Today's Topics:
Bob Saved us!!!
Justice
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Date: Tue, 20 Nov 90 15:04:50 PST
From: Michael Madigan <madiganm@athena.ecs.csus.edu>
Subject: Bob Saved us!!!
To: subgenius@mc.lcs.mit.edu
Recently, returning from a Jerry Garcia Band concert Bob saved us.
We were to bent to drive and were driving any way. We picked up 2
hitchhikers who wer going to the same town as us. Well after thinking
the freeway was a runway we deceided to pull over. We pulled into Denny's
and then asked both passengers if they could drive a VW bus. Well the women
said "Bob can drive anything!" Our biggest concern was the mountain!
Bob then navigated the bus over the mountain with all the pressure of
bent people yelling and telling him to slow down. Bob saved us from
certain death.
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Date: Tue, 20 Nov 90 23:49:55 EST
From: drw@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU
Subject: Justice
To: subgenius@MEDIA-LAB.MEDIA.MIT.EDU
This is the beginning of an article in Science News:
Donald M. Thomson, an Australian psychologist and lawyer, undoubtedly
will never forget the day 15 years ago when he walked into a Sydney
police station on routine court-related business and was arrested for
assault and rape in a weird turn of events worthy of an Alfred
Hitchcock movie.
The evening before his arrest, Thomson appeared on a local television
program, where he discussed psychological research on eyewitness
testimony and how people might best remember the faces of criminals
observed during a robbery. As he spoke, a Sydney woman watching the
show was attacked, raped and left unconscious in her apartment. When
she awoke several hours later, she called the police and named Thomson
as her assailant.
The following day, after Thomson's arrest, the woman confidently
selected him as the perpetrator from a lineup of possible rapists at
the police station.
Thomson, of course, professed his innocence. "The police didn't
believe me at first," he recalls, "but I had appeared on a live
television show when the crime occurred, so I had a good alibi."
Officials quickly dropped the charges when they realized the woman had
unwittingly substituted Thomson's televised face for that of her
attacker. "She had apparently watched my television appearance very
closely, but it's not clear if she ever actually saw her assailant's
face," says Thomson, now at Monash university in Clayton, Australia.
Doesn't that raise your confidence in the court system?
Dale
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End of Subgenius Digest
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