The more I read of this the more I think it’s the legal system that’s really at fault here. Any developer that says “trust me, the software works” can’t be trusted. I feel like every user of software has experienced this fact. I feel like they should need third party code audits, field testing and generally a much higher burden of proof such to actually rule out software bugs sufficiently to jail someone.
Historically the assumption was that a machine under question probably doesn't work, so the prosecution must show to a jury that it works or else they haven't met the burden, you're innocent because the machine doesn't work.
This probably feels fine for a while, and then you discover you're repeatedly releasing people who are very obviously crooks who did exactly what they were accused of, but you couldn't prove to the satisfaction of a jury that the machine everybody knows works does in fact work. They need offer no evidence that it doesn't work, that's your problem, they walk free.
So this assumption was reversed. But then you get Horizon. Did you steal £18,284.27 from the Post Office? Don't say "No" because the computer says you did, and unless you can prove why it's faulty, the Post Office can rely on that £18,284.27 because a computer said so and under law the assumption is that it's correct.
Clearly neither of these simple assumptions is adequate. That's a problem.
None of which justifies what was done to these people, that's over and above the technical legal problem of how to deliver a just outcome - nobody at POL or ICL/Fujitsu seems to have cared about a just outcome anyway.
> This probably feels fine for a while, and then you discover you're repeatedly releasing people who are very obviously crooks who did exactly what they were accused of, but you couldn't prove to the satisfaction of a jury
I’m personally ok with this. I’ll always err on the side of innocence. It’s just money and relatively small amounts. In the US we’d usually just terminate someone that we suspected of theft. We don’t try to sue them and may not even call the authorities at some of these amounts. We’d reevaluate our hiring processes and criteria if we noticed the problem was chronic and unexplained. But if we did seek out a court case, criminal or civil, the thing is this “expert witness” even on paper can’t be trusted. He built the software and should be considered biased towards saving face and any confidence he has in the software should be taken with a grain of salt. That’s without hearing him speak and purely on his resume. The prosecution would(hopefully) need to introduce other evidences. Like, follow the money type stuff. Unusual purchases and such. It would have to still paint a pretty clear picture to get put in jail I would hope.
It seems this whole judicial body needs to be reevaluated to me if this type of injustice can be tolerated for years and dozens of people being sent to jail.
This assumption goes to everything, not just theft. Cell phone records show you were in the vicinity of the victim's house at the appropriate time, not actually at home watching Netflix? Unless they can prove the cell network is infallible you can expect to be able to rely on the claim you were home watching a show.
Stopped a mile up the road from a hit-and-run, weaving drunkenly at excess speed? No worries they'll need to prove the speed camera can't be wrong, and prove that all the alcohol technology is entirely reliable and couldn't be mistaken. The guy who arrested you can say you weren't driving well, but chances are your lawyer can trick him into asserting you were drunk, which is inadmissible since machines aren't perfect, that means it's a mistrial, you walk.
The problem isn't necessarily that this happens in every single case, but just that it feels so obviously unjust, just as Horizon does. The UK cut a hole in "Double Jeopardy" rules exactly because of such injustice - with double jeopardy you could do a crime, get off on a technicality and then tell anybody who asks that you did the crime, knowing you can't be prosecuted no matter what. Under modern rules while it won't be easy to prosecute you for a crime twice it's no longer impossible, which makes such boasting an obviously bad idea, you set yourself up by effectively confessing.
So I’ll start by prefacing that my comments here aren’t comprehensive solutions. I can’t fully explain some things here. The legal systems many of us live with have been iterated on for centuries and include who knows how many written words. I haven’t even studied them very much. I’m just a citizen that’s familiar with their ways and have a feel for what is acceptable justice and also for when things go wrong and something feels unjust. That’s what this whole thing feels like.
That said, there’s plenty of room for grey area of “proof”. People get convicted all the time on circumstantial evidence. But usually it compounds. Like, the accused lied to police, changed their story, can’t explain their whereabouts, or is evasive. Even with some so called evidence, I could ask “is that really proof?” If hair is found at a murder scene and DNA identifies the source, does that actually prove they murdered someone? You could argue it just proves the hair is that persons and found its way some how to the murder scene. Maybe it fell off in the grocery store and stuck to someone’s shoe or the wind blew it. Who knows but point being this very well may not be enough to convict someone alone. But with some other facts like unable to produce an alibi and oh it turns out the victim is having an affair with suspect’s spouse… and most reasonable people start to feel comfortable putting this person in prison for life based on the entirety of the facts
> Stopped a mile up the road from a hit-and-run, weaving drunkenly at excess speed? No worries they'll need to prove the speed camera can't be wrong, and prove that all the alcohol technology is entirely reliable and couldn't be mistaken. The guy who arrested you can say you weren't driving well, but chances are your lawyer can trick him into asserting you were drunk, which is inadmissible since machines aren't perfect, that means it's a mistrial, you walk.
So, no I don’t think you’d walk. Hit and run is a felony and pretty easy to determine. Did they stop and render aide or alert a first responder? It’s pretty binary and Doesn’t matter if they were drunk. The drunk think increases the charges if the test was positive, but they fled so likely the cops caught up to them well after it happened and alcohol was metabolized. I’ll ignore that though, and assume they were present and got tested. The reliability and accuracy of the machine has seen many orders of magnitude more testing and “peer review” such that if maintenance has been documented and machine has no record of malfunctions it’s clear it’s probably trustworthy. It’s not one guy who built the machine saying “trust me”. The police would likely also take this driver to get a blood sample collected as supporting evidence. If that was done so timely enough to explain any variance in results, then it’s even more solid of a case. If the variance of results can’t be reasonably explained, the field testing machine results would or should be seen as unreliable. (I think most jury’s would see this however there’s a lot of other factors that could weigh in like a past history or alcohol related crime).
Even worse, "trust me, the software I wrote works".
I guess the problem is the defence didn't have an expert witness who had access to the source code and bug database (if they even had one) etc. to even counter that.
Feels a lot like the nonsense forensics that has been in the news fairly recently.
