[blindlaw] conducting investigations

[Sai]

> They tend to interview criminals.

*Alleged* criminals entitled to, but rarely receiving, presumption of
Innocence.

One of the compounding problems is that the people targeted for
investigation to begin with are a hugely skewed group. They then get pushed
to plea, even if innocent, which in turn makes the prosecution think they
were right, and feeds that cycle — completely regardless of actual accuracy.

Which is why e.g. an experienced cop may well have a completely sincere and
good faith "gut feeling" that the black guy did it and is lying, and not
even be (consciously) racist, but still be wrong.

Allowing this kind of totally spurious yet sincerely believed
pseudo-evidence into the process, anywhere, inevitably and systemically
worsens biases.

Blinding (in the other sense) is actually one of the few things that
provably improves your lie detection ability, because you don't get exposed
to distractor information that would bias your logic.

So if you're blind and can't see their mannerisms etc., that "disability"
is actually a *good* thing for your ability to get to the truth.

Ironic, and a bit of a pun… but it's true.

Sincerely,
Sai

Sent from my phone; please excuse the concision and autocorrect typos.

On Nov 1, 2018 15:02, "Stewart, Christopher K" <chris.stewart at uky.edu>
wrote:

That's really interesting info. And now that you mention it, it makes
a lot of sense. In fact, everything I pointed out about tone of voice,
body movement, Etc. are all things which require a baseline knowledge
of the person. They're also instances where the person's reactions
could, as you said, be the result of something completely different. I
know investigators who swear they can spot someone lying, but I
imagine that may well be confirmation bias. They tend to interview
criminals. Criminals frequently lye. They've caught many criminals
lying. Therefore their inclinations must have been correct.

Anyhow, thanks for the info.




On 11/1/18, Sai <sai at fiatfiendum.org> wrote:
> FWIW: the research on this (which I know fairly well because it was
> related to my master's thesis and also to my litigation about TSA's SPOT
> program) is pretty solidly in favor of one conclusion:
>
> There does not exist any reliable way to detect lies, short of using an
> fMRI scanner. The best results shown to date are barely even
> statistically significant (let alone practically), and even those are
> only in highly controlled and unnatural settings.
>
>
> There are somewhat reliable ways to detect *emotions*, but they rely
> substantially on knowing that specific person's baseline. So e.g. you
> could detect that someone is nervous, angry, smug, etc.
>
>
> However, knowing that emotion doesn't tell you whether they're lying or
> not.
>
> Suppose e.g. that someone in a police interrogation room responds with
> fear when accused of raping someone. Are they afraid of being caught?
> Afraid of a false accusation? Reminded of a traumatic personal history?
> Afraid of perceived aggression? Randomly thinking about something else?
> Claustrophobic? Afraid they'll get a shiv while locked up? Afraid for
> what might happen to their family? Afraid of being caught in an actual
> lie? Afraid the cop will do a search and find the (totally unrelated)
> crack rock in their sock? Etc. etc.
>
>
> There are simply too many possible reasons someone can experience an
> emotion. Without knowing that specific person very, very well, you can't
> correctly make the jump (as various agencies would like to do) from
> "expression of fear" to "sign of guilt".
>
> Same is true for every symptom you  listed.
>
> Same is true for a polygraph, which is why it's inadmissible. It's pure
> bullshit whose effects rely entirely on whether the subject believes it,
> and whether you care about the risk of false confessions.
>
> "Gut feeling" has been repeatedly proven to be not just wrong, but often
> worse than wrong — it heavily plays into confirmation bias, bigotry,
> etc. Results are no better for "experienced" people like cops & judges.
>
>
> If you want to catch someone in a lie, you have to rely on logic,
> contradictory evidence, etc. Not whether or not the person fidgets.
>
> (Maybe your chairs are uncomfortable, or they need to go pee…)
>
>
> I've attached some recent meta-analysis papers on the subject in case
> you want to read for yourself.
>
> Sincerely,
> Sai
> President, Fiat Fiendum, Inc.
>
> On 10/31/18 16:48, Stewart, Christopher K via BlindLaw wrote:
>> This claim is ableist and absurd. First, many common tells of lying
>> are readily detectable to a blind person: throat clearing; vocal
>> tension; shallower breathing; fidgiting or feet shuffling; over
>> verbosity; unnatural hesitations inconsistent with the rest of their
>> answers. I could go on and on. The notion that because we can't see
>> one or two visual cues we can't spot a falsehood is ridiculous.
>>
>> Moreover, in investigative work, experienced investigators will tell
>> you they often follow their gut. Of course blind people have gut
>> instincts as well. But at the end of the day, as lawyers, what our gut
>> says doesn't matter, it's what the testimony and the facts reveal.
>> That's the record we work with. I've seen seasoned lawyers go down
>> rabbit holes in depositions that leave me scratching my head, knowing
>> they just waisted their time and didn't get what they were after. It
>> happens, and it has nothing to do with whether or not they can see.
>>
>> Best,
>> Chris
>>
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>


-- 
Chris K. Stewart
Attorney at Law
KBA #97351
Ph:
(502)457-1757