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A comment on Are courts keeping “junk science” out of the courtroom?. Parent comment

Re:Are courts keeping “junk science” out of the courtroom? by johannes1234321 on Monday February 17, 2020 @12:27PM (#22349121)
Whether a fingerprint is unique and wether a bad fingerprint is good enough to convict somebody I don't want to judge here, but there is another aspect of fingerprints:The negative check. If the fingerprints on the knife don't match the suspect's the suspect didn't use the knife (unless there's an indication of gloves) and thus creates a strong reason to show innocence. A "negative" polygraph test still leaves room for a good lier.
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Re:Are courts keeping “junk science” out of the courtroom? by WrtCdEvrydy on Monday February 17, 2020 @12:38PM (#22349177)
In a perfect world, the prosecutor would give that info to the defense with sufficient time. In the real world, the prosecutor will drop 30 pages off in front of the defense 20 minutes before the trial begins.
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Re:Are courts keeping “junk science” out of the courtroom? by GavinMcG on Monday February 17, 2020 @12:55PM (#22349285)
Can you provide evidence that this is a commonly tolerated practice in "the real world"? Are you a judge, prosecutor, or criminal defense attorney?

It's a common trope, but courts really do have discovery deadlines, continuances are common for a variety of reasons, and undisclosed evidence can be excluded from consideration.

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Re:Are courts keeping “junk science” out of the courtroom? by jellicle on Monday February 17, 2020 @01:53PM (#22349660)
New York state changed their laws on January 1, 2020, to alter the previous practice where the government only had to provide the evidence they had to defense lawyers on the day of the trial, and only if specifically requested by the defense.

The majority of people in jail in New York right now, today, had to accept/reject plea deals without seeing any of the governmental evidence against them.

It is to be hoped that the future of NY's justice system will be much fairer, but police unions are fighting hard against the new changes and they may well be repealed.

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Re:Are courts keeping “junk science” out of the courtroom? by GavinMcG on Monday February 17, 2020 @02:49PM (#22350137)
The "only if specifically requested" is commonplace and requesting evidence is a routine part of any case. I'm all in favor of "automatic" discovery in criminal matters—I don't believe the prosecution should have an information advantage—but the fact that it wasn't previously required by law isn't evidence that it was broadly inadequate.

Same goes for the deadlines. Sure, the law didn't set a specific timeline—but that's not evidence that prosecutors routinely "[dropped] 30 pages off in front of the defense 20 minutes before the trial [began]."

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Re:Are courts keeping “junk science” out of the courtroom? by WrtCdEvrydy on Monday February 17, 2020 @03:31PM (#22350446)
The "dropped 30 pages" is a pretty common complaint for public defenders. Now, it could be that they keep losing the cases, but it's pretty common for the state to only provide evidence on the day of a trial and often don't point to exculpatory evidence or exclude it from the documents being provided.
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Re:Are courts keeping “junk science” out of the courtroom? by mjevans on Monday February 17, 2020 @01:10PM (#22349371)
Your statement reminds me a lot of how a 'rapid psychological profiling' tool works in the PsychoPass anime, which you might find interesting as a good example of such a system used in a science fiction setting.
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