DQ: Statistics (2 paragraphs)

PLease read the instructors note at the bottom of DQ first then send ur handshakes..

The Death Penalty, Social justice and inferential statistics

Consider this simple correspondence between Vos Savant and a reader in her popular “Ask Marilyn” weekly “Parade” column.

The reader asks: I believe every supporter of capital punishment ought to answer this question: “What error rate do you consider acceptable?” If you were a supporter, how would you reply?

Marilyn replies: I would say that only a 0% error rate is acceptable. However, that doesn’t lend support to your argument that the death penalty should be abolished, as you imply. I’m sure you feel the same way about surgery and airline travel, but I’m equally sure you wouldn’t abolish either of them. Also, when a [person] has been found to be “wrongly convicted”, it doesn’t mean [they] ha[ve] been found to be innocent: Courts don’t make that judgment. A verdict of “not guilty” means that guilt has not been proved to the satisfaction of the law; instead, the cause can be anything from the discovery of a technicality to the finding that key evidence was flawed. Moreover, I’ve read articles in which the reporters wrote that “DNA testing proved the [person] was innocent,” when, in fact, the DNA test did not prove the [person] was guilty. That’s different. One last note: You imply that as long as a possibility of error exists, you are against the death penalty. This implies that, if the possibility of error does not exist, you would approve of capital punishment.

Some questions to consider: What do you think about Marilyn’s answer? It is not uncommon to hear a DNA expert say: DNA cannot prove a suspect guilty of a crime but it can prove that the suspect is not guilty; who do you think is right about this? What do you think is the implication of the sentence in Marilyn’s last note “This implies that,”

The death penalty is an issue/topic that straddles multiple domains – social justice, criminal law, statistics, etc. Please feel free to go beyond the simple correspondence and associated questions given above to examine the death penalty issue in the light of probability and inferential statistics such as how probability might be used to assess the likelihood that no person has ever been falsely executed by US civil authority, how the use of probability underlying DNA techniques have exonerated hundreds of people on the death row, how probability has been used in studies to determine what roles the race of the defendant or of the murder victim play in whether the defendant is sentenced to death, and so on.

“The main point of DB is highlighted above; discussion board post should be based on this. Anything in general about social justice and death penalties is not acceptable. It should be linked to probability and inferential statistics.”