On Scientific Method and Forensic Procedure

[Alice Purjorick]

the lack of forensics should not encourage posters to use gut feeling and misinterpret the forensics...taht's what the dig about ignorance is about. I would say 100% of amaral's supporters misunderstand the dog's alerts.

Yet another opinion that cannot be tested.

[Carana]

We here know the dogs evidence needs to be corroborated to be proved.

Ok. And the dogs' alerts (whatever the semanticopolitically correct term may currently be) haven't been corroborated by forensic evidence so far, have they? Or did I miss an episode?

[Alice Purjorick]

Ok. And the dogs' alerts (whatever the semanticopolitically correct term may currently be) haven't been corroborated by forensic evidence so far, have they? Or did I miss an episode?

I suppose we have to consider the generally accepted ultra high sensitivity of the woofers hooter when contemplating this matter.
As I see it if the dog alerts it is for one of three reasons:
He/she has sniffed something so big it can be found by humans.
He/she has sniffed something so small it can't be found by humans [given the hooter is that sensitive]
He/she has made a mistake for whatever reason.

For the first option there are a further two possibilities. What is found has evidential value or it does not have such value.
The second two options may be considered the same in any practical operational terms as it is not possible to differentiate between the results.
I would, however, suggest that the alert which reveals nothing is "banked" in the appropriate debit or credit column to be used or not as the case develops. It would create suspicion nothing more nothing less and may cause compounding or dissociation as the investigation progresses.

[Carana]

I suppose we have to consider the generally accepted ultra high sensitivity of the woofers hooter when contemplating this matter.
As I see it if the dog alerts it is for one of three reasons:
He/she has sniffed something so big it can be found by humans.
He/she has sniffed something so small it can't be found by humans [given the hooter is that sensitive]
He/she has made a mistake for whatever reason.

For the first option there are a further two possibilities. What is found has evidential value or it does not have such value.
The second two options may be considered the same in any practical operational terms as it is not possible to differentiate between the results.
I would, however, suggest that the alert which reveals nothing is "banked" in the appropriate debit or credit column to be used or not as the case develops. It would create suspicion nothing more nothing less and may cause compounding or dissociation as the investigation progresses.

I have no problem with what you said.

I wouldn't have a problem either if x years down the line it turns out that Eddie did alert correctly to whatever was within his training parameters.

What I would have had a problem with is if the case had gone to court and a judge and jury had been wooed into a guilty conviction on the basis of a dog's unexplained woofs.

You may well disagree, but I still can't understand how a judge and jury convicted the Ciprianos on what I perceive to be the flimsiest of "evidence", yet it happened.

[Alice Purjorick]

I have no problem with what you said.

I wouldn't have a problem either if x years down the line it turns out that Eddie did alert correctly to whatever was within his training parameters.

What I would have had a problem with is if the case had gone to court and a judge and jury had been wooed into a guilty conviction on the basis of a dog's unexplained woofs.

You may well disagree, but I still can't understand how a judge and jury convicted the Ciprianos on what I perceive to be the flimsiest of "evidence", yet it happened.

High lighted bit: me too!
I have never studied the Cipriano case. There are enough homebrews to keep me interested.
I can recommend Gareth Pierce's "Dispatches from The Dark Side" if you have a general interest in justice outside this case.
She isn't everyone's cup of tea, particularly a succession of Home Secretaries, but her essays are worth reading.

[misty]

Scientific Method and Forensic Procedure have many similarities and are essentially the application of the same process based on assumption of ignorance.

Both avoid assumption, belief, guesswork, politics and other weak methods of assessing a situation.

Scientific Method has disclosed more real and substantial defensible knowledge than any other method.

Forensic method involving assumptions of ignorance and innocence are seen as the best way to avoid false legal decisions in criminal cases.

This places the entire burden of proof on the proposer of a contention.

The fact that those basic building bricks of our legal and knowledge systems are ignored her in favour of bias, belief, gut feeling, and exercise of pore rather than rationality and fairness explains why so much ignorance still exists here.

How influential is the scientific method of psychological profiling in the presentation of evidence?

[Carew]

I have no problem with what you said.

I wouldn't have a problem either if x years down the line it turns out that Eddie did alert correctly to whatever was within his training parameters.

What I would have had a problem with is if the case had gone to court and a judge and jury had been wooed into a guilty conviction on the basis of a dog's unexplained woofs.

You may well disagree, but I still can't understand how a judge and jury convicted the Ciprianos on what I perceive to be the flimsiest of "evidence", yet it happened.

Who wouldn`t agree with you there................and surely such uncorroborated woofs would never get that far!

[G-Unit]

How influential is the scientific method of psychological profiling in the presentation of evidence?

I don't know how influencial it is, but it's probably a misnomer to call it 'scientific';

"In some ways, [profiling] is really still as much an art as a science," says psychologist Harvey Schlossberg, PhD, former director of psychological services for the New York Police Department. But in recent years, many psychologists--together with criminologists and law enforcement officials--have begun using psychology's statistical and research methods to bring more science into the art.
http://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug04/criminal.aspx

[Carana]

Who wouldn`t agree with you there................and surely such uncorroborated woofs would never get that far!

Only a few years previously a speck of unidentified blood on a mop handle was apparently sure-fire evidence of a bloodbath in the case of a different missing child (Joana). Coupled with a few more specks here and there of unidentified animal and human blood, taken by forensics in an unsealed small house in which numerous occupants had continued to live weeks after the child disappeared (last seen walking towards home). The only speck of identifiable blood was totally irrelevant and belonged to a little boy. And yet the living-room was supposed to have been the scene of the Portugese equivalent of the chain-saw massacre. There was a never elucidated question of semen supposedly found somewhere.

There was no direct witness evidence. And then the court was in shock-horror at a video of the brother who had done a reconstruction of the massacre using a doll provided for the purpose. That was it. There's no way of knowing whether he'd been coerced, nor if so to what extent. There was no rational explanation as to the lack of forensics. 

This was a major murder trial with a constant drip of negative half-myth leaks about the accused, 40+ witnesses to fit in... and it was done and dusted in 3 days.

Based on the lack of logic in that case, I see no reason why a court wouldn't have been equally shock-horrified into a guilty conviction by simply viewing the video of Eddie barking by the car.

[Anthro]

According to an accredited journal, it is possible to recognise someone from even a fuzzy picture of the ear with 99.6% accuracy. It also suggests that the outer ear could be a better identification mark in human beings than fingerprints. When you are born, your ears are fully formed. The lobe, over time, descends a little.

[Anthro]

Do you think these two photos, considering ear shape, look similar?

[Holly Goodhead]

According to an accredited journal, it is possible to recognise someone from even a fuzzy picture of the ear with 99.6% accuracy. It also suggests that the outer ear could be a better identification mark in human beings than fingerprints. When you are born, your ears are fully formed. The lobe, over time, descends a little.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/jan/23/ukcrime1

[jassi]

According to an accredited journal, it is possible to recognise someone from even a fuzzy picture of the ear with 99.6% accuracy. It also suggests that the outer ear could be a better identification mark in human beings than fingerprints. When you are born, your ears are fully formed. The lobe, over time, descends a little.

Hopefully the author was not  Cornelis Van Der Lugt.  ( see link in previous post  - 41)

[Robittybob1]

Do you think these two photos, considering ear shape, look similar?

Can anyone see the photos?

[jassi]

Can anyone see the photos?

No.  Whatever the file is, it fails to open for me.