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drkgodess t1_jdxh6bu wrote

The case was tried prior to the advent of DNA processing and used a bunch of discredited techniques. Not to mention that racism seemed to play a large factor in his conviction. No amount of money will compensate for 20 years of lost time, but I hope he has a comfortable life going forward.

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Xaxxon t1_jdxprnq wrote

hair analysis was extra super bullshit pushed by the govt. hopefully drug dogs will eventually be similarly discredited.

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Thr0waway3691215 t1_jdyrfij wrote

Drug dogs have repeatedly been shown to be useless, it's pretty public knowledge that the handler is why they alert. We still use them anyway, I don't get it.

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goldfinger1906 t1_jdyx5f8 wrote

It’s used more, now anyway, as a means of eliciting either a confession or non-verbal cues directing the officer to a location where something may be hiding. It’s intended to dramatically increase one’s fear and stress levels, especially in a roadside stop. Usually preceded by statements like,”Look if you just tell me where it is I can help you, but if the dog finds it first then it’s out of my hands.”

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boringhistoryfan t1_jdz5ujw wrote

It's used to manufacture probable cause as I understand it. The officer needs to show that to justify searching a vehicle absent permission. So the dog is summoned and made to alert, and that allows them to override the owners denial of permission to search their vehicle.

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cheap_walmart_art t1_jdzljqp wrote

Back in the day when i was 18 I got pulled over dead to rights leaving my dealers house. Needless to say I had definitely re-upped and was carrying. Enter stonecold Steve Austin sheriff who pulls me over. We do the song and dance and he feeds me this line about it being a routine traffic stop. I refuse a search. He brings the dog and gives me the whole spiel. However, the dog will not alert for some reason. He’s just happy and frolicking. Cop keeps yanking the poor thing over and it just won’t do whatever it is he wants it to do to my car. He just slings the dog forcibly back into the cruiser and tells me to leave and if he even sees me again on this side of town he will “arrest me on sight” no idea what luck was with me that day but I feel bad for the poor dog. Dude was PISSED at it.

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Mythosaurus t1_je2wz80 wrote

So it’s the modern equivalent of animal divination!

Might as well use Roman sacred chickens to convince the judge…

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Mend1cant t1_je34ig9 wrote

“99 problems but a bitch ain’t one”. Not about women.

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al_pacappuchino t1_jdz2fh9 wrote

Speaking of drug dogs. I once flew with a few coworkers to a bother country. The flight went with out a hitch, and get our luggage and walk past a uniformed officer and his dog on our way. Once we get out to the street waiting for a cab my coworker pulls out his cigarette package from his pocket and pulls out a fat joint. Sparks it up and inhales. I asked him how the hell he had the stones to just walk past security with that one in his pocket and asked aren’t you afraid of the dogs? He he goes: yeah, no! Those are just for show dude! I was flabbergasted.

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MaidenPilled t1_je10evr wrote

Dogs may not have been trained for marijuana. If you're looking for coke or heroin mules you don't want your dog to alert every time a college student walks by. Dog may not have been trained for drugs at all. At airports I'm pretty sure a lot of the dogs are for explosives, not drugs.

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somme_rando t1_je1b3ut wrote

Sometimes none of the above -

https://www.mpi.govt.nz/news/media-releases/mpi-introduces-new-biosecurity-sniffers/
>The detector dogs on show at the Auckland Biosecurity Centre today included media celebrity Clara, a recently graduated border biosecurity dog, and Boston, a springer spaniel that MPI is training to work in the field to detect any pest that makes it across the border.

>“We are working to develop a new type of dog that will be able to help with biosecurity responses. It will have the flexibility to be trained to detect any new pest that makes it to New Zealand.”

>Steve Gilbert, MPI Director Border Clearance Services says traditional border biosecurity dogs are not suitable to act in the incursion role, as they are trained to sniff out food and could be distracted by food odours when working outside.

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hummingbird_mywill t1_jdz362t wrote

What country though? Marijuana isn’t illegal in a bunch of countries and the dogs aren’t trained on it.

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Blazerer t1_jdzzot7 wrote

You do realise that, in your story, he must have already had the drugs on him when he boarded? In the US? And he had drugs in his pocket?

Besides the fact that whatever your target destination might have been might not have laws against marijuana, the story does not make any kind of sense when accounting for someone who supposedly smuggled marijuana in his pocket through US customs...when flying.

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al_pacappuchino t1_je07uhf wrote

US? No dude. My coworker had the thing on him the hole way from start to finish. It was a flight from Stockholm to Paris. Don’t be so americentric.

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arbivark t1_je0xd0u wrote

I once accidentally smuggled weed into Paris. Had a roach in my wallet.

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EdgeOfWetness t1_je13fc3 wrote

You're writing in English. How was he supposed to know your itinerary?

−9

al_pacappuchino t1_je16twq wrote

So English defaults to the us, even if the majority of people on here from all over use it to communicate? Men du kanske föredrar att jag skriver på svenska för att visa var jag kommer ifrån. Problemet med det är sångröster inte så många.

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EdgeOfWetness t1_je1g374 wrote

> So English defaults to the us, even if the majority of people on here from all over use it to communicate?

In the absence of any other information about location, is it that outrageous a guess?

I don't think poster was being americentric, but patiently just saying "No, actually I was speaking of a flight between Stockholm and Paris" would have been kindly informative and helpful, without the "stupid Americans, think everything is about you" comment.

But as always you're free to be as triggered as you wish here.

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hershdiggity t1_je1r2l8 wrote

It's not an outrageous guess. However, it wasn't a guess, it was an assumption. And that's a pretty outrageous assumption.

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ExistingPosition5742 t1_je23lk4 wrote

I've taken a small amount of cocaine on a US flight twice. Only cause I didn't realize I had it, but yeah went through no problem.

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TopCheesecakeGirl t1_jdz5la0 wrote

Hahaha joke’s on them; I always travel with beef jerky.

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nautilator44 t1_je0a392 wrote

Oh no! Did I just drop a delicious beef jerky treat on the ground? Oh bother, I can never hold onto those things! Anyway, good boy, here's 5 more.

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tadcoffin t1_je03al1 wrote

Dogs are capable of being drug dogs. It's just not how they are typically used. Not that dogs should be used in the manufactured War on Drugs anyway.

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Ksh_667 t1_je153qa wrote

Exactly. Dogs should just be having fun. I don’t know anyone who has as much fun as a dog. We ought to encourage that. Nothing better than seeing an ecstatic doggo living their best life.

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pipocaQuemada t1_je0as65 wrote

Dogs have a very accurate sense of smell; they can reliably sniff out various things.

There's a number of scentwork dog sports. For example, AKC scentwork titles use birch, anise, clove, and cypress oils. There's also e.g. barnhunt, where dogs have to identify which pvc tubes contain pet rats and which are empty or only have rat bedding.

The problem is that departments don't train dogs and handlers well, because they don't actually want effective detection dogs, they want probable cause generators.

It's fairly well known that dogs can read cues from their handlers and alert when the handler thinks there's something there. But that can be fixed by more adversarial training and testing where handlers are misled on the number of items they need to find, and if they can't control their own body language and cause a false alert they fail.

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QuintoBlanco t1_je4unl4 wrote

The real problem is that there is no objective way to determine whether or not a dog has smelled a particular thing, has missed a smell, or has recognized a smell, outside of a controlled experiment.

This means that the problem cannot be fixed because there is no way to verify if the handler has done a good job outside of controlled experiments, which means that the handlers can just make stuff up.

In the Netherlands hundreds of dog tests have been falsified because the police wanted a result, not because the handlers made mistakes.

The investigating officers would tell the officers who handled the dogs which result they wanted.

Of course outside of law enforcement, this is far less of an issue.

0

89141 t1_je5oki3 wrote

Did you make all that up just now?

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QuintoBlanco t1_je6t0v7 wrote

No. Unfortunately I made nothing of that up.

Why do you think I made that up?

I genuinely am very interested to know why you think I would make something like that up, this is not a rhetorical question.

Here is a link and a a translation of part of the article:

https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/politie-sjoemelde-met-geurproeven-verdacht-vaak-wees-de-hond-de-dader-aan~bb7b11f2/

"From an old research report, it now appears that the smell test has been manipulated for decades in order to get the suspect convicted. At the time, the Public Prosecution Service did not see this, or did not want to see it. Nevertheless, a scent dog had identified a suspect as the perpetrator several times, although it was later proven that he could not have committed the crime."

"The police officers who admitted in 2006 to the court in Leeuwarden that they never conducted a blind scent test consistently wrote in all official reports that they had done so."

"We already knew long before 1997 that police dog handler Kobus S. could guarantee a positive result," says former detective Jan Paalman. "Kobus could turn a weak case into a strong one."

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89141 t1_je6w9z0 wrote

That’s their opinion. There’s more that disagree.

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QuintoBlanco t1_je6ytmn wrote

No, that is not 'their' opinion.

Four police officers were convicted in a court of law and six others were fired.

Dutch prosecutors no longer use odor tests by dogs as evidence because of this case.

Several convictions based on odor tests were overturned.

So I have to ask you again, why is this so hard for you to believe?

Do you watch a lot of procedural dramas?

1

DistortoiseLP t1_je0khy0 wrote

>We still use them anyway, I don't get it.

It's essentially ritual behaviour and endures the same way. People believe it like they believe any other magic, and institutions exploit it for public approval like any other magic.

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arbivark t1_je0wqb8 wrote

I used to have a senior partner at my law firm. Cops show up with a drug dog at the door of his condo. It alerts. They bust in the door and seize pot plants. He hires a fancy law firm. They fly in the dog's trainer from california, and impeach the dog. Evidence suppressed, case dismissed.

1

RevengencerAlf t1_je0bbbd wrote

Hair analysis, Bitemark analysis, tool mark analysis (different from striation analysis on bullets), drug dogs... psychological profiling, all completely junk science. All used to throw likely innocent people in jail. Sometimes directly sometimes to manufacture probable cause and coerce confessions.

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[deleted] t1_je0d9ba wrote

[deleted]

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RevengencerAlf t1_je0h7h8 wrote

How they respond to their handlers is a requisite part of the "science" here. Dogs w/ handlers will never, ever be reliable to a certainty acceptable to risk taking away people's freedom.

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SuddenlyElga t1_jdyz8xo wrote

What about the people that ruined this man’s life? Any chance you consequences ?

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Hall-Double t1_jdzd42m wrote

The money can make his life comfortable now, but no amount will compensate for spending 16 years in a hell hole ......

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jollybumpkin t1_jdxyv5g wrote

Alice Sebold is the author of two really moving, well-written, troubling books. I read both, several years ago.

Obviously, she has a heart. She now knows what happened, she publicly apologized to Broadwater, and she is heartbroken over it. There is no doubt that she suffered a horrible, traumatizing attack. She was very young at the time, in her first year of college.

The books:

The Lovely Bones It's the story of a delightful little girl who is kidnapped, imprisoned, sexually abused and murdered by another man who lives in her town, told from the point of the little girl.

Lucky is the terrifying story of how she was raped by a stranger in a remote area when she was a first-year student at Syracuse University. The perpetrator was identified as Anthony Broadwater.

Sebold has publicly apologized to Broadwater, though she blames a faulty legal system more than herself. She said,

>“I am grateful that Mr. Broadwater has finally been vindicated, but the fact remains that 40 years ago, he became another young Black man brutalized by our flawed legal system. I will forever be sorry for what was done to him."

She also said,

>Forty years ago, as a traumatized 18-year-old rape victim, I chose to put my faith in the American legal system. My goal in 1982 was justice – not to perpetuate injustice, and certainly not to forever, and irreparably, alter a young man’s life by the very crime that had altered mine.”

Broadwater probably wouldn't have been convicted if it hadn't been the hair analysis, which was junk science, though it's possible that the police and DA felt it was legitimate at the time. Sebold feels she was pressured by the police and district attorney to identify him as the perpetrator, after they persuaded her that the hair analysis proved that he was the attacker.

It's a horrifying story from Broadwater's point of view. He was denied parole at least five times because he refused to take responsibility for a crime he didn't commit.

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slom_ax t1_jdy11su wrote

The guy should write a book about his experience

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[deleted] t1_jdy6wxr wrote

[deleted]

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jollybumpkin t1_jdyt81p wrote

> Will she support him and use her platform to bring more attention to the book?

The books are old news, don't sell like they used to.

I don't know how much money she made from her books. Even though they were successful, she didn't necessarily make millions.

I would glad to know she has offered to help Mr. Broadwater. On the other hand, he just won a $5.5 million settlement. He may have more money than her, at this point. If she does offer him some kind of assistance, she will probably keep it private. Grandstanding about helping him would really be tacky.

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Savesomeposts t1_je04z92 wrote

> Alice Sebold Net Worth 2023:

>As of March 2023, Alice Sebold has a net worth of $3 million.

>It’s hard to pinpoint Sebold’s exact net worth since it’s not clear what her royalties for the books were. Plus, the publisher put “Lucky” on hold after Broadwater’s exoneration.

>She even sold the rights to “The Lovely Bones” feature film before it became a sensation.

>That said, Sebold lives in a San Francisco property estimated at around $6 million.

https://thesuccessbug.com/alice-sebold-net-worth/

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PurpleAntifreeze t1_jdykcqi wrote

Why wouldn’t she blame the faulty legal system more than herself? Seriously, the victim blaming overtones here are disgusting. She was told they had scientific proof it was him - that’s not her fault.

And it’s a horrifying story from both of their perspectives there McNasty. Not just his. First she was brutally raped and then she was deceived into helping convict an innocent man. How is it not also horrifying for her?

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Landeyda t1_jdyld8z wrote

Because she ID'ed him and testified to it. That's being left out.

> “Is there any doubt in your mind, Miss Sebold, that the person that you saw on Marshall Street is the person who attacked you on May 8 in Thornden Park?” the prosecutor asked. > > “No doubt whatsoever.”

Blame goes to the State for all its bullshit, but she, on the stand, said that Broadwater was the one to do it under oath.

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ddottay t1_jdyokzv wrote

She also picked someone else in the police lineup and then when she was told she picked the “wrong person” she changed her identification.

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stolenfires t1_jdyugsw wrote

That's so fucked up. That could have been the actual rapist; who walked free and probably raped more women. It's victims all the way down.

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LazyQuest t1_jdzcoa7 wrote

That's not how line ups work lol, the other people in it are not suspects

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bros402 t1_jdymblk wrote

cops do shit all the time to implant false memories

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woundedbearhair t1_jdyn1ra wrote

And speaking of discredited techniques, witness IDs are the least reliable method of identifying a suspect unless the suspect confessed to them and it’s marred by the trauma the witness is dealing with from the event. Cops manipulate witnesses all the time to arrive at the conclusion they are aiming for.

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jollybumpkin t1_jdytjje wrote

> she, on the stand, said that Broadwater was the one to do it under oath.

That's a terrible mistake she will have to live with for the rest of her life. She clearly regrets it.

She was very young and traumatized by an awful sexual assault. You'd have to read Lucky to understand how bad it was.

I'm not trying to defend her or excuse her mistake. I'm not ready to condemn her, either. Life is hard. Life is complicated.

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DigitalSteven1 t1_jdyz7if wrote

I wouldn't call that a mistake... More like lying under oath and putting an innocent man behind bars.

​

Of course, the entire situation is fucked, and all points back to the corruption in the justice system. Coercing a rape victim to identify an innocent is super fucked. The real people that should be behind bars are the ones that practically forced her to do that.

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jollybumpkin t1_jdz00y1 wrote

Now you're just being antagonistic.

When she testified, she had the mistaken belief that he was the perpetrator. Was this foolish? Perhaps. Was she mixed up? Yes, probably. Was it racism? Probably not. There was never much doubt that the perpetrator was black. It just wasn't Broadwater.

But there's no reason to believe she testified maliciously. If that were true, she wouldn't have publicly apologized, recently.

When she wrote her book about the assault, Broadwater was already tried, convicted and locked up. She used a pseudonym for Broadwater, but she repeatedly wrote about the guy who was caught and prosecuted. She wrote he was the one who did it. She seems to have believed it, until, much later, she better understood what had happened and how the police improperly influenced her testimony.

Lucky did not sell well. After she published Lovely Bones, the public got interested in her previous book, Lucky, and started to buy it. By then, Broadwater had been locked up for years.

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global_scamartist t1_jdz4o88 wrote

And lucky was about to be made into a Netflix movie which got cancelled when the original producer did his own research and hired a private investigator to look into the case. That’s how broadwater got exonerated.

The producer is now making a movie called unlucky about how that process went.

“The new film will be titled Unlucky, and is being produced by Timothy Mucciante — who, during his previous tenure as an executive producer on a film adaptation of Lucky, found inconsistencies in Sebold's account that eventually led to Broadwater's exoneration.

In the op-ed, Mucciante detailed that one of the things that made him start to question the case was Sebold's own account of comments made to her by an assistant district attorney after she initially identified a man other than Broadwater in the police lineup (later, in the trial, she did identify Broadwater as her rapist, which together with a now-discredited junk science known as "microscopic hair analysis" secured his conviction). He said that a script rewrite that changed the race of Sebold's assailant in the film to a white man (Broadwater is Black) also led to keeping his ‘unease with aspects of the book fresh in mind.’”

So basically she changed her account from identifying broadwater and was potentially ok with the script changing the assailant to a white man. If it was for a sale to Netflix then it’s at the least, still disingenuous and shady. At the worst it’s selling her trauma to wrongfully accuse a man for decades and trying to do it until Mucciante caught on. This is all publicly available information. I’m not the source - it’s available everywhere.

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QuintoBlanco t1_je4wqu3 wrote

>There was never much doubt that the perpetrator was black. It just wasn't Broadwater.

Well, there is the problem.

Broadwater only became a suspect because Alice Sebold falsely accused him.

The only reason the police was convinced Broadwater was the rapist, was that Sebold initially was sure he was the man who raped her.

She was raped by a black man, and accused another black man.

I just want to make it clear that she did not accuse Broadwater after the police had arrested him, or pointed him out to Sebold.

She accused a black man she had met on the street.

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humanregularbeing t1_je3x9pt wrote

Don't know anything about this case, am only passing through. But "was it racism probably not there was never much doubt that the perpetrator was black it just wasn't Broadwater" is a bit messed up. Just reread it.

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QuintoBlanco t1_je4w2r6 wrote

>the victim blaming overtones

She was not the victim in relationship to Anthony Broadwater.

She was not raped by Anthony Broadwater and she is the one who identified him as her rapist after she met him on the street.

When she met Anthony Broadwater, the police wasn't there to deceive her.

She was sure Anthony Broadwater raped her (without being prompted by the police), then, weeks later, could not identify him.

It was only then that the police convinced her that Anthony Broadwater was the rapist.

I'm not saying this to condemn Alice Sebold, she made a terrible mistake when she was a traumatized 18-year-old.

But it is important to get the facts right: Anthony Broadwater became a suspect because Alice Sebold falsely accused him.

2

global_scamartist t1_je8vcuo wrote

Because she told the probation board that applying the maximum sentence to Broadwater would be great political fodder for them (described in her memoir). Why mention the political gain? That’s manipulative in that she encouraged the maximum sentence and the “political” aspect could be anything from advancing careers or appeasing public sentiment (aka racial bias towards black men) which are secondary to the case. If she wanted Justice she could have just stuck to Justice - not leverage politics. It mirrors her lack of integrity in lying in the memoir about Broadwater having a criminal history and sending a hit man to kill her friend which she wrote at 36, and had plenty of time to fat check. The lies made the rapist seem more dramatic and threatening, presumably to sell to the publisher. Further changes to reality in the Netflix script (that she was presumably ok with) from a black perpetrator to white paints her as a shrewd businesswoman willing to leverage her trauma into changing narratives as long as it “sold.” That’s on the back of Broadwater that she was making millions on and a writing career. Lastly her apology never takes accountability for her involvement and her lies about him in the memoir.

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levenfish t1_je0df28 wrote

No where has she apologized. "im sorry for what was done to him" is not an apology, and shows no contrition for her part in the horrific events that she caused to happen to him.

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Three_hrs_later t1_je02w58 wrote

You mentioned the police and DA thinking it may have been valid at the time. I'm in a completely different sector but I sometimes have to evaluate equipment and software that is supposed to prevent medical errors. I can say that in my industry the amount of BS that is slung to potential buyers by sales representatives is rampant, and oftentimes the product is complete garbage. I can only imagine the people selling whatever it was back when this was considered to be a valid investigative tool probably had the same kind of BS sales tactics and tried to fool them into believing it just so they could make a profit.

Yet another drawback of unregulated capitalism in a sector where there needs to be a lot of scientific oversight and thorough validation due to the chances of inflicting such great harm on a human being whether that's some sort of life altering injury or taking away someone's life by putting them in jail.

And I'll just qualify that by saying this in no way excuses them, but it just kind of struck a chord based on the experiences I've had in a different sector.

2

Torifyme12 t1_je207bi wrote

I mean she perpetuated the injustice by naming him. JFC.

​

And she didn't take ownership of anything, she just basically said, "Oh lol I was along for the ride" Btw I made millions off of this.

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KenTheAlbino t1_jdxibqo wrote

So Sebold could not pick him out of a line up yet testified in court he was the man who raped her? Because when she saw him walking down the street subsequent to her attack he smiled at her? She should be sued into oblivion for defamation.

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grandmotherofdragons t1_jdxsk25 wrote

Memory is incredibly fickle and false memories are very easy to implant by police. Police were convinced he was the rapist, and she believed that he was the man and even began to think that she HAD recognized him. It was a memory error from a victim of rape by a stranger. People are really bad at remembering details of traumatic events, especially when the perpetrator was a stranger, and especially when the perpetrator was of a different race from the victim.

This is why we should never rely on shaky evidence like these types of eyewitness testimonies.

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alphabeticdisorder t1_jdxo7bf wrote

She didn't lie. She was mistaken. The people at fault are the attorneys who apparently based the case on that. Victims of violent crimes are frequently wrong about details and the trauma continues to affect their experience. None of that is her fault, it's just how brains work.

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[deleted] t1_jdxp5t8 wrote

[deleted]

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alphabeticdisorder t1_jdxq7ki wrote

No. Again, she was mistaken on the stand. Lots of people are, and it has nothing to do with honesty or intent.

−1

riptide81 t1_jdzjyqu wrote

I sympathize with her circumstances but I also actually think a lot of people aren’t being completely honest when answering that question phrased exactly that way.

We all know the reality of the situation is they essentially want a yes or no response. Any equivocation is a point for the defense towards reasonable doubt.

Hardly anyone is going to respond with, “I’m like 80% certain independently but I trust the police have the right guy and I know I need to just answer in the affirmative to help secure a conviction.”

I suppose we all could go back and forth endlessly about whether not telling the entire truth is lying. Pretty much everyone does it on a regular basis only the stakes are usually much lower.

It’s impossible for any of us, including you, to know for sure.

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[deleted] t1_jdxrasl wrote

[deleted]

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Cranktique t1_jdyj4f8 wrote

Dude, she did not charge him, the DA did. All she did was report her rape and answer their questions to the best of her ability. Our legal system doesn’t have the victims running this shit dude. She bares no blame, unless you think she was wrong to report being raped?

The reason we have lawyers, and a judge, and jury and fucking precedent is to determine who is guilty and innocent. Use your fucking head.

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Basas t1_je0kdxw wrote

She found him on the street and said she had no doubts he was the perpetrator to the best of her ability.

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alphabeticdisorder t1_jdxrmh4 wrote

Neat. How is that her fault? Did she coerce the prosecutor into pursuing the conviction based solely on her whims?

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[deleted] t1_jdxsj02 wrote

[deleted]

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alphabeticdisorder t1_jdxtc3j wrote

No, I said coerce. The prosecutor doesn't have to pursue everything anyone asks. I can't just walk over to the city prosecutor's office and demand they lock up my neighbor. Their job is to determine whether something can and should be prosecuted. A victim can't be expected to make those decisions impartially.

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[deleted] t1_jdxu5tv wrote

[deleted]

−5

NandiniS t1_jdyidr7 wrote

Apart from the fact that this is a shitty analogy, the answer to your question is clearly nope, you wouldn't be at fault at all if you simply asked me to kill someone (without coercion) and I'm the one that went and killed them. DUH. What kind of lunatic would suggest otherwise?

5

empfindsamkeit t1_je06adm wrote

No, she knew that she had picked wrong the first time, and was merely following the lead of police. But she claimed it was her own identification and that she was sure of it. No person in that situation could be honestly mistaken about that. She had to know she was fudging the truth to the jury.

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ouchouch2233 t1_jdyhby0 wrote

She should probably give him half her book money

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PurpleAntifreeze t1_jdyky17 wrote

He didn’t write the book, and he now has plenty of money. She is still a victim of a particularly brutal crime, and she told her story. Not his.

−34

Keylime29 t1_jdymwq7 wrote

So her rapist is still out there? I wonder how many bothered he has hurt? That terrifying for everyone

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drkgodess t1_jdxjb72 wrote

It's not the victim's fault he went to trial here. The DA insisted despite the shaky evidence.

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KenTheAlbino t1_jdxjm63 wrote

Oh I don’t think the prosecution should be let off the hook either. But the victim called him a rapist based upon pretty much nothing.

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PurpleAntifreeze t1_jdykoiu wrote

No, not nothing. She was told they had scientific proof it was him. That along with the emotional coercion and the fallibility of memory (especially after both physical and mental trauma) added up to her agreeing to testify. Let’s not act like this man is the only fucking victim here ok?

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Last_Mandalorian t1_jdzin8u wrote

So you didn’t read the case, huh? How do you think the police identified him as a suspect? Because he saw her on the street and smiled at her and she accused him based upon that. The “scientific” evidence came later.

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m1k3tv t1_jdxmfh6 wrote

Its crazy that you can steal decades of a persons live and ONLY worry about being sued.

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PurpleAntifreeze t1_jdykgzk wrote

The people who should be sued are the junk scientists responsible for “identifying” him.

1

m1k3tv t1_jdzvcnf wrote

But not the person who 'identified' him on the street in the first place... got it.

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MagpiesAndCats t1_jdzkkoq wrote

Broadwater‘s luck was that Sebold’s second part of the book “Lucky”, about the trial, which was all over the place and didn’t make any sense, caught the attention of an executive producer called Mucciante, working to adapt Lucky on film. Mucciante hired a private investigator to review the evidences, which ended with Broadwater being exonerated.

Sebold didn’t really apologise to Broadwater; she carefully put together apologies that blame the system which she was an innocent part of. While what happened to her was horrific, the fact that later she saw a black man and she was 100% convinced he raped her, with no evidence whatsoever, puts just as much guilt over her as over the system.

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EdLesliesBarber t1_jdzs4z2 wrote

Profoundly shocking to see so many blindly defending her.

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Drewdru t1_je06774 wrote

And no mention whatsoever of the blatant racism behind all of this.

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EdLesliesBarber t1_je09s08 wrote

Something still happening today. Testimony alone from a white person or police has taken decades from thousands of black men, many their lives.

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global_scamartist t1_je8t89k wrote

They can’t seem to reconcile that a rape victim can also be involved in perpetrating injustice against someone else, whether it be unintentionally through her own naïveté and trauma or if not intentionally, at least have other aspirations (publishing a memoir, getting it made into a Netflix movie) - be an unreliable narrator. It could be mostly passive or active but taken on a whole - she’s not a completely harmless.

Edit: She also wrote lies about Broadwater. She wrote that he had a criminal record which he didn’t and that he sent a hit man after her friend. This was when she was 36 writing about her experience at 18 so she had plenty of time to check.

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Rubthebuddhas t1_jdy23vz wrote

5.5M should get cost-of-living adjustments for NYC.

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couple4hire t1_jdyh1vu wrote

more like TAXPAYERS ( not NY ) will pay $5.5 million for NY gov't actions, while the cops, prosecutors, judges and the junk scientists who testified get off scot free. Why would they care its not their money or freedom that can be lost when they knowingly prosecute and arrest innocent people

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global_scamartist t1_jdyvw6c wrote

It was actually a producer working on making her memoir Lucky into a Netflix project that researched into the discrepancies between a first draft of the script vs the book that helped get broadwater exonerated. She was at the least, still ok with getting her memoir into a new product at Netflix and it was sheer luck someone else cared enough to fight for the wrongly accused and incarcerated.

Because of the nature of the discrepancies, some have said she made up lies in her memoir to capitalize on the event and smear broadwater further had the book gone on to become the film Netflix intended. I haven’t read it but I think it’s important to point out she was willing to have this film produced and broadwater as the perpetrator in recent years. Aka she was willing to have this traumatic event brought up again and potentially make money from it and re-introduce it to audiences who don’t know about it. That says enough about her character.

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Torifyme12 t1_je20pj6 wrote

She was also willing to change the race of the rapist. Just pointing that out.

4

_vvitchling_ t1_jdz28cl wrote

Based on your comment history, I think you are full of shit.

Edit: So you block people who have doubts that you were a producer on a film project about this case AND THEN sneakily EDIT YOUR COMMENTS in an attempt to sound logical and witty after others have already replied to you? Cool.

You made a claim that sounds more like gossip and when doubted, block the doubter and then reply saying that this information is easily available on the internet.

Well, I haven’t found ANYTHING to substantiate your claims. Nothing. How about YOU provide links to back up YOUR claims? That’s how that works. You make a claim and provide evidence for said claim. You don’t state something as fact and then admonish others to do what you should have done. That’s bad Reddit etiquette.

That being said, your comment history is full of differing stories about your past and at no point do you ever even remotely hint at being in the film business. In fact, the majority of your comment and post history seems to be related to offering tarot readings for money. Seems legit.

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global_scamartist t1_jdz44y2 wrote

You can look for this information publicly. It’s not from me but from reality. How about look for information first? I’m obviously not omniscient but it’s called why did he get exonerated? Go from there.

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global_scamartist t1_je84cry wrote

I block people because they can't read and it's not worth losing my sleep to engage but now I'm at a better time point to reply I will.

So you block people who have doubts that you were a producer on a film project about this case AND THEN sneakily EDIT YOUR COMMENTS in an attempt to sound logical and witty after others have already replied to you? Cool.

I never said I was a producer on a film project? My original post begins..."It was actually a producer..." Explain how that translates to I said I'm a film producer on a film project? Please elaborate the grammar, syntax and english words in that combination which indicates I myself am a film producer on a film project.

That being said, your comment history is full of differing stories about your past and at no point do you ever even remotely hint at being in the film business. In fact, the majority of your comment and post history seems to be related to offering tarot readings for money. Seems legit.

AGAIN, I never said I WAS IN THE FILM BUSINESS. If you have trouble with comprehending english, maybe it's because I used passive english such as "It was..." vs. "A film producer..." My bad, I should have listened to my english teachers.

Here are several links about what happened with the film producer, whose name was too long for me to type on mobile so I summarized and assumed people would look up themselves, but I guess people can't read and/or look up information.

https://ew.com/movies/lucky-movie-producer-alice-sebold-rape-case-wrongful-conviction-documentary/

https://variety.com/2021/film/news/alice-sebold-lucky-film-1235119766/

https://www.salon.com/2021/12/02/alice-sebold-lucky-anthony-broadwater-unlucky/

https://people.com/crime/anthony-broadwater-false-rape-conviction-alice-sebold/

If you need more 'official' links, the producer's name is TIMOTHY MUCCIANTE and his official IMDB is here:

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm11877329/

Unlucky is still in production and if you don't believe these links, or IMDB I encourage you to maybe contact his office for confirmation.

Edited for accuracy, in case you accuse me. Editing doesn't alter reality, or the existence of the above information.

0

global_scamartist t1_je86jg8 wrote

Also, I have never posted anything related to "offering tarot readings" for money. I have commented on tarot interpretation requests on reddit for free, and have made posts around meeting up to read tarot - neither of which involve money. Bad reddit etiquette is making up slander based on someone's post history and then using them as attacks when you've got nothing substantial to counter with.

0

SuspiriaGoose t1_jdz2w10 wrote

With that username, I don’t think anyone should trust you.

Edit: not sure why you blocked me. But anyway. I do believe this man was righteously exonerated. I’ve been familiar with the case for sometime and I’m grateful that the Netflix producers looked into it and fought for Justice. But you’ve been oddly fixated on speaking ill of this woman and I simply don’t believe you were a producer on the film. I think blocking me was cowardly and and attempt to hide your post history, which is somewhat concerning.

Anyway. Good day to you, if you ever unblock me.

Edit 2: i see I’m being messaged by some creepy MRAs. Well. That’s disappointing.

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global_scamartist t1_jdz490n wrote

Don’t trust me - this is publicly available information. It’s called look it up yourself. If you don’t know how to do that then get off the internet. Also, obviously all bad people have a t-shirt that says “I’m a bad person.” That’s how the world works.

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Basas t1_je0ilpt wrote

> But you’ve been oddly fixated on speaking ill of this woman

She is somewhat a piece of shit of a person for putting innocent man in jail for 16 years so this understandable.

> I think blocking me was cowardly and and attempt to hide your post history

Why do you even need someone's history? Your try to attack their username and comment history when/because you have nothing to add to discussion is pretty low.

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global_scamartist t1_je85jii wrote

I'm oddly fixated because it's important to state how and why Broadwater was exonerated, as in, it wasn't the justice system itself and it hinged on one producer thinking critically and digging into it - which is a long shot, and not everyone is that fortunate to have someone else bat for them. Even if, the producer presumably had something to gain aka making another feature film about his experience.

I blocked you because of a previous person making antagonistic comments about me based on my post history (which have nothing to do with this topic). But I see you're more reasonable than her. Also, to clarify I never said I was a film producer but used passive english structuring "It was..." so that was potentially causing reading comprehension issues.

1

SuspiriaGoose t1_je8ap75 wrote

I apologize, I misread your statement. I read it as ‘I was a producer’, and found that highly unlikely, especially in conjunction with the username. That was on my reading comprehension. After immediately being blocked, I assumed it was back-pedaling. I was wrong. Thank you for unblocking me.

I’ve heard a mix of things about the woman and I think there’s room for bad feeling about her actions in this case. Unfortunately, I’ve often heard her name over and over again from certain unsavoury communities that are convinced that ‘rape isn’t real’ or that ‘most accusations are fake to gain clout’ - they’ve claimed to be involved in ‘investigations’ in the past, so I was wary.

I think she needed it to be this man, and was willing to overlook evidence against it because of her need to trust the police. Otherwise she’d realize she was responsible for incarcerating an innocent man for years, participated in racism, and that her attacker had been roaming free this whole time. I think she doubled down on her story because it let her be her story - otherwise she was an accomplice to a crime worse than her original rape. I don’t know enough about her to know that, but it seems a human reaction. I find it harder to believe she realized the truth and decided to forcibly keep an innocent locked up so she could profit off his suffering and her false victimhood. I suppose it’s not impossible, but I’d need to see some receipts before assuming the worst of a woman who was brutally attacked and violated.

1

global_scamartist t1_je8mqfr wrote

Well, you're the second person to misread that so note to self: never use passive sentences in important posts related to rape and racism.

I understand where your initial bias is coming from and my intent isn't to speak ill of Alice Sebold. It's to provide someone else's critical and investigative research into these events, and draw conclusions from that. There are more nuanced takes on this in that she was a victim of rape, perhaps had a racial bias or was influenced by the racial bias of the justice system, was young and naive, but also had additions in her memoir that aren't as truthful in order to sell the memoir, for example. These are the discrepancies the producer, Mucciante noticed - which I'm sure will be explored more in the eventual movie he's making.

https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article256385927.html

Behind a paywall, but he explains a statement by the DA at the time didn't "ring true", along with other discrepancies. Further, as someone else commented - a black actor felt this film could contribute to violence from white people against black men due to the subject matter so the script was changed to make the rapist white which the producer mentioned other producers and directors were OK with (claiming they dealt with Sebold for years and she'd be OK with these changes). None of this suggests that she is a racist, knew Broadwater was innocent and falsified her rape BUT it does suggest that she may have embellished certain aspects of her story for publishing standards (DA statements, potential other details from the justice system perhaps), and further on - was OK with altering huge details like race for film standards to Netflix. This at the worst paints her as business minded - packaging up her trauma for consumption regardless of the truth, but again, until Unlucky or someone else involved with the exoneration goes into depth the exact discrepancies - it's hard to exactly say whether she was racist, naive, deceptive, etc. but for me, a few things would have stood out after time such as the hair analysis method used to link Broadwater was discredited in 1996, and that there weren't otherwise any evidence linking him. Then again, as the victim she obviously wouldn't have been critical about the forensic aspects but it definitely doesn't leave a good impression that she was at least willing for Netflix to make a completely unrealistic version of the events.

2

quitofilms t1_jdzo0g6 wrote

>She wrote that “as a traumatized 18-year-old rape victim, I chose to put my faith in the American legal system.

wow, even now she is blaming someone else for her actions

17

CrackHeadRodeo t1_jdzx49k wrote

This was such an egregious miscarriage of Justice.

8

pineapplepredator t1_jdzxq52 wrote

There is no way I’d be able to pick someone I’d seen briefly out of a lineup full of people with the same complexion and build. Especially after being traumatized. What a terrible situation. No one deserves this. I’m just glad he is seeing dignity even if far too late. I can’t imagine the trauma

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Moneyshot_ITF t1_je0bsbo wrote

She sucks. Dont read het books and let her profit anymore off thid bs story. How are we defending her putting someone behind bars because he was black

7

jefftatro1 t1_je0m7kq wrote

Judges and prosecution need to be fired when thus happens. Nit just a taxpayer payout. Why would they care about ruining people's lives if there's no consequence?

3

sevotlaga t1_je0n7u4 wrote

She should do as much time as he was originally sentenced to.

0