In a message dated 7/27/00 9:48:32 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
<< Abu-Jamal,
who claims to be innocent, was at the scene when a police officer was
killed, but his gun was not tested. That case has attracted global
attention and may further the secular global trend aga
On Wed, 26 Jul 2000, Pierre Lemieux wrote:
> Two other hypotheses:
>
> 1) Ordinary people forecast (not incorrectly, in my opinion) that the death
> penalty may, in the future, be imposed in matters where THEY might be
> caught -- like, say, drug trade or illegal gun ownership, or killing BATF
> In the next five years, support for the death penalty will rise once
> again and the issue will drop off the radar.
> Alex
There could be a secular trend against the death penalty, in part because
of the perception that it is racially biased. Many trials are not affected
by DNA evidence.
> Moreover, there's another bias in the DNA evidence: No one to my
> knowledge is digging up DNA evidence on earlier acquitals to expose
> murderers who got off scot free.
Double jeopardy makes this a futile exercise. Maybe double jeopardy
should be revised given this scientific breakthrough.
II
Pierre writes:
"I am not sure I understand why, with DNA technology, it can be that
Y'>X."
For essentially the reasons Chris notes. Take the simplest case.
You think no innocents ever get on death row. DNA evidence shows that
this view is false. You now know that some innocents get on de
I also cannot help but worry not only about lab or collection mistakes, but
about deliberate "mistakes." Unless a great number of people of diverse
backgrounds, expertise and interests (especially personal or philosophical
stakes in the test results) follow the chain from collection to testing
At 14:44 00-07-26, you wrote:
There is a rational
possibility. Suppose you believe the rate of
error is X and the new DNA technology applied to the stock of old
cases
shows the rate to be at least Y, Y>X. And further suppose that
even
with the new DNA technology you think the new rate of erro
On Wed, 26 Jul 2000, Alex Tabarrok wrote:
>
> In the last few years support for the death penalty has declined
> (from 80% in 1994 to 67% today) as DNA technology has revealed that the
> number of innocent people on death row is higher than we wanted or
> expected.
> Does this make
Moreover, there's another bias in the DNA evidence: No one to my
knowledge is digging up DNA evidence on earlier acquitals to expose
murderers who got off scot free.
--
Prof. Bryan Caplan [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan
In the last few years support for the death penalty has declined
(from 80% in 1994 to 67% today) as DNA technology has revealed that the
number of innocent people on death row is higher than we wanted or
expected.
Does this make sense rationally? Surely, the correct response is
that DNA
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