I had a good week with Youngest Daughter. When I made up the menu for the month, I asked her what meals she wanted for her week home.
“Anything but chicken nuggets, please.” Apparently camp serves those a lot.
She got chicken pot pie, spaghetti pie, and grilled cilantro lime chicken. She was very happy about the pot pie; it’s one of her favorites.
Sif (the cat) seemed to have forgiven her by Wednesday, which was just in time for her to get confused as YD spent the night in Arkansas after a Niall Horen concert.
YD went back to camp Saturday for one more week, then she’s home until the second week of August.
She leaves for college the same day my wife has to report to her new school.
My wife and I spent a couple of days this week getting her room set up. Desks had to be rearranged, cabinets and drawers sorted through (we found over two dozen containers of sanitizing wipes), and old curricula sorted for surplus. She’s pretty excited for the new school year to start.
We seem to be having a decent year for peaches and apples. This is the best the peach tree has looked since we’ve been here, though they’re not that large. The apples look great though.
Science Under Scrutiny
There’s more junk science news, this time involving an Alabama case.
Charles McCrory was convicted of the 1985 murder of his estranged wife, largely on the basis of bogus bite-mark “evidence.” Long since discredited, bite-mark analysis is part of at least 13 wrongful convictions including two death-row exonerations (Ray Krone and Robert DuBoise).
McCrory has appealed his conviction all the way up to the Supreme Court where his appeal was denied. But Justice Sotomayor wrote an interesting statement regarding junk science. Read it here.
Justice Sotomayor discussed the damning results of the National Academy of Sciences report on forensic science. That section of her statement was enlightening, because I’d never heard of the investigation. You can read the entire 2009 report here.
It’s great that we’re looking into the science behind forensics. Science should never truly be settled. We should always test conclusions to make sure they’re still valid, especially when we’re making literal life and death decisions based on those conclusions.
Are fingerprints truly unique?
Is DNA unique? How can DNA be deposited at a crime scene? Can it be transferred via a third party? Ask Lukis Anderson
What causes crazing in glass during a fire? Is it the result of an arson fire? Or just what happens when cold water hits hot glass?
Can hair be positively identified as coming from a particular person without DNA analysis?
The problem is that once we’ve identified that previous scientific conclusions were wrong, we still need to convince courts that the science behind a conviction was wrong. Judges are often loathe to admit that mistakes were made, and that attitude keeps people like Charles McCrory in prison.
I understand the legal reasoning behind Justice Sotomayer’s comment about percolation, but what’s Mr. McCrory supposed to do in the meantime?
Writing
The soundtrack for this post has been the Dark Academia Playlist.
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