"Kurt Ullman" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Robert Green" wrote:



DNA has actually had far more of an impact in the social welfare circuit
than it has in the courts. I believe it used to be as many as 1/3 of
fathers were raising babies that were not really theirs. That number
has
dropped precipitously now that there's the threat of 18 years of child
support hanging over men's heads like never before. What I find weird
is
that courts order men to continue to pay support for babies that AREN'T
theirs if they've previously admitted paternity!!!

Never understood that either. DNA can get you out of jail but not out
of child support? Especially since for child support you only need to
get to the civil level of a preponderance of the evidence.

From what I recall the judges in these cases fall back on "societal good"
and "welfare of the child" to justify sticking guys who were not really the
father with continuing child support payments. I suppose this comes under
the heading of "never admit to anything and always get a lawyer to represent
you if you've accused of something that's not even criminal, like paternity,
because the consequences can be enormous." The key to these (outrageous)
cases, IIRC, is that the poor dupes signed the birth certificate as the
father for some strange reason. Apparently they were unaware of the
consequences of making such a declaration without the certainty of a DNA
test.

As a guy who was once introduced to a woman who was pregnant (unknown to me)
I can only imagine how desperate some women get when they discover they are
pregnant and know that the real dad is never going to marry them. Baby
Daddy turned out to be a GD Catholic PRIEST!!! This was back in the 70's
when DNA didn't even exist. She was looking for a guy to sleep with ASAP so
she could snag someone for child support. Those kinds of tricks are much
harder to pull off with modern DNA.

One doctor I read about had surgically implanted a bag of someone else's
blood under his skin so that he could not be matched to blood from a
crime
scene.
How was that supposed to work? The tech was supposed to just happen
to hit the bag with the blood?

I believe he had inserted the bag in the crook of his elbow and then put a
cast on his other arm to force them to try the arm with the sewn-in blood
bag. It was on Court TV (back when it was Court TV) and my ex-boss and I
both saw it and discussed it at out monthly lunch. It was a landmark event
for both of us because it showed how far some people will go. What has
always worried me about the criminal justice system is that when it fixates
on a suspect, right or wrong, every other possible suspect just drops away.
Worse, still, if a really bright criminal has the right opportunities, he
can frame someone else pretty easily. Once cops get a series of
circumstances that fit they stop looking very hard.

This is the latest "which twin did it" murder mystery. Not sure of the
outcome but I know twin have gotten away with murder at least before
1972
(when I took the course). Nowadays, with DNA, twins might not get off
so
easily. Still, "beyond a reasonable doubt" is hard to reach in such
cases.


http://niagara-gazette.com/local/x12...s-suspects-in-
Hayes-slaying

Give it 5 year max and this problem will go away. Identical twins are
truly identical only at conception. After that their cells start
dividing as individuals and transcription errors, random mutations,
etc., start showing up. The recent findings that very small mutations
can have a large impact on the incidence of disease and how well people
respond to medication (especially among the cancers) has lead to a push
on the medical side for more and more sensitive DNA testing. The
criminal side will benefit. It will be VERY expensive, but then it will
only need to be used in a very small population (identical twins where
the other can't be placed elsewhere and/or there is no other
evidence--for example fingerprints are not identical for identical twins)

Still, if the case comes down to eyewitness ID and there's not a lot of
forensic evidence, it's very difficult to convict because of the test of
criminal guilt requiring that it be "beyond reasonable doubt." A good
defense attorney can almost always instill that doubt if the jury is
presented with identical twins who both deny doing the crime. One of my
very earliest "cases" when I was a police reporter happened in small town in
the DC suburbs that had the typical five man police department. These guys
(back then such cops had very little formal LENF training) traipsed through
the murder scene obliterating evidence with every step. It was fortunate
that the killed confessed because there was hardly an iota of evidence that
wasn't contaminated. Hell, they even let ME into the crime scene to take
photographs. I'm told things are better these days.

I'd agree mostly with an exception or two. I took the Treasury Agent
exam
as part of an article I once wrote. Part of the test involved being
given
30 seconds to study a photo and then having to answer questions about
it. I
thought it was incredibly unfair, but the administrators told me that
they
were looking for people that had near photographic memory.

The stories of this are legion. I was talking to the SAC of the
ATF arson unit in the early 80s. He said he was at a conference of
veteran federal agents, a guy burst into the conference, made a quick
scene and then took off. WHen asked to give a description, even the
seasoned Feds were all over the place. There were a couple of Academies
who at one time did the same thing to their rookies to reinforce the
fact that your eye witness testimony is flaky at best.

My J-prof, as part of the final exam, had arranged for a grad student to
enter the classroom, shout out "Sic Temper Tyrannous!" (what JW Booth
shouted when he shot Lincoln) and then shoot him three times with a cap
pistol. Then we all had to write a news story based on what we had just
seen. The resulting articles were remarkably, almost insanely different,
especially as to type of gun, number of shots fired and most of all,
regarding what the shooter said. My prof said there's almost always ONE
person who gets it all right but most people, including yours truly, get
some detail wrong (I heard four shots and didn't get the description of the
shooter quite right). Some would-be reporters got EVERYTHING wrong. A
valuable lesson in the value (or lack thereof) of eyewitness testimony. I
imagine if a professor in Texas tried a similar stunt, at least three
gun-toting students would have shot the fake perp to death. (-:

If you're ever "picked up for questioning" my advice is to say nothing
until
a competent lawyer arrives to represent you. I'd do if even if they
wanted
to question me about something. Sure, they'll tell you "it makes you
look
guilty" but the truth is everybody tends to play by the rules when a
lawyer
is watching. That reminds me to make sure I've got my current lawyer's
card
in my wallet. (-:

The one time I had to interrogate a cop, my partner tried that and
both me and cop-perp almost passed out from laughing so hard. You think
it is just happenstance that when arrested, the FIRST things cops ask
for is an attorney???

They know how the game is played because they're the ones usually playing it
on someone else. They also know that every seemingly innocent thing a
suspect says begins to lock him into a particular chain of events (which
lawyers hate because it often limits their ability to devise competing
theories of the crime. Reminds me to check on the big NYC ticket fixing
case.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/26/ny...ny-trials.html

Any police officer swept up in the scandal - and the number is thought to
be as high as 300 - is susceptible to being asked about the topic when
showing up as a witness in unrelated cases. And if jurors cease to believe
the words of police officers because they monkeyed with tickets, something
Mr. Perlmutter clearly hopes is occurring, then it is in these courtrooms
that the most corrosive impact of the scandal may be felt.

The PBA is vigorously defending the practice of fixing tickets for
"connected" people.

In LA recently there was a big flap over a similar case. Apparently some
officials had "gold cards" which allowed them to fast-track parking ticket
cases.

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun...ckets-20110603

The Gold Card Desk, as it was known, was set up about 15 years ago and
provided the mayor and other elected officials a way to fast-track
constituent appeals of parking citations. Some had fines reduced or
eliminated. Greuel's audit found that 1,000 tickets had been dismissed -
some without justification - through the service over a single two-year
period. She raised the specter that some people may have received special
treatment, partly because there seemed to be little documentation regarding
the reviews.

--
Bobby G.

"Vic Smith" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 8 Jun 2011 09:58:50 -0400, "Robert Green"
wrote:



I believe he had inserted the bag in the crook of his elbow and then put
a
cast on his other arm to force them to try the arm with the sewn-in blood
bag.

The bag was high on his arm, don't remember method of placement.
He snaked a tube under his skin to where blood is drawn.
The nurse noted her needle met unusual resistance when she drew blood.'

Yes, I believe you are correct. I guess you saw the same program. It's
really incredible how far people will go to cover their tracks. That case
moved the goal posts for me in terms of "who would even believe it?"

--
Bobby G.