. It wouldn't be any different from saying that the weight, brand, and caliber of a bullet matched.
I agree with that but the experts testifying claimed that they could trace a recovered bullet back to the box of bullets it came from which is a much bigger claim.
It could be a lead pointing to a pool of suspects to investigate further by other means. Leads are not evidence.
Woe and Wow...the boxes of bullets..Yikes.
I couldn’t find a good photo of a gun store with a whole wall full of ammo boxes (or ideally a whole pallet full of ammo boxes) so I had to go with the best image I could find and get permission to use in a video.
Book em Dano@!
😂 I haven’t thought about that show in a LONG time but I immediately caught the reference. Well played 😊
Junk forensics used in TV shows could effect real courtrooms. If someone seen something on TV they may belive it to be true. As such they may not question such junk forensics in a real court.
I earned my PhD at Purdue in 2013. While I was a doctoral student, I was surveyed by another doctoral student in a criminal justice program. The survey was being administered to hundreds of people and it asked what TV police drama / crime scene investigation shows we watched (from a long list of then popular shows on TV) and appropriately how many episodes we had seen of each. The survey then asked what percent of real life criminal cases involved DNA evidence, fingerprint evidence, etc.
After completing the survey, I contacted the woman who sent the survey and she said her hypothesis was that people who watched a lot of crime drama shows would have inflated expectations about the use of certain forensic evidence.
I need to look up her dissertation and see how that study turned out. I suspect her hypothesis was correct but I never say the results of her study.
One of the reasons I stopped watching all the CSI shows. Glib pseudoscience that _solves_ the crime. All in 42 minutes! This has affected the jury pool in such a way as to negate factual evidence because "I seen on TV that forensics is unpossible to defute!" So prosecutors load up their witness lists with endless, droning _experts_ that jurors are bedazzled with and duped into thinking that _scientific_ testimony is proof absolute. Lazy prosecutors, lazy police detectives and lazy lawyers combined with downright stupid, lazy jurors makes for a lot of bad convictions.
The "officers" were also very fond of threatening suspects they didn't like too. IRL, that's a crime. Hollywood BS.
I enjoyed the original CSI as I thought they had an interesting and entertaining show, but I never got into the Miami and New York spin-offs. However, at the time I never thought about the impact such shows were having on the collective jury pool across our nation.
@@businessreform I came to the conclusion television is 90% propaganda and social engineering. I tend to favor science fiction shows and political satire. _News_ shows delivering in-depth reports that are 5 minutes or less with an advertising break thrown in are an insult. Yet the majority of people seem to be content to consider themselves _informed_ by watching them. Demagoguery has replaced critical thought.
@@milesobrien2694 Your comment reminds me of Neil Postman’s fantastic book, “Amusing Ourselves To Death”. It was written in 1985 and it lamented the move from print media to television as our primary way of getting “news”. This led to trivial stories with beautiful people dominating TV news instead of important stories that lacked visual interest. I agree with you 100%
@@businessreform Thanks for the book recommendation, I just downloaded it. Our family didn't have a television until ~1956 or so. I listened to radio shows like Boston Blackie and the Lone Ranger and spent hours in the public library consuming the whole Science Fiction section. One of my post secondary degrees is in Film and Television production. It puts media in a whole different light.
I appreciate your channel and look forward to your upcoming episodes.
Not completely useless: analysis could show that it was very unlikely that a bullet fragment had come from a specific pack of bullets. This would be even more convincing if all available bullets from the pack were analysed to show the mean and distribution of the analysis. But that evidence would tend to acquit so it is hardly useful as forensic science, at least to the police.
That is always an issue, the prosecution usually has a much larger budget than the defense.
Are you familiar with attempts to prove empty shell case markings can be matched to specific firearms? It appears to be more junk science. Another one is matching bullets to rifling marks. While this is a well established and accepted practice, it can be abused or defeated. And let's not forget blood splatter analysis and questionable DNA results. The list goes on.
There are varying degrees of “tool marks” analysis, some more valid than others. It seems the biggest issue is exaggerated confidence that “this bullet was fired from this gun”. In reality, all they can really say is the marks on this bullet or she’ll casing are consistent with mark left on other bullets or she’ll casings fired from that gun.
It would be like saying “Joe” must be guilty because he fits the description given by an eye witness… then you later learn all the eye witness said was a white male about 5’10”. Joe may be consistent with that description but so are several million other men.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_of_Heilbronn
The Phantom of Heilbronn, often alternatively referred to as the "Woman Without a Face", was a hypothesized unknown female serial killer whose existence was inferred from DNA evidence found at numerous crime scenes in Austria, France and Germany from 1993 to 2009. The six murders among these included that of police officer Michèle Kiesewetter, in Heilbronn, Germany on 25 April 2007.