Trayvon Martin, Vigilante Justice

[Cylinder]

Were those other cases in Daubert states?

That's an interesting question.

 

[Dan O.]

In the study posted they were unable to conclude anything 69% of the time. It made clear that high quality recordings were necessary.

Did you read the study when it was posted?

 

[bynmdsue]

Doesn't it seem odd to name the 13yr old witness? Wouldn't he and his family be getting alotta unwanted attention?

 

[Moss]

Did you read the study when it was posted?

The date it was submitted is rather interesting.

 

[WildCat]

To reiterate from the FBI study of voice recognition techniques:

(1) Only original recordings of voice samples were accepted for examination, unless the original recording had been erased and a high-quality copy was still available.

We have nothing like a high-quality sample here.

(5) Similarly pronounced words were compared between two voice samples, with most known voice samples being verbatim with the unknown voice recording. Normally, 20 or more different words were needed for a meaningful comparison. Less than 20 words usually resulted in a less conclusive opinion, such as possibly instead of probably.

The Martin "experts" don't even come close to meeting this threshold. We don't even have a single instance of a similarly-pronounced word, let alone 20. We are comparing a scream to spoken words!

Most of the no or low confidence decisions were due to poor recording quality and/or an insufficient number of comparable words.

And that is the situation we have here.

Until someone demonstrates they can use voice recognition techniques under similar circumstances as the Martin tapes I'm calling woo. And frankly I'm amazed anyone calling themselves a skeptic is falling for this nonsense.

And before anyone says "oh but that's from reel-to-reel analog tape and we have digital recordings now" analog recordings retain much more data than a compressed digital recording does. And any 911 call center is going top compress their digital recordings, or they'd be filling up their hard drives very quickly. A 24-bit 48 khz .wav file, for example, uses 1 gigabyte of data per hour. And there's simply no practical reason to record at thet resolution for spoken voices over the telephone.

 

[Dan O.]

Then why haven't you picked up on the fact that the study was for spectrographic voice identification and the scream was analyzed using biometric voice identification?

 

[sgtbaker]

If Zimmerman ever gets put on trial, and forensic recording analysis comes up, I have no doubt that even if it is technically admissible under Florida's rules of evidence, there's going to be a big battle over both whether it gets admitted, and whether it's actually probative.

I remember, quite vividly, what happened during the Casey Anthony trial when her computer's internet search history was brought up.

I don't think this particular test is going to be used. The special prosecutor said, six days ago, that they would be doing speaker and speech recognition tests on the voice and the possible racial slur. I am sure it's being done in the investigation and this test done by the media is just fodder for the news. They haven't had any major headlines, lately, so they needed something to keep it going.

 

[Natural Born Skeptic]

If you don't like the answer, please feel free to contact the Orlando Sentinel and explain to them that the forensic expert and chair emeritus for the American Board of Recorded Evidence using the exact same software that has already been used to convict murderers in court cases in the past is wrong. And don't forget the other forensic audio expert who came to the same conclusion without using the software.

That's an appeal to authority argument that ignores the primary question of how accurate voice identification is as a science. If it's not accurate I don't give a hoot what title the guy has any more than I care if Sylvia Browne is the Psychic Pope.

Repressed memories have also been used to convict people in court and "experts" constantly give questionable testimony that helps to convince people.

 

[Natural Born Skeptic]

Until someone demonstrates they can use voice recognition techniques under similar circumstances as the Martin tapes I'm calling woo. And frankly I'm amazed anyone calling themselves a skeptic is falling for this nonsense.

I wish I was amazed but I am not. The woo is strong in them, it is.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Not really, it depends on the digital storage medium, a lot of it depends on the phone used as well. Cell phones often compress the signal as well.

The issue with compression is that it removes a significant amount of the signal to encode the data, especially for cel phone transmission, or even cord free phones.

The signal analysis will probably be another long two days in court. It really depends upon the equipment used.

"Not really" refers to what? I said a number of things in that post.

I noted the quality of the phone call was a variable.

WC's hand waving fails to consider the quality of the company hired to do the analysis. They are forensics audio consultants with decades of experience and dozens of published papers. They had access to a clean copy of the recording.

All this apologizing for an inconvenient piece of new evidence goes beyond skeptical weighing of the evidence.

 

[Natural Born Skeptic]

Actually, I disagree. I don't care who initiated the violence.

That statement speaks for itself.

I care about who was armed, and who initiated the incident.

We don't know who initiated the incident. You've just convinced yourself that the act of following someone comprises "initiating".

I also don't care if using the gun was "justifiable"

Exactly. You basically don't care about any fact at all other than what confirms your preconceived notions.

because other than under the truly moronic stand your ground law in Florida it just wasn't.

IF he was on the ground being hit in the face and having his head slammed into the ground it MIGHT be deemed justifiable, regardless of the stand your ground law.

Yes there was an unfortunate confluence of events. All of it atarted by Zimmerman making ****** choices.

Yes, you keep harping on that. But one could just as easily determine that Zimmerman's following was not an aggressive act in and of itself.

We probably disagree about the place of guns in society as well.

I'm not sure why you'd conclude that just because I want to know the truth and have all the facts before I render a decision that I am a gun fan. Seems you like to jump to all sorts of conclusions. I hate guns and believe we should have much better gun control laws.

And let's not be disingenuous: Zimmerman was clearly out to **** with Martin.

Well, you're clearly clairvoyant then.

 

[sgtbaker]

Here is a link to a youtube video giving a demonstration on how Easy Voice works.

pt 1


pt 2


pt 3


ETA: apparently I can't count because it's three videos.

 

[AvalonXQ]

WC's hand waving fails to consider the quality of the company hired to do the analysis. They are forensics audio consultants with decades of experience and dozens of published papers. They had access to a clean copy of the recording.

It doesn't matter how good the company is. There's just simply not enough data to accurately match using available techniques. Trying to determine an acoustic signature from a scream would be difficult even under ideal conditions; it's simply not credible that they could do so accurately under these conditions.
You have to be very skeptical of claims by forensics experts; "cutting edge" experts hinge their business model on claiming to generate results beyond what the accepted techniques allow for.
I want to make this point a second time -- cutting edge experts are selling analyses that by definition is beyond the standard abilities in the field.
And we've seen over and over and over again that these speculative techniques are over-reaching and don't hold up under further scrutiny.

 

[Cylinder]

Until someone demonstrates they can use voice recognition techniques under similar circumstances as the Martin tapes I'm calling woo. And frankly I'm amazed anyone calling themselves a skeptic is falling for this nonsense.

Yea - that's an element of the Frye test. In Ramirez (which established that test in Florida) the state expert claimed that he could establish to scientific certainly that the murder knife could be identified to the exclusion of all other existing knives by microscopic tool marks present in the victim's cartiladge.

Ramirez argues that the trial court, after qualifying a technician as an expert in tool mark identification, erroneously allowed him to conclusively testify that a knife found in the
Renault was the knife that killed the victim. The trial court allowed the expert to state, "The result of my examination made from the microscopic similarity, which I observed from both the cut cartilage and the standard mark, was the stab wound in the victim was caused by this particular knife to the exclusion of all others." The technician explained that he had compared a piece of cut cartilage from the body of the victim to knife impressions, using the knife in question, but had made no comparisons with other knives.

In reviewing the record, we find that no scientific predicate was established from independent evidence to show that a specific knife can be identified from the marks made on cartilage. The only evidence received was the expert's self-serving statement supporting this procedure. The medical examiner testified that this type of knife could have made this type of stab wound. The trial judge expressed concern about this type of evidence when he stated, "For the first time in the history of the Florida courts . . . I have permitted into evidence knife prints, which the jury considered in the course of arriving at their verdict."

The state, in support of the expert's qualifications, noted that the technician coauthored a scholarly article which positively identified a knife as the tool that caused a particular stab wound to a piece of human cartilage. The procedure the technician utilized in this case was that discussed in the article. The state argues that simply because this technician had not previously testified in court in a knife identification case, he should not be disqualified as a witness.

The state suggests we adopt the reasoning of the Supreme Court of Kansas in State v. Churchiu which approved the admissibility of similar evidence concerning a knife mark in human cartilage.

Even though it was well-established that experts could testify with certainty that these types of tool marks were consistent with the questioned knife, it was not established that they could id the knife to the conclusion of others.

 

[Natural Born Skeptic]

And who initiated the violence certainly does matter, it's at the heart of this case.

Thanks! No ****! Mind boggling that people are arguing otherwise.

Edited by Loss Leader: 

Edited for rule 10. Do not partially mask profanity to bypass the autocensor.

 

[Checkmite]

And frankly I'm amazed anyone calling themselves a skeptic is falling for this nonsense.

Okay, Mister True Skeptic™. So where does uncritically accepting Zimmerman's uncorroborated self-defense claim that Martin attacked him while he was walking back to his truck fall on the scale of True Skepticism™?

 

[Cylinder]

So where does uncritically accepting Zimmerman's uncorroborated self-defense claim that Martin attacked him while he was walking back to his truck fall on the scale of True Skepticism™?

Where had WC done that?

 

[Natural Born Skeptic]

It doesn't matter how good the company is. There's just simply not enough data to accurately match using available techniques. Trying to determine an acoustic signature from a scream would be difficult even under ideal conditions; it's simply not credible that they could do so accurately under these conditions.
You have to be very skeptical of claims by forensics experts; "cutting edge" experts hinge their business model on claiming to generate results beyond what the accepted techniques allow for.
I want to make this point a second time -- cutting edge experts are selling analyses that by definition is beyond the standard abilities in the field.
And we've seen over and over and over again that these speculative techniques are over-reaching and don't hold up under further scrutiny.

^^^ This 100X ^^^! One of the things that makes me instantly skeptical here is that real scientists are extremely unlikely to render an opinion without enough information and it's almost always those that are not practicing good science that are eager to rush in and make pronouncements far too early.

I am willing to be wrong, but I find it highly doubtful that anyone can come to meaningful conclusions based on the recordings we've heard.

 

[Alt+F4]

WC's hand waving fails to consider the quality of the company hired to do the analysis. They are forensics audio consultants with decades of experience and dozens of published papers. They had access to a clean copy of the recording.

What do you mean by having "access to a clean copy of the recording"? The Orlando Sentinel article said nothing about this. Are you saying that the Sanford Police gave the Orlando Sentinel their own "clean" (whatever that means) copy of the recording?

 

[Natural Born Skeptic]

Okay, Mister True Skeptic™. So where does uncritically accepting Zimmerman's uncorroborated self-defense claim that Martin attacked him while he was walking back to his truck fall on the scale of True Skepticism™?

Maybe it's just me, but it seems very revealing that so many who are convinced they know enough about what happened to render a verdict keep projecting assumptions onto other people, it's a classic indication that people are being driven primarily by confirmation bias. I haven't seen him/her claim he accepts Zimmermans claim and I certainly don't. I just don't think we as the public have enough information to come to a conclusion about whether an arrest should be made, or about what happened that night.

And I don't know if we will ever have all the facts since Travon Martin won't be able to tell his side. Hell, even if he could tell his side we might have a hard time determining the complete truth. So all we can do now is hope the investigators piece the info together to the best of their abilities.