Wednesday Again

Well, it's Wednesday again and I had a great night's sleep. In fact. I probably could have slept later then 5:00 AM. But then I couldn't get as much done before work if I did that.

I watched American Experience on PBS last night and that was followed by Frontline. Those are two of my favorite programs. I love PBS and NPR. You can always learn something at those TV and radio sites. The American Experience program was about the building of the "Hoover" Dam during the depths of the depression. After Hoover left office, they changed the name of the dam to Boulder Dam. he was a very unpopular president who apparently did little to combat the depression. Frontline was all about forensics and the fallacy created by the TV show CSI. It seems nothing is as sure in evidence as CSI, the TV show, makes it out to be. People are convicted by fingerprint evidence that is not all that decisive at all. It's a subjective opinion by so called experts. Several people have been proven innocent ten years later, having been convicted by the "opinions" of so called fingerprint "experts". The Innocence Project has proven a couple of hundred prisoners to be innocent by DNA evidence, the one piece of evidence that is science backed. It also exposed that the certification of forensic "experts" is from a diploma mill.

Justice is not as cut and dried as we often think.

I sat on a jury as foreman in 1980. The case was about a couple of young boys who supposedly shot a motel owner in the process of attempting to rob him. We were deliberating when the jury was interrupted by the court because a young boy had confessed to his mother that he had done the shooting. The boy was eight years old and this was his seventh felony. He had been invited along on the robbery and given the gun to hold. When the motel owner reached for his cash drawer, the child thought he was reaching for a weapon and shot him.

The mother of the accused boys knew her sons had not done the crime. She snooped around the community and learned there were two other boys who were bragging about getting away with murder. She further investigated the crime and learned the eight year old boy had confessed to his mother. She reported this to the police, who were just sure they had the correct pair of boys.

Her sons had been apprehended and taken to the Tulsa hospital where the motel owner was clinging to life. He obviously knew them but died soon afterward. These boys had had their girlfriends at his motel. That's why he recognized them...not that they had done the crime.

We had nearly convicted the two young men by mistake. That's when I realized how easy it is to convict people in error. Circumstantial evidence is just not that positive.

Anyhow, it was a very interesting program. And I had some much needed rest.

Tonight I will attend the PINCH meeting after work at 5:30.