Brickbat: Close Enough

A New York judge has vacated the conviction of Sheldon Thomas, who spent 18 years in prison for murder. Thomas was arrested after New York City police officers showed a witness a photo of another man with the same name and she identified him. They then arrested Thomas. An investigation found that the detectives knew there were two men with the same name but were intent on arresting Thomas and used the identification of the other man as a pretext. The same witness later identified Thomas in a lineup, meaning she identified two different men as the suspect.
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This is why they use lineups instead of single photos. Unless, of course, you want to get a certain result regardless of whether it's correct.
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From the article the witness picked the first Thomas out of an array of photos, and then picked the wrong Thomas out of a lineup.
I wonder if the cops gave the witness the name(s) during the lineup or did something else to coach her.
Mistakes were made, needs more training.
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An investigation found that the detectives knew there were two men with the same name but were intent on arresting Thomas...
I'd hate to be those detectives right about now.
At least Det. Martavorius Diamonte Gilzene Schatz-Martinez anyway. Det. William Smith is probably OK either way.
" the same name but were intent on arresting Thomas"
Umm, does anyone else think this reads weird? It's not like they were trying to arrest William ...
(Yeah, the point is they were after the WRONG Thomas, but being after A Thomas doesn't seem strange)
Seemed OK to me. The narrative is consistent throughout the article. "(Sheldon) Thomas" always refers to the dude who was wrongly arrested while "another man" (who also has the name Sheldon Thomas) is the dude in photos/lineup.
They were intent on arresting the wrong guy with the right name.
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He should not have been let out. He should have exchanged places with the detectives who railroaded him into jail and they should now serve the same 18 years and be forced to wear their detective shields in the general population.
Eyewitness accounts are the most unreliable of evidence.
Eyewitness accounts, bite mark analysis, fire analysis, neonatal trauma analysis, DNA analysis of death row inmates/lifers, ballistics analysis, handwriting analysis, lie detectors...
Really, at this point, every case should just be decided by Christine Blasey-Ford.
Eyewitness accounts are the most unreliable of evidence.
The people who have trained you to believe that are the same ones who are now demanding that you believe what they tell you instead of your lying eyes.
"hey dummies, we gave you a pretty easy system. dafuq?" ~~Ben Franklin
The people who have trained you to believe that are the same ones who are now demanding that you believe what they tell you instead of your lying eyes.
Investigators that overturn convictions with DNA evidence are doing that?
You mean in the cases where a conviction takes place solely on DNA evidence or in the cases where the trail of blood near literally leads from where they found the victim to the perp’s house and multiple eye witnesses can attest to the seeing the perp walking to it with the murder weapon and from without it, but they find some DNA on an article of clothing in the victim’s closet that doesn’t belong to either of them and could fully exonerate the accused?
Because, in all the cherry-picking between what Jerryskids said, what I said, what Azathoth!! said and what The Innocence Project (and Reason) says and does, you’re going to have to be more clear.
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The shame has the NYC taxpayers funding the upcoming settlement.
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