[malandrew]

In one of the threads about this scandal someone said that it would be valuable to send known negative samples to a lab and check which ones come back positive, so that we can investigate whether misconduct was involved. This is basically equivalent to unit testing, since they are known assert(false) tests. Unit tests can be devised to test crime labs, district attorneys, law enforcement officers, judges, etc.

This makes me think if maybe this wouldn't be a worthwhile test for the justice system in general. Hire actors to pose as criminals in the system where the person is not guilty, but where most evidence supports a guilty verdict with a few smaller pieces of evidence that prove innocent. With this we find out how many prosecutors take the case all the way to conviction by willingly choosing to ignore evidence suggesting guilt and which decide to drop the case because they believe the person to be innocent. This would be the equivalent of acceptance testing the justice system.

[Oculus]

The problem is no one, especially not the Justice or Police System, want to show all the flaws that they have when it's so easy to cover for themselves currently.

[Elrac]

I like your idea! In an evidence based society, it might be picked up and spread like wildfire.

Of us (by majority, here) programming nerds, who wouldn't want to write better programs? Which consumer doesn't want better product safety? Which government could fail to want more truth-based justice?

But the USA is far from an evidence based society. It's a society where, in the interest of perpetuating religions, intellect is trumped by superstition and evidence by authority. As a side effect, justice is predicated on vengeance rather than reform.