[mgleason_3]

If I understand the story correctly, they had the suspect in custody and yet failed to positively ID him, relying on an ID he had stolen from an innocent man named Ousmane Bah. The ID had no photo and was labeled "not to be used for identification". SIS filed a police report which said they had video evidence showing the perpetrator.

They then put out a "BOLO" with the innocent man's name, had him arrested, figured out they have the wrong guy, do nothing about it and had him arrested again.

When Bah appeared in court to answer charges and Apple was asked to present the video that would have cleared Bah, Apple claimed that the video had been deleted. The video was later found by Bah's attorney during discovery. This happened more than once. A warrant was issued for Bah’s arrest and contained the photo of the imposter. Bah was arrested even though the he doesn't resemble the imposter, other than being Black. Prosecution against Bah continued in multiple states through June 2019.

Hmmm, seems like a lot of people involved in this case should be fired, including the Apple Employees, SIS Employees and Police officers, reguardless of whatever other outcomes there are.

[himinlomax]

> Hmmm, seems like a lot of people involved in this case should be fired,

"Fired"? This is tampering with evidence, contempt of court, filing false reports and so on, all done repeatedly. People need to go to jail, because people go to jail for those crimes and for lesser crimes as well.

[dagaci]

Its outrageous. To coverup a lesser incompetance of not validating who the imposter really was, they tried to frame the innocent Ousmane Bah by deleting the video footage.

If Ousmane Bah didnt have a good lawyer he would be in jail and have his life destroyed already, such actions like this should be treated as a crime of falsifying evidence at least.

[xorfish]

There are a lot of cases with the innocent project where an innocent person was lucky to be proven innocent.

There must be many more that are not lucky.

Around 4.1% of people on death row are estimated to be innocent.

https://www.pnas.org/content/111/20/7230

I have a hard time imaging, that the rate is lower for lesser crimes where the victims of the justice system can be coerced to accept a "lesser" punishment.

[syshum]

There are because proving innocence is very hard... That is why more pressure needs to put on the Legal System to only convict on an actual "beyond reasonable doubt" standard, unfortunately today some juries seem to operate on more of a preponderance of the evidence or worse "ehh he did something wrong" standard

Personally I believe the 4.1% estimate to be pretty low, and it one of the reasons I strongly oppose capital punishment, I simply do not trust our legal system enough to give them the power and authority to kill people

[JTbane]

>Personally I believe the 4.1% estimate to be pretty low, and it one of the reasons I strongly oppose capital punishment, I simply do not trust our legal system enough to give them the power and authority to kill people

Agreed, because humans are fallible, and a jury is made of humans The courts can always release on appeal. You can't un-kill someone

[totony]

What's the difference between capital punishment and life imprisonment here? The amount of people that have their case re-analyzed to release them must be low. Plus, after decades in prison, coming out of it likely will make life very hard to get back into.

[syshum]

Well that is a very complex answer as I am not a supporter of the current prison system either. I am not a big fan of "prison punishment", instead I believe prison should be use to separate dangerous people from society, and not involve abuse.

That said in broad strokes, Death is final, and while reintegration may be pretty hard, if a person spent 20 years in prison because society made a mistake, I think that person should get a very large settlement from the state to the point where they never have to work again thus making that transition much easier.

[tikiman163]

He was thrown in jail several times (he was released relatively quickly, but that shit still fucks up your week) , and this crap made it difficult to get or keep a job for several years. That's not even considering that online articles which state he did it still exist so background searches are still problematic for him. His life was destroyed pretty thoroughly by this ordeal,and he was never even convicted of anything.

[tikiman163]

You'd be shocked how infrequently law enforcement officers get investigated, let alone prosecuted, convicted or sent to prison for anything you just listed. That goes triple for lawyers, lawyers have sent innocent men to prison for 30+ years for pretending exculpatory evidence didn't exist and they don't even get asked to apologize because it could throw other convictions into doubt. They should be thrown into doubt, but the thought that a murderer or mob boss might go free (even if that lawyer has only ever prosecuted non-violent drug offenders) is so powerful that lawyers have to be caught in the act and seen by thousands before they'll even begin to consider looking into the activities of a prosecutor. Defense attorneys on the other hand tend to be under paid and overworked, increasing the odds of a false conviction.

Remember kids, the criminal justice system has a strong bias towards conviction if charges are filed, so don't talk to the police. You're only helping them build a nonsense case against you, even if they've got another suspect you never know when a rookie cop is going to decide that getting you on Jay walking is good for his numbers this month. Unless you personally witnessed a serious crime like assault, rape or murder, shut the fuck up.

[stronglikedan]

> Unless you personally witnessed a serious crime like assault, rape or murder, shut the fuck up.

And even then, only share your observations of the crime in question. If the conversation turns towards you in any way, shut the fuck up.

[tikiman163]

And even then, get a lawyer first consult them on everything you say before you say it.

And never forget the only things you should ever say during a traffic stop:

Why have you pulled me over?

I don't know. Here are my license and registration.

I'm not required to discuss my day.

When was your radar last calibrated? (avoid this one unless you really want to piss them off)

Am I free to go?

Am I under arrest?

I would like to speak to a lawyer.

If it's not on this list, have your lawyer present and consult them directly before saying it.

[ransom1538]

They would rather an innocent person go to jail - rather than look stupid.

[shadowgovt]

Agreed. At the very least, if Apple-the-company isn't being fined (or their employees held criminally liable) for failing to produce exculpatory evidence in a criminal case that was later found during discovery, the court itself isn't doing its job.

[Ajedi32]

I guess that would depend on whether the failure was due to malice or incompetence. Maybe also on whether it was a failure of individuals or a failure of the system. But yeah, something obviously needs to be changed.

[lotsofpulp]

> Hmmm, seems like a lot of people involved in this case should be fired,

I would like to see people who cause others’ freedom and time to be stolen from them because of laziness or malice to be charged with felonies.

[garyfirestorm]

Accuser1 - Sir this man stole from us

Police1 - Yeah we saw the ID and stuff and some video

Innocent Man - where's the video, coz i was in different state

Accuser1 - we deleted it - poker face

Police - poker face

Innocent1 - poker face

Court - ok bye c u later

[ashtonkem]

In a sane world, that would be destruction of evidence. You shouldn’t be able to tell the court evidence exists and then destroy it before you let anyone else examine it.

[anigbrowl]

Yeah, if strict liability applied in such cases prosecutors and other parties would be a great deal more careful about what they dared assert.

[GoblinSlayer]

As I understand, the evidence wasn't owned by prosecution, but by Apple. It's like saying "the truth is out there", which is technically true, but shouldn't count as evidence until collected.

[netizen-936824]

Then why was it used for an arrest warrant? Should evidence not be examined before the warrant is issue? Or can you just claim to have video evidence of a murder to get someone you don't like arrested?

[TeMPOraL]

> Should evidence not be examined before the warrant is issue?

Examined and secured. Having evidence in official custody should be a prerequisite for using it in an official capacity - or stuff like this happens.

[ashtonkem]

Generally it should be secured before an arrest warrant is issued, examined before a trial

You don’t have a right to fight an arrest warrant. But you do have a right to review the evidence that will be used against you during your trial.

[KittenInABox]

Prosecution should be held in contempt of court if they fail to keep their own evidence securely, including the platforms and locations of storage.

I think prosecutors should go to jail if they keep their evidence in a building covered in kerosene and then "whoops" the evidence has gone up in flames.

[laurent92]

Especially if it is found later during discovery.

[phone[phone]]

We're at the "educate yourself, shitlord!" phase of criminal prosecution.

[exikyut]

This is probably exactly how things would work 20 years after the Idiocracy epoch.

[chrisco255]

Yes, we can start with Congress.

[jjcon]

Thing is... its just a day job for these people and they probably get paid less than us devs. They have families, complicated lives just like we do. Stuff gets in the way of doing a stellar job sometimes. I don't think lazy devs that create buggy software should be charged with a felony, they just shouldn't get promoted or should change careers.

[anigbrowl]

Having been falsely subjected to criminal charges myself I don't really agree. Having your pizza arrive late and cold is 'less than stellar'. Being jailed is a whole different experience, and though it was not for very long and the charged were ultimately dismissed I count myself very lucky for having had the support and resources I did. Many others are less fortunate and suffer far more.

[HarryHirsch]

You are probably lucky enough to be a US citizen. If you are an immigrant an arrest is a problem everytime you need reapply for a visa/residence permit. The question in the paperwork is always "have you been arrested", not "have you been convicted of a crime". In this case you'd like to see lengthy prison sentences for all involved, the whole chain of command.

[yarcob]

Not being paid enough is not an excuse for lying and making things up just so you can arrest someone who is innocent.

[lobocinza]

What if "lazy devs that create buggy software" literally destroy peoples lives?

Blameless postmortem are fine only if steps are taken to uncover and fix the problem at the root cause. There's no excuse for systematically jailing innocent or pushing buggy software.

In this case, what steps were taken? Video was deleted!

[6gvONxR4sf7o]

“gets in the way of doing a stellar job” is so far beyond this.

[ClumsyPilot]

"I don't think lazy devs that create buggy software should be charged with a felony"

Does that apply to developers of an airplane's autopilot, insulin pumps, and other stuff that gets people killed?

[thereddaikon]

I've been saying for awhile now that developers who work in life critical applications should be held to the same licensing and educational standard as civil engineers. There should be legal difference between a "coder" who can be unlicensed and not formally trained working on non critical software and a "software engineer" who is educated, licensed and bonded to work on stuff such as medical, automotive, aerospace and control systems. There should also be some kind of equivalent to the various engineering organizations that sets standards and norms.

[jpitz]

If your organization produces safety critical components, then one individual's mistake should not be able to impact delivered products.

[ClumsyPilot]

Same here: a single mistake should not send the wrong person to jail.

On the other hand, if someone is sabotaging the system for personal gain, they should certainly be imprisoned.

[jpitz]

Agreed.

[jjk166]

If you lie to cover up your bugs after they hurt someone, you should definitely be in jail.

[ashtonkem]

Seems like some Apple employees need to be thrown in jail for lying to the court.

[encryptluks2]

LOL, if only justice worked that way.

[tzmudzin]

Well, maybe it should. I'm not in favor of handing out prison sentences, but that's probably what the victim faced. Eye-for-eye is a bad strategy, but no consequences for such accusations is not a solution.

[jeltz]

On paper it does, what they did is obviously criminal under current laws. The issue is that these crimes are almost never prosecuted.

[Trias11]

Let me summarize it - Apple is going to fork out 8 figures, possibly sealed, not admit to anything.

Done

[nullc]

I doubt that. Eight figures is probably enough to for Apple to pay in house legal staff to stay locked in slow motion litigation with this guy for the rest of his life (or at least until he's exhausted his own financial ability to litigate).

[Trias11]

The guy is non-white.

This changes the whole game not in favor of Apple. And adds few zeros to the cost for Apple to try to wiggle out of this clean and not admit racist bias.

Welcome to america.

The white guy would get $10 off apple store offer from apple if he was lucky.

But not in this case.

[8ytecoder]

How do you know they didn't, in fact, act with racial bias?

[Trias11]

This is irrelevant. What relevant is how much money lawyers are going to milk Apple for.

I’m totally on the side of the guy.

[matheusmoreira]

> stay locked in slow motion litigation with this guy for the rest of his life (or at least until he's exhausted his own financial ability to litigate)

How is this even possible? Why don't judges recognize this obvious abuse and stop it?

[nullc]

Recognize? Probably. But it's easy for courts to come procedure bound and even feel like they're doing you a favor, e.g. "I gotta do this by the book so its not overturned on appeal."

[tyingq]

They key probably isn't litigation, but more stories like this that paint Apple as having bad technology and/or racist employees...even if that's not exactly what happened.

[carschno]

And, more importantly, not going to change anything. Good luck to the next guy.

[mrweasel]

Companies, police and politicians always freak out when someone doesn't want money, but just want them to admit to doing something wrong. Getting a $1Mill is easier than getting an apology.

[hutzlibu]

That seems a bit of an overstretch. I have heard far more fake "We are sorry", than I heard of $1Mill compensation. At least the money would be real.

[ashtonkem]

Getting a fake apology is easy, getting actual admission of wrongdoing is hard. The former is embarrassing, the latter can be used as evidence in later lawsuits. This is precisely the reason why criminal prosecutions of companies result in the company admitting no wrong but coincidentally agreeing to a 8 to 9 digit fine.

[eitland]

I think the difference is between a fake "We are sorry you feel this way" and a real "we messed up big time on this. For starters, here's what we will do to make sure it doesn't happen again".

[throwaway0a5e]

Well of course. Getting the state to admit it was in the wrong is a precursor to get the state to stop doing something and the state absolutely hates giving up power.

[otterley]

Doubtful. The maximum damages that a court would likely find for the defendant -- even if Apple admitted all the allegations -- would be much, much smaller than that. (Consider that even wrongful death settlements or injury settlements are at most a few million; and this alleged victim's injuries were only reputational.) Settlements often boil down to a fraction of the maximum theoretical damages, so I expect the value to be in the 5 figures at most.

[alisonkisk]

Why would you "summarize" by providing extreme speculation? That's dishonest.

[Trias11]

That’s my honest speculation knowing the state of affairs in USA.

It’s by far not on an extreme side

[cosmojg]

> Hmmm, seems like a lot of people involved in this case should be fired, including the Apple Employees, SIS Employees and Police officers, reguardless of whatever other outcomes there are.

How might a government systematically disincentivize this sort of malicious and negligent behavior without it backfiring? And why hasn't it happened already?

I imagine the matter has been thoroughly explored by legal scholars, but I'm having trouble finding publications. Can someone point me in the right direction?

[pjc50]

The US has systematic incentives in place to create this kind of system: private prisons and elected local chief prosecutors. Both of those are incentives for false positives.

It also lacks police oversight; the UK has https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmicfrs/ and https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/ , which while they are far from perfect are at least organizations with the capacity to put out a report saying "here's what went wrong and how it should be fixed".

In the US all police accountability is local, which means that the >51% of the voters who prefer being tough on crime (more false positives in the hope of more "true positives") get what they want.

[aszantu]

Stop punishment for simple mistakes, it starts with parents and school.

I'm in a safe environment where i can say i made a mistake and document it. And still i have a hard time doing it because how i grew up. It was much safer to be quiet or lie and get away than trusting authorities or parents to not punish me.

But removing that threat would change how the system works and how ppl deal with mistakes.

[rjzzleep]

Interesting, and yet all the people that worked for me massively respect me when I point out a mistake I did towards them in front of everyone else. It's probably related to the fact that I tend to be very strong when making those decision, but when I publicly announce my mistake in front of their peers it builds trust.

I basically learned that because I hated the bosses that would take credit for their subordinates ideas and then blame them when something went wrong, so I'm trying to do the opposite.

[jeltz]

Yes, but we should still punish negligence (and in my opinion harshly). That way people are encouraged to fix mistakes instead of ignoring them like they did here.

[throwaway0a5e]

Yup.

"never admit to the system that you F-ed up" is a lesson every kid should learn by the end of grade school.

Let that run for a generation and stuff like in TFA is what you get.

[anigbrowl]

It's not a 'simple mistake.'

[ruined]

it backfires due to conflict of interest. the set of people responsible for enforcing such a system have always been the same set of people responsible for making the mistakes. it would take a duplication of the entire judicial infrastructure and division of policing power.

this essentially exists in the united states with the dual state and federal systems, but the local systems are extremely resilient against investigations, and the federal system has no interest in actually performing this role.

in rare cases there have been FBI investigations and federal oversight of entire departments, such as the Seattle consent decree, but there are many problems with such arrangements as covered by local journalists and activists. i'll see if i can dredge up some links later.

[rogers18445]

They can't, which is why such incompetence is plaguing every single bureaucracy in existence. If the bureaucrats have an incentive to not make mistakes they will err on the side of caution and only deal with cases where certainty is high - as opposed to putting in more effort to ascertain what is actually going on.

[ruined]

back with links. seattle-focused. seattle's consent decree is not about correcting investigatory malpractice, but simple excessive violence and racial bias.

aclu has a timeline https://www.aclu-wa.org/pages/timeline-seattle-police-accoun...

federal oversight means the consent decree is subject to national politics that may be alternately undermining (executive branch republicans promote impunity) or disinterested (executive branch democrats fear criticism of reform efforts).

the decree is also affected by national events and attention. the late nationally-motivated police reform efforts are running into roadblocks as officials claim those goals conflict with compliance.

https://crosscut.com/2020/06/debate-over-policing-seattle-co...

https://crosscut.com/politics/2021/05/where-seattle-police-r...

notably, an internal police watchdog body created by the consent decree and charged with investigating officers, may only recommend action to the chief, who can simply reject it. the watchdog body is staffed by police and not civilians. there are some examples in the timeline above but here's one from last year.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-p...

and the police union is effectively able to write law that undermines oversight. the union contract actually supersedes city law on police accountability. this is a failure of the city council but was agreed upon by the overseeing judge.

https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2018/10/17/34045061/cpc-thr...

after nearly a decade of effectively resisting federal oversight and reform efforts, spd has developed an attitude of total impunity. a protest marched to the SPOG office last year, and at no provocation was dispersed with teargas and impact munitions as officers blasted a pop country song over loudspeakers. https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2020/09/08/44432799/police-...

[gfaure]

It was new to me too, but "BOLO" turns out to be US police jargon for "be on the lookout".

[pessimizer]

Americans love to talk like cops, soldiers, and spies.

[A4ET8a8uTh0]

I found the comment interesting.

I disagree that it is just Americans. In real terms language evolves on its own and people tend to imitate the pieces they find useful for one reason or another. I remember living in the old country as the Iron Curtain fell. All of a sudden, adding English words into just about any conversation was a thing to do. Some of it was, because word equivalents were not quite ready yet; some of it was fashion.

I think cop porn is just another language phase in US.

[alisonkisk]

Do cops not talk like cops in other countries?

[yreg]

So which part is the 'unreliable face recognition tech'?

[A4ET8a8uTh0]

Thank you. I think we got sold a story about wrongful arrest just because Apple was involved.

The story is still horrific, but I am mildly miffed.

[franga2000]

> The ID had no photo and was labeled "not to be used for identification".

Can someone explain the logic of this? What is the purpose of an ID that shouldn't be used for identification? And why would anyone in their right mind issue a non-biometric ID in the first place?

[manicdee]

It’s basically a membership card all it shows is your name and member number, might even be used as a stored value card for printers, or as a door lock RFID/NFC card.

[addingnumbers]

How are you going to use a learners permit as an NFC card, it's just a half sheet of plain old wood-pulp printer paper

[TechBro8615]

The article says it was a temporary drivers permit. This is what you get in the US while you're learning to drive but before you have a full license. It's usually just a piece of paper, and you can't drive alone in the car with it.

[LanceH]

It's what you walk out with from motor vehicles while they produce your actual learner's permit with photo on it. The learner's permit will look just like a driver's license, with some restriction codes on it most likely. It may possible have some glaring mark, but otherwise look and feel like a driver's license.

Most places you won't see a temporary permit like this as they'll have a machine on hand to make the license, but I suppose not every location has that available. It is only meant to last until your photo and information gets to wherever they print the cards and your card gets mailed to you (less than 2 weeks).

[TechBro8615]

Note this would vary by state and possibly even county (e.g. driving laws in Manhattan are different than in NY state). I have no idea what the NY state DMV / permit process is. But in my state it was a piece of paper with no photo ID.

[laszlokorte]

Like a membership card of some store/club only used for collecting discounts.

[franga2000]

Ah, I guess that makes sense. The mention of police and security made me automatically make the jump to "government ID".

[fundad]

Something like this happens so often there should be a legal theory exploring it. I'll ask my kindergartener what he's learned.

[hutzlibu]

Kafka's Trial comes to mind.

[1cvmask]

BOLO is a police/FBI term for Be On the LOokout

[OJFord]

> LOokout

Not that it really matters/makes a difference, but presumably it's 'LookOut' - at least, that seems less weird/forced into a specific desired acronym.

As a noun 'lookout' (or 'look-out') is from verb phrase 'look out' anyway.

[chias]

LoOkout

[tchalla]

Thank you for posting the full form of the acronym. It helps keep the conversation structured. I wish more people would do it.

[dylan604]

I have this same feeling towards a lot of tech blogs/articles/etc. The people writing use an acronym daily, yet people not in that field have much less familiarity with the same grouping of letters. Journalism/authors has (had?) a rule about clearly defining the acronym the first time it was used, and then just use the acronym for the remainder. Now, that definition seems left out altogether. It could be a sign of lack of formal training in writing, but I know I was taught it in high school level grammar class. <shrugs>

[matheusmoreira]

The web provides a solution to this problem.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/ab...

[teekert]

"Hmmm, seems like a lot of people involved in this case should be fired,"

Perhaps, or a culture should be created where there should be no fear of negative repercussions for taking ownership of something? Seems like a typical organizational thing where responsibilities are not clear and people are afraid to take it.

Edit, not saying this is not unforgivable. Just saying a critical look at the organizational level would be good.

[jjk166]

And the key to creating such a culture is to make the consequences of hiding mistakes substantially worse than the consequences of owning them. So either you reward people for making mistakes and coming forward (creating a perverse incentive to make mistakes) or you punish those who hide mistakes especially hard. Bonus points if in the process of punishing people who hide mistakes, you also remove those people from the organization, thus increasing the proportion of people in the organization who do not hide mistakes.

Firing these people is both just and pragmatic.