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posted by martyb on Tuesday July 26 2016, @12:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the I'm-positive-there-are-false-positives dept.

Pro Publica and The New York Times Magazine have each written about field drug testing by U.S. law enforcement agencies. The tests are undertaken with disposable kits containing chemicals. A sample is brought into contact with the chemicals and there may be a colour change, which is assessed by the officer. The essay tells the story of people against whom criminal charges regarding illegal drugs were filed, with the results of these field testing kits as the primary evidence in the prosecutions.

According to the essay, the use of the kits has various pitfalls which can lead to false positive results. For one thing, analytes which are legal to possess can produce the same colour change as illegal substances. For another, poor lighting which may be encountered in the field can distort the officer's perception of colours. Confirmation bias can occur. Also, officers may receive inadequate (or--the submitter supposes--incorrect) training in the interpretation of the colours. A former Houston police chief offered the opinion that

Officers shouldn't collect and test their own evidence, period. I don't care whether that's cocaine, blood, hair.

The essay mentions gas chromatography–mass spectroscopy (GC-MS), an instrumental method which is typically undertaken in a laboratory, as providing more reliable results. The submitter notes that portable GC-MS equipment does exist (1, 2).

Nationwide, 62 percent of forensics labs do not conduct further testing in cases in which a field drug test was used and the defendant made a guilty plea. However, the Houston crime laboratory has been doing such testing. They have found that false positives are commonplace. The district attorney's office for Harris County, Texas, which handles cases from Houston, has been informed about those test results and is undertaking "efforts to overturn wrongful convictions." In three years, about as many such convictions have been overturned in Harris County as in the rest of the United States.

Referenced stories:


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2016, @08:41PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2016, @08:41PM (#380433)

    Huh? I'm not sure which article you're responding to, but I'm fairly certain it's not this one.

    As pointed out above,

    #1: You're convinced based on a lab test that might be finished a month or two after your arrest. If you can't afford the bail or bond to get out of jail, you're pretty much fucked. You're going to lose your home, everything in it, and your job after disappearing for a month.

    #2: I don't see what's silly about telling the thug arresting you that the white speck on the floorboard is a crumb and the white powder he's removing from BC Powder [bcpowder.com] packaging is an over-the-counter medicine. The person this happened to in TFA was perfectly fucking aware of what the substances the cops found were. Hint: it was not contraband, it was not meant to look like contraband. How much of a disingenuous piece of shit can you be?

    I will never understand you authoritarians who come out of the woodwork with your “If you're not doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about” bullshit any time somebody points out that the war on drugs might cause perversions of justice. You are the people who enable those perversions to take place.

    I hope you're fucking wrongly accused of possession some day.

  • (Score: 2, Disagree) by linuxrocks123 on Tuesday July 26 2016, @09:23PM

    by linuxrocks123 (2557) on Tuesday July 26 2016, @09:23PM (#380456) Journal

    You're going to lose your home, everything in it, and your job after disappearing for a month.

    Bullshit, okay? Being in jail shouldn't mean you've "disappeared" unless you're incompetent. I won't repeat myself: https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=14695&cid=380442 [soylentnews.org]

    Yes, she lost her apartment and furniture. She has a sad life story (not her fault), was poor (not her fault), and made some mistakes we know about and likely some we don't.

    She isn't most people. What, do you not even have one month's salary in the bank to pay the rent or mortgage? If you're not destitute-- and most people aren't -- you're an idiot for living paycheck to paycheck. Don't do that, and do make plans for your temporary incapacitation (statutory durable power of attorney among other things, like medical POA etc.).

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2016, @10:38PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2016, @10:38PM (#380480)

      GP here. Yes, I have savings enough to be out of work unexpectedly for several months. Could probably stretch to a year if needed. I'm hoping to have my home paid off soon so I have one less monkey every month who wants money from me. To give your other comment a nod (which was refreshing instead of authoritarian drivel), I also wouldn't ever go for the plea deal. That's a no-brainer for me, even if I were living paycheck to paycheck.

      There's also the asset forfeiture question. It wouldn't be difficult for the pigs, seeing that I'm not going to just go along with their plea deal, to claim my savings account. So even though I have savings (god living paycheck to paycheck sucks), there's no guarantee somebody with durable power of attorney would even be able to pay my bills.

      There's the hope that they'll let you post bail, but the ball's entirely in their court.

      Additionally, I wouldn't have a job after getting hauled off on bogus charges unless I were let go before the next workday. Maybe people aren't as shitty in your neck of the woods, but I doubt I could get a similar job where I live after being merely charged with possession since most people would presume I merely got off on a technicality. I can take two unscheduled days off in a row without needing a very good excuse. At the very least, I would need to relocate and probably work working a shit service job for a while.

      I'm not sure I can think of many other people I know in meatspace who don't live paycheck to paycheck. Don't know how somebody can live that way. Everything is more expensive. I'd rather starve every now and then than get on the credit card roller coaster again.

      This point is, there's more of a constellation of things that need to come together to come out of a false accusation like that relatively unscathed.

      - Never accept plea deals unless you know if your heart of hearts you're guilty and what you did was indefensible. Don't believe anything they threaten you with if you're innocent. (See also don't talk to cops.)

      - More and more people are having difficulty making ends meet, meaning credit cards step in to buy food, leaving more and more people living paycheck to paycheck in debt slavery. We can look down on them and feel smug, but that doesn't help anybody.

      - Telling most employers that you've been arrested does not look good, and employers don't care when you take an unplanned leave of absence and can't be contacted for a month or two unless you're in a coma or something, and even then all bets are off.

      - Hope and pray that they don't use asset forfeiture against you, because then you will be well and truly fucked even if you did everything above correctly.

    • (Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Wednesday July 27 2016, @12:43AM

      by Beryllium Sphere (r) (5062) on Wednesday July 27 2016, @12:43AM (#380536)

      documents how long it can take to get to a trial. Admittedly, Carlos Montero's seven years is an outlier.

      Someone who could ride out a month might also be able to afford bail. The people in jail are there because they don't have assets.