Monday, Mar. 16, 2009

[gstickley]

This past Sat., 03/14/09, made 3 years, 9 months, since the last time Ray Gricar was seen alive. Three years, nine months, of . . . nothing much.

The next two months should be very interesting and may very well bring Ray Gricar back into the news and the minds of Centre Countians. April 14 will mark the 4th anniversary of his disappearance; surely, he will be remembered on that date. The upcoming election is in May; surely, he will be remembered by the candidates between now & the primary, and hopefully will not be forgotten afterwards, the way he has been forgotten thus far.

I sincerely hope Center Countians and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania will remember Mr. Gricar, especially the Happy Valley citizens who elected him to office will remember he was a part of their lives for some 20 years. Hopefully, with Spring almost here, the upcoming anniversary of his disappearance, and the election, the moon & stars will be aligned enough to make people start asking questions about why Ray Gricar has been put on the back burner for so long. Hopefully, they will start demanding that all the rocks be turned over this time.

I realize there are a lot of "hopefully's" here. But I am "hopeful" that the answer(s) will might come before long. Hopefully, the media will not "push" the "walkaway" theory, but will ask questions & demand answers. Hopefully, there will be a new DA, who will ask questions & demand answers. Hopefully . . .

[UndertheRadar]

Unfortunately, my dear GS, it's clear that the walkaway push is having its effects. That can be seen in comments in today's media (dated 3/16) in which a member of the public reiterates the old standards of the push, the same mantras that multiple witnesses cannot all be ruled out and that scent in Lewisburg equals Gricar in Lewisburg.

Those comments are why it is doubly important people let Coldwater know how critical it is to keep this board open and why it's doubly important to thank Coldwater for doing so. We've done a lot of work on this board to demonstrate--scientifically--that neither of those premises is true.

I keep an eye on readership here, especially on the numbers of guest readers we have. It's critical that readers have this venue where diverse voices fully discuss Ray Gricar's case in an in-depth way.

If this case is going to be solved, it will take public pressure on public officials to solve it. With the primaries and the subsequent election upcoming, the public needs to exert that pressure. They will only be motivated to do so if they can examine all pieces of this puzzle.

MOO.

[gstickley]

It has not been 3 yrs., 9 mos., since Ray Gricar disappeared.

It has been 3 years, 11 months, since Ray Gricar disappeared.

(Sorry about that!)

[UndertheRadar]

It has not been 3 yrs., 9 mos., since Ray Gricar disappeared.

It has been 3 years, 11 months, since Ray Gricar disappeared.

(Sorry about that!)

We all knew what you meant!

[J. J. in Phila]

Actually, I think you should read this post:

"HailToPitt, I am a lot more skeptical than you are on the witnesses. I'll be doing a summation of my views on them at the end."

Now, do three witnesses in Lewisburg seeing RFG in Lewisburg point to him being in Lewisburg? Yes. There is more to the story, and you really should wait for it.

The claim of "science" always amazes me. I also doubt that the Gricar case will be solved by political pressure here.

[UndertheRadar]

Science has overturned a huge number of convictions based on eyewitness testimony.

Science isn't the only route to solving crimes or mysteries, but it plays a vital role.

DNA obviously relies on science.

Fingerprinting relies on science.

Hair and fiber analysis relies on science.

Scent theory is science.

The study of eyewitness testimony and memory is science.

The difference between the last item and all of those listed before it is that the use of eyewitnesses in the courtroom preceded the advent of the science behind it. That is the primary reason so many in LE and legal circles have had trouble catching up to the new realities.

LE, judges, prosecutors have understood the science of say, fingerprinting or DNA, since the science preceded the use in the courtroom. Not true with eyewitness testimony.

[UndertheRadar]

3 years and 11 months later those reports are being treated as if they are full of enlightenment, some NEW revelation, WHY? Is it that the witnesses are all-of-a-sudden more credible than they were years ago, or is it because the push is now on to FORCE them into some new form of credibility? If the latter, what IS behind this new force? Can someone pull back the curtain here so we can see the real Wizard of Oz operating the controls or not?


Respectfully snipped.

I would tend to think it's the latter. As many of us have pointed out, what we've had "revealed" of late has been information LE knew from early on. New to us is not new to LE. Like Nicholas Francisco, Ray Gricar remains on the list of missing people, not on the list of confirmed voluntary walkaways.

[J. J. in Phila]

UTR, first, the bulk of conviction in the U.S. are not overturned. Period.

Second, what you are posting isn't "science."

[UndertheRadar]

The scientific method involves hypothesis and empirical verification, both of which have been in used extensively in studying memory and eyewitness testimony. There is no doubt whatsoever that this is science.

Eyewitness memory is no different from any other trace evidence, in that it needs to be collected, handled, and preserved in specific ways if it is to be useful and valid.

One of the biggest problems with eyewitness memory and eyewitness testimony when it comes to LE and to the courts is, as I have said above, that eyewitnesses have been commonplace in courts for centuries, while an understanding of the science behind eyewitness identification is something with a relatively short history. Problems with eyewitness reliability were first noted in a publication back in 1908, but no actual scientific inquiry into the area began until the 1970's. Only the explosion of DNA onto the legal scene in the 1990's truly pushed the science into any kind of prominence in the legal community. Law enforcement and the legal community are truly struggling to keep up with the science.

As for the number of cases overturned in which eyewitness testimony played a role, 81% of wrongful convictions presently overturned by DNA evidence have involved eyewitness testimony.

Now here's the thing: that number grossly underestimates how many wrongful convictions likely exist due to eyewitness testimony. Why? Because the vast majority of those were rape cases, the one kind of case where DNA is almost always likely to be present. Murders, robberies, etc. do not have DNA at the scene with anywhere near the frequency that rape cases do. In other words, large numbers of other kinds of cases may need to be overturned where faulty eyewitness testimony played a role, but there is no DNA in the cases to help overturn them.

And eyewitnesses in missing persons' cases? We know that their track record is worse than in criminal cases.

[J. J. in Phila]

UTR, what you are claiming is not "science." We've had some examples of example of what experts find as the cause of error and what the error rate is. That is the true science in the matter. The question is what is the error rate and what are the causes? Are they present in the RFG case? Do the circumstances eliminate the causes in this case?

There are now something like 1% of the population, about 3,000,000 people, convicted in the US. The overall number of wrongful convictions is a very small percentage of that. The major cause of wrongful eyewitness testimony is cross-racial identification, which does not seem to be a factor here.

Like I said, what you are claiming is not "science."

[UndertheRadar]

The reference to a 50% error rate is not an indication that each individual witness has a 50% chance of being wrong. That figure comes from a complex formula averaging raw data that includes quite a few variables. It would be incredibly naive and a gross oversimplification to use the 50% figure as the basis for any kind of mathematical formula applied to the RG case given how that figure was derived and given that the data comes from criminal witnesses specifically, not witnesses in missing persons' cases, which have some distinct differences.

Police task force studies on criminal cases show that most cases involve witnesses identifying suspects of their own race. While cross-racial misidentification can be an issue when witnesses must identify suspects of a race other than their own, it is only one among many factors contributing to the generalized unreliability of witness memory and witness testimony and plays no role in the majority of cases.

The science examining the variables which affect eyewitness memory and testimony are all quite clear if one is familiar with them. Many are quite obviously applicable to the Gricar case. Many more might be if we had information about the witness sightings specifically and about the questioning of the witnesses.

[J. J. in Phila]

UTR, the 50% per eac witness is based on what Dorf reported; argue with him, not me.

Second, you have talked about the number of people known to be wrongfully convicted. How many are "wrongfully convicted." One site, Project Innocence, gives the number exonerated, 234. http://www.innocenceproject.org/

How many people were actually in prison? About 3,000,000. Even if we assume that the "real" number of innocent people is ten times that amount, that is less than 1% of the total.

You said 81% is due to errors in eyewitness testimony. Okay, 81% of less than 1% (0.81%).

And what is one of the leading cause of this misidentification, cross racial misidentification. It looks like it close to half the cases, and it's not present here. So using you standards, it's more than 99.5% likely that this was not misidentification, per witness.

I'm willing to go with Dorf and say 50% per witness. Either was, "science," as twisted by UTR, really sdoesn't support the claim that all the witnesses are wrong.

[UndertheRadar]

No need for me to argue with Dorf (an expert in constitutional law, not in memory and eyewitness testimony). Dorf references studies and says "[t]he studies reveal error rates of as high as fifty percent." No where does he claim a 50% error rate per each witness.

I'm familiar with the laboratory studies Dorf refers to. The actual error rate in the studies was 47%, though the conclusion of the studies was that the error rate in real life as opposed to the laboratory was likely to be higher. And as I've said several times already, the figure was derived by averaging raw data from a complex set of variables. Again, it would be incredibly naive and a gross oversimplification to assume that any single witness has a 50% chance of misidentifying a suspect in a criminal case (and even more naive to assume this data would absolutely apply equally in a missing person's identification case).

The Innocence Project data is drawn from rape cases and cannot simply be extrapolated to cases where people are in prison for crimes of other types. Nor can criminal numbers be extrapolated to missing persons' cases.

And setting the record straight: cross-racial misidentification is NOT one of the leading causes of eyewitness misidentification. This old wives' tale has been hijacked by the political correctness movement and twisted into something the science does not support. There is not even true consensus within the scientific community that cross-racial factors influence whether a witness can correctly identify someone of another race.

Here's where we DO have true consensus in the scientific community, however: at least twenty-one broad factors are responsible for eyewitness identification being unreliable.

Without a true understanding of those factors and how they might apply in the RG case, it is seriously irresponsible to assume ANYTHING about the weight eyewitnesses play in determining that Gricar was in Lewisburg or in determining that Gricar walked away from his life.

There is a long list of questions that need to be answered about these witnesses and about how their testimony was handled before any such assumptions can be made.

[ladyheartfixer]

Sorry I didn't see your message til today S1...I took yesterday off...I promise I will answer you in PM...

Ok folks...I leave for a day and all heck breaks loose. We are now down to one thread a day....when will we have this entire forum pulled out from under us?

Oh Lordy...in reading back over what I missed I had a flashback...post #41..."Walkaway-How Much Evidence is Enough" thread..."I do talk to a few folks. Oh, if you only knew". Flashback...."you'd choke on your mouse if you knew who you were talking to".