GUEST: Jordan Smith, award winning investigative journalist and Senior Reporter for The Intercept, talks about her extensive research into the "junk science" used by the criminal justice system to convict innocent people.
Whistling Past the Graveyard
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Activist Radio can be heard: Thursdays 5-6 pm on WVKR 91.3 FM at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY; Thursdays from 9-10 pm on WBDY 99.5 FM at The Bundy in Binghamton, NY; Sundays 1:30-2:30 pm on WESU 88.1 FM at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT; Sundays 4-5 pm from WIOF 104.1 FM in Woodstock, NY; and Sundays 5-6 pm from the Progressive Radio Network at PRN.FM. Past programs are available as a podcast, or anytime on the web at https://ClassWars.org
The criminal justice system is based on the same concept as legal representation. Two points of view are decided on by either a judge or a jury. It is up to the lawyer for each side to do his or her bast in presenting facts and analysis that support one point of view. The telling of these two tales is assumed to result in justice.
But poor people can't afford the best story tellers. Often judges and juries let race prejudices interfere with even handed deliberations. And finally, the police and prosecutors are often motivated to put their thumbs on the scales of justice. That is where "junk science" comes into play.
Judges and juries assume that prosecutors will always play by the rules, and that the witnesses presented will adhere to the highest standards of science. When that doesn't happen, innocent people go to jail based on false evidence. Bite marks on a body cannot be traced to a particular perpetrator. Yet hundreds of innocent people went to jail based on false assumptions and junk science.
Bite marks as evidence has finally been discredited by valid scientific studies. But what about other pseudo scientific evidence? Shouldn't the dentists who created this bogus evidence be punished? Or prosecutors who put innocent people in jail? The system of justice is weak, and since the majority of people who can't afford the best lawyers are Black, why then Black people will be denied justice far more often than whites.
How much of our justice system is set up this way, and is the result a crime in itself?
