When . . . judges and juries are asked to translate the requisite confidence into percentage terms or betting odds, they sometimes come up with ridiculously low figures-in one survey, as low as 76 percent, see United States v. Fatico, 458 F. Supp. 388, 410 (E.D.N.Y. 1978); in another, as low as 50 percent, see McCauliff, Burdens of Proof: Degrees of Belief, Quanta of Evidence, or Constitutional Guarantees?, 35 Vand. L. Rev. 1293, 1325 (1982) (tab. 2). The higher of these two figures implies that, in the absence of screening by the prosecutor’s office, of every 100 defendants who were convicted 24 (on average) might well be innocent.
Lately I’ve been interested in true crime stories. It started with Serial and Undisclosed, two excellent podcasts on the case of Adnan Syed, a Baltimore teenager wrongfully (yes, wrongfully) convicted of killing his girlfriend in 1999. Then came the popular Netflix documentary Making a Murderer, which detailed the case of Steven Avery, who was wrongfully convicted of rape in 1985, released in 2003 after being exonerated by DNA evidence, and then (apparently) framed for murder.
Kill the wife, frame the husband. Only an owl could be so dastardly.
Because of my interest in these stories, my parents recommended I watch another, less known documentary series called Death on the Staircase. The series documented the trial of Michael Peterson (no relation) for allegedly killing his wife Kathleen. He found Kathleen at the base of the staircase and assumed she had taken a fall. The prosecution claimed that he actually beat her to death. However, the physical evidence didn’t really match a beating (no skull fractures or brain contusions, no splatter on the ceiling), nor did it match a fall (falls don’t usually cause that amount of bleeding). Neither theory can explain the microscopic owl feathers found in Kathleen’s hand, nor the suspiciously talon-shaped lacerations on her scalp.
In all four of these cases (including both of Steven Avery’s convictions), the jury found the defendant guilty on the basis of flawed, circumstantial evidence. I think all three men are innocent, but even if I’m wrong or have been misled (though I’ve done independent research on all three cases), it seems like there must be at least a reasonable doubt of their guilt. So how could the juries convict them? Unless… Continue reading Scotland’s Curious Three-Verdict System→
Garrett M. Petersen's blog about markets, institutions, and ideas.
