Maryland Supreme Court makes it illegal to say which gun shot a bullet in ballistic testimonies

[thomdunn]

This reminds me of the HBO adaptation of THE STAIRCASE. I was glad to see how they dramatized in court that the blood splatter experts were all contradictory and bullshit but they all genuinely believed what they were saying.

[ClutchLinkey]

@thomdunn

sounds like that’s precisely what this accomplished.

Worked on me! And now I’m reading more deeply about the junk science I was raised by tv crime procedurals to think was infallible. So, click baity headline for the win.

[Mindysan33]

[Fefelo]

I was under the impression that a lot of matching a bullet to a barrel is nonsense. Even more so with modern cold hammer forged barrels which are very smooth and don’t have the same kind of tool marks you would find with cut rifling. I’m all in favor of convicting anyone who misuses a firearm, but I’m not in favor of convicting people based on nonsense.

[Brainspore]

@bobtato

if there’s no data on ballistic experts’ hit rates, that implies the qualification process doesn’t involve, you know, taking tests.

I’d love to see double-blind procedures introduced into the forensic investigation process. For example, the lab techs could be given multiple bullets and/or multiple guns for each ballistic examination without ever being told which (if any) are suspected to match each other.

If they can’t consistently make an accurate match without knowing what results the investigators are looking for then their expertise is worthless.

[Otherbrother]

@gatto

@hecep

Complicating the matter are “dull” cops who somehow make it to detective

i think the path from beat cop to detective is ridiculous anyway.

detectives should go to school for detecting ( criminology, sociology, forensics, … ) being a cop doesn’t seem like it would provide any of the knowledge or skills needed for investigation

Not the way the system is currently set up. David Simon (creator of The Wire) has talked a number of times about the perverse incentives that Police forces have these days, largely as a result of the War on Drugs. The cops who get rewarded with promotions and overtime pay are the ones who make a lot of arrests, and that metric is easiest to meet by snagging folks off the street for posession and dealing, then leaning on those folks to rat out others. In the meantime the clearance rate for solving serious crimes like muders has gone down the toilet because cops have lost the skills and motivation to actually solve real crimes.

How do you reward cops? Two ways: promotion and cash. That’s what rewards a cop. If you want to pay overtime pay for having police fill the jails with loitering arrests or simple drug possession or failure to yield, if you want to spend your municipal treasure rewarding that, well the cop who’s going to court 7 or 8 days a month — and court is always overtime pay — you’re going to damn near double your salary every month. On the other hand, the guy who actually goes to his post and investigates who’s burglarizing the homes, at the end of the month maybe he’s made one arrest. It may be the right arrest and one that makes his post safer, but he’s going to court one day and he’s out in two hours. So you fail to reward the cop who actually does police work. But worse, it’s time to make new sergeants or lieutenants, and so you look at the computer and say: Who’s doing the most work? And they say, man, this guy had 80 arrests last month, and this other guy’s only got one. Who do you think gets made sergeant? And then who trains the next generation of cops in how not to do police work? I’ve just described for you the culture of the Baltimore police department amid the deluge of the drug war, where actual investigation goes unrewarded and where rounding up bodies for street dealing, drug possession, loitering such – the easiest and most self-evident arrests a cop can make – is nonetheless the path to enlightenment and promotion and some additional pay. That’s what the drug war built

[bolamig]

My favorite is the part of every drug case where they ask a cop whether the amount of drugs found is a usable amount. As if some random cop who claims never to have used drugs is going to know best.

[Badder74]

So in Maryland you can’t be convicted because your gun matches the tool marks produced by your gun. If this stands a lot of people are going to be released from prison in Maryland. Carrying the thought further Eye witness testimony isn’t scientifically reliable, Fingerprints aren’t scientifically reliable. Arson investigations aren’t scientifically reliable, handwriting analysis isn’t scientifically reliable…

Just think of the cost savings this twisted tribunal of judges is bringing to their home state. The private prison investors are going to be pissed off big time.

[ClutchLinkey]

@Badder74

Just think of the cost savings this twisted tribunal of judges is bringing to their home state.

How so?

[Badder74]

Using any of that non-scinentific evidence should result in an acquittal following their logic. Jails and prisons should empty out overnight or as fast as the Maryland court system can handle. I’m being facetious here.

[fuzzyfungus]

@bathosfear

All of the above can be used in courts where the opposing councel is free to educate the jury about unreliability.

It’s true that imperfect sources of evidence are allowed(there not really being any other kind) and that some combination of cross-examining their witnesses and introducing your own is intended to get results from that; but it’s just not the case that there’s a general ‘toss anything in; let the jury decide’ process.

The Maryland rules for expert testimony go into less detail than the (current) federal rule 702, since they appear to have been adopted from the federal one prior to its Daubert elaborations(edit: the court has previously decided that Daubert standard applies for interpreting the rules); but it states that the court determines whether expert testimony is admissible:

Expert testimony may be admitted, in the form of an opinion or otherwise, if the court determines that the testimony will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue. In making that determination, the court shall determine

(1) whether the witness is qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education,

(2) the appropriateness of the expert testimony on the particular subject, and

(3) whether a sufficient factual basis exists to support the expert testimony.

[snigs]

Red Dwarf - CSI spoof

[VeronicaConnor]

We just debunked this exact argument upthread. Please don’t make us do it again.