The murder happened a little over 21 years ago, January the 18th, 1991, in a small bedroom community of Lynwood, California, just a few miles southeast of Los Angeles. A father came out of his house to tell his teenage son and his five friends that it was time for them to stop horsing around on the front lawn and on the sidewalk, to get home, finish their schoolwork, and prepare themselves for bed. And as the father was administering these instructions, a car drove by, slowly, and just after it passed the father and the teenagers, a hand went out from the front passenger window, and -- "Bam, Bam!" -- killing the father. And the car sped off.
Ubistvo se dogodilo pre nešto više od 21 godine, 18. januara 1991. u malom naselju u predgrađu Linvud, u Kaliforniji, samo nekoliko kilometara jugoistočno od Los Anđelesa. Otac je izašao iz kuće da kaže svom sinu i njegovoj petorici prijatelja da je vreme da prestanu da se glupiraju ispred kuće i na trotoaru, da uđu u kuću, završe domaće zadatke, i pripreme se za spavanje. Dok je otac davao ove instrukcije, auto je prolazio, polako, i samo koliko je prošao pored oca i tinejdžera, ruka je izašla kroz prozor suvozača, i - "bam, bam" - ubila oca. I auto je ubrzao.
The police, investigating officers, were amazingly efficient. They considered all the usual culprits, and in less than 24 hours, they had selected their suspect: Francisco Carrillo, a 17-year-old kid who lived about two or three blocks away from where the shooting occurred. They found photos of him. They prepared a photo array, and the day after the shooting, they showed it to one of the teenagers, and he said, "That's the picture. That's the shooter I saw that killed the father."
Policija, inspektori bili su začuđujuće efikasni. Razmotrili su sve uobičajene krivce, i za manje od 24 sata, izabrali su osumnjičenog: Francisko Kariljo, sedamnaestogodišnjak koji je živeo oko dva bloka dalje od mesta pucnjave. Pronašli su njegove fotografije. Pripremili su niz slika, i dan nakon pucnjave, pokazali ih jednom od tinejdžera, i on je rekao: "To je slika. To je strelac koga sam video da ubija oca."
That was all a preliminary hearing judge had to listen to, to bind Mr. Carrillo over to stand trial for a first-degree murder. In the investigation that followed before the actual trial, each of the other five teenagers was shown photographs, the same photo array. The picture that we best can determine was probably the one that they were shown in the photo array is in your bottom left hand corner of these mug shots. The reason we're not sure absolutely is because of the nature of evidence preservation in our judicial system, but that's another whole TEDx talk for later. (Laughter)
To je bilo preliminarno saslušanje koje je sudija saslušao, da uputi gospodina Karilja na suđenje za prvostepeno ubistvo. U istrazi koja je usledila pre suđenja, svakome od ostale petorice tinejdžera pokazane su fotografije, isti niz slika. Slika za koju možemo da utvrdimo da je verovatno bila ona koju su pokazali u nizu slika, je ova slika u donjem levom uglu. Razlog zbog koga nismo apsolutno sigurni je način čuvanja dokaza u našem sudskom sistemu, ali to je ceo jedan TEDx govor za kasnije. (Smeh)
So at the actual trial, all six of the teenagers testified, and indicated the identifications they had made in the photo array. He was convicted. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, and transported to Folsom Prison.
Dakle, na konkretnom suđenju, svih šest tinejdžera su svedočili, i pokazali identifikaciju u nizu slika. On je bio optužen. Dobio je doživotnu kaznu, i transportovan je u zatvor Folsom.
So what's wrong? Straightforward, fair trial, full investigation. Oh yes, no gun was ever found. No vehicle was ever identified as being the one in which the shooter had extended his arm, and no person was ever charged with being the driver of the shooter's vehicle. And Mr. Carrillo's alibi? Which of those parents here in the room might not lie concerning the whereabouts of your son or daughter in an investigation of a killing?
Dakle, šta nije u redu? Otvoreno, fer suđenje, puna istraga. E da, pištolj nikada nije pronađen. Nijedno vozilo nije identifikovano kao vozilo iz koga je strelac ispružio ruku, i niko nikada nije optužen kao vozač vozila iz koga je pucano. A alibi gospodina Karilja? Ko od ovde prisutnih roditelja bi mogao da ne laže kada se radi o tome gde je njegovo dete bilo kada se radi o istrazi ubistva?
Sent to prison, adamantly insisting on his innocence, which he has consistently for 21 years.
Poslat je u zatvor, odlučno insistirajući na svojoj nevinosti, što i radi za ovih 21 godinu.
So what's the problem? The problems, actually, for this kind of case come manyfold from decades of scientific research involving human memory. First of all, we have all the statistical analyses from the Innocence Project work, where we know that we have, what, 250, 280 documented cases now where people have been wrongfully convicted and subsequently exonerated, some from death row, on the basis of later DNA analysis, and you know that over three quarters of all of those cases of exoneration involved only eyewitness identification testimony during the trial that convicted them. We know that eyewitness identifications are fallible.
Pa, u čemu je problem? Problemi, zapravo, u ovakvim slučajevima dolaze uglavnom od decenija naučnog proučavanja ljudskog pamćenja. Pre svega, mi imamo sve statističke analize iz "Projekta nevinosti" gde znamo da imamo 250, 280 dokumentovanih slučajeva gde su ljudi bili pogrešno optuženi a zatim pomilovani, neki od smrtne kazne, na osnovu kasnijih DNK analiza, i preko tri četvrtine ovih slučajeva pomilovanja uključivali su samo identifikaciju očevidaca za vreme suđenja na kome su osuđeni. Znamo da su identifikacije očevidaca podložne greškama.
The other comes from an interesting aspect of human memory that's related to various brain functions but I can sum up for the sake of brevity here in a simple line: The brain abhors a vacuum. Under the best of observation conditions, the absolute best, we only detect, encode and store in our brains bits and pieces of the entire experience in front of us, and they're stored in different parts of the brain. So now, when it's important for us to be able to recall what it was that we experienced, we have an incomplete, we have a partial store, and what happens? Below awareness, with no requirement for any kind of motivated processing, the brain fills in information that was not there, not originally stored, from inference, from speculation, from sources of information that came to you, as the observer, after the observation. But it happens without awareness such that you don't, aren't even cognizant of it occurring. It's called reconstructed memories. It happens to us in all the aspects of our life, all the time. It was those two considerations, among others -- reconstructed memory, the fact about the eyewitness fallibility -- that was part of the instigation for a group of appeal attorneys led by an amazing lawyer named Ellen Eggers to pool their experience and their talents together and petition a superior court for a retrial for Francisco Carrillo. They retained me, as a forensic neurophysiologist, because I had expertise in eyewitness memory identification, which obviously makes sense for this case, right? But also because I have expertise and testify about the nature of human night vision.
Druga stvar dolazi od aspekta ljudskog pamćenja koje je povezano sa različitim funkcijama mozga ali ja mogu da sumiram sve to, zarad konciznosti u jednoj rečenici: mozak mrzi vakuum. Pod najboljim uslovima posmatranja, apsolutno najboljim, detektujemo, kodiramo i čuvamo samo delove i fragmente čitavog iskustva oko nas i oni se skladište u različitim delovima mozga. Sada, kada je važno da se setimo šta je bilo to što smo iskusili, mi imamo nekompletnu, delimičnu sliku, i, šta se dešava? Nesvesno, bez traženja da obradi sliku, mozak popunjava informacijama koje se nisu desile, koje nisu zaista sačuvane, iz zaključaka, iz spekulacije, iz izvora informacija koji nam dolaze, kao posmatraču, nakon posmatranja. Ali to dolazi nesvesno tako da čovek ni ne zna da se to dešava. To se zove rekonstruktivna memorija. Dešava nam se u svim aspektima života, svakodnevno. Bile su te dve pretpostavke, između ostalih - rekonstruktivna memorija, činjenica o mogućnosti greške očevidaca - koje su bile deo podstreka grupi žalbenih advokata, predvođenih izvanrednim advokatom Elen Egers, da udruže svoje iskustvo i talente i da zatraže od vrhovnog suda ponovno suđenje za Franciska Karilja. Angažovali su mene, kao forenzičkog neurofiziologa, jer sam bio stručnjak iz oblasti identifikovanja iz sećanja očevidaca, što je očigledno imalo smisla u ovom slučaju. Ali takođe i jer sam bio stručnjak i svedok za prirodu ljudskog vida noću.
Well, what's that got to do with this? Well, when you read through the case materials in this Carrillo case, one of the things that suddenly strikes you is that the investigating officers said the lighting was good at the crime scene, at the shooting. All the teenagers testified during the trial that they could see very well. But this occurred in mid-January, in the Northern Hemisphere, at 7 p.m. at night. So when I did the calculations for the lunar data and the solar data at that location on Earth at the time of the incident of the shooting, all right, it was well past the end of civil twilight and there was no moon up that night. So all the light in this area from the sun and the moon is what you see on the screen right here. The only lighting in that area had to come from artificial sources, and that's where I go out and I do the actual reconstruction of the scene with photometers, with various measures of illumination and various other measures of color perception, along with special cameras and high-speed film, right? Take all the measurements and record them, right? And then take photographs, and this is what the scene looked like at the time of the shooting from the position of the teenagers looking at the car going by and shooting. This is looking directly across the street from where they were standing. Remember, the investigating officers' report said the lighting was good. The teenagers said they could see very well. This is looking down to the east, where the shooting vehicle sped off, and this is the lighting directly behind the father and the teenagers. As you can see, it is at best poor. No one's going to call this well-lit, good lighting, and in fact, as nice as these pictures are, and the reason we take them is I knew I was going to have to testify in court, and a picture is worth more than a thousand words when you're trying to communicate numbers, abstract concepts like lux, the international measurement of illumination, the Ishihara color perception test values. When you present those to people who are not well-versed in those aspects of science and that, they become salamanders in the noonday sun. It's like talking about the tangent of the visual angle, all right? Their eyes just glaze over, all right? A good forensic expert also has to be a good educator, a good communicator, and that's part of the reason why we take the pictures, to show not only where the light sources are, and what we call the spill, the distribution, but also so that it's easier for the trier of fact to understand the circumstances. So these are some of the pictures that, in fact, I used when I testified, but more importantly were, to me as a scientist, are those readings, the photometer readings, which I can then convert into actual predictions of the visual capability of the human eye under those circumstances, and from my readings that I recorded at the scene under the same solar and lunar conditions at the same time, so on and so forth, right, I could predict that there would be no reliable color perception, which is crucial for face recognition, and that there would be only scotopic vision, which means there would be very little resolution, what we call boundary or edge detection, and that furthermore, because the eyes would have been totally dilated under this light, the depth of field, the distance at which you can focus and see details, would have been less than 18 inches away.
Pa, kakve to veze ima s ovim slučajem? Pa, kada čitate kroz dokazni materijal u slučaju Kariljo, jedna od stvari koja vas pogodi je ta da su inspektori rekli da je osvetljenje bilo dobro na mestu zločina, na mestu pucnjave. Svi tinejdžeri su svedočili za vreme suđenja da su mogli dobro da vide. Ali, ovo se desilo sredinom januara, na severnoj hemisferi, u 7 sati uveče. Kada sam uradio proračune lunarnih i solarnih podataka na toj lokaciji na Zemlji u vreme kada se incident dogodio, bio je prošao sumrak, i nije bilo mesečine te noći. Sva svetla te noći koja su dolazila od sunca i meseca su ova koja vidite na ekranu. Jedino svetlo u toj oblasti te večeri dolazilo je iz veštačkih izvora, i tu ja nastupam - radim rekonstrukciju scene sa fotometrima, različitim merama iluminacije i raznim drugim merama percepcije boja, sa specijalnim kamerama i brzim filmovima. Radim sva merenja i snimam ih. Onda, dobijam fotografije, i ovako izgleda scena u vreme pucnjave iz pozicije tinejdžera koji gledaju auto koji prolazi i pucnjavu. Ovo je gledano direktno na drugu stranu ulice sa mesta gde su oni stajali. Setite se, inspektori su rekli da je osvetljenje bilo dobro. Tinejdžeri su rekli da su mogli dobro da vide. Ovo je pogled ka istoku, gde je auto otišao nakon pucnjave, a ovo je osvetljenje direktno iza oca i iza tinejdžera. Vidite, u najboljem slučaju je loše. Niko ovo ne može da nazove dobro osvetljeno i u stvari, koliko god da su ove slike dobre, a slikao sam ih jer sam znao da ću svedočiti na sudu, i slika vredi više od hiljadu reči kada pokušavate da saopštite brojeve, apstraktne koncepte kao luks, internacionalne mere osvetljenja, vrednosti testa percepcije boja Išihara. Kada to predstavite ljudima koji nisu dobro upućeni u taj aspekt nauke, oni postaju kao gušteri na popodnevnom suncu. To je kao da govorimo o tangensu ugla, ok? Njihove oči samo zure. Dobar forenzički ekspert mora biti i dobar edukator, dobar komunikator i to je deo razloga zašto smo napravili ove slike, da pokažemo ne samo gde su izvori svetlosti, i takozvano razlivanje, distribucija, već i zato što je lakše onome ko prosuđuje da razume okolnosti. Dakle, ovo su neke od slika koje sam, u stvari, koristio dok sam svedočio, ali važnija za mene kao naučnika su bila ta očitavanja fotometra koja sam ja onda konvertovao u prognoze mogućnosti vida ljudskog oka pod tim okolnostima, i iz tih očitavanja koja sam snimio na licu mesta pod istim sunčevim i mesečevim svetlosnim uslovima, u isto vreme, i tako dalje, mogao sam da predvidim da neće biti pouzdane percepcije boja, što je najvažnije za prepoznavanje lica, i da će biti samo zatamnjenog prizora, što znači da će biti veoma male rezolucije, što zovemo ocrtavanje ivica, i da će štaviše, jer su oči potpuno proširene pod ovakvom svetlošću, dubina polja daljina na koju se fokusirate da biste videli detalje, biti manja od 45 cm.
I testified to that to the court, and while the judge was very attentive, it had been a very, very long hearing for this petition for a retrial, and as a result, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that I thought that maybe the judge was going to need a little more of a nudge than just more numbers.
Tako sam svedočio na sudu, i dok je sudija bio veoma pažljiv, to je bilo veoma dugo saslušanje za zahtev za ponovno suđenje, i kao rezultat, ja sam krajičkom oka primetio da će sudiji možda biti potrebno malo više podstreka od samih brojki.
And here I became a bit audacious, and I turned and I asked the judge, I said, "Your Honor, I think you should go out and look at the scene yourself."
I tu sam se malo drznuo, okrenuo sam se, i upitao sudiju: "Vaša Visosti, mislim da bi trebalo da izađete na lice mesta i pogledate sami."
Now I may have used a tone which was more like a dare than a request — (Laughter) — but nonetheless, it's to this man's credit and his courage that he said, "Yes, I will." A shocker in American jurisprudence.
Možda sam govorio tonom koji je zvučao više kao začikavanje nego kao zahtev - (Smeh) - ali bilo kako bilo, zahvaljujući hrabrosti ovog čoveka, on je rekao: "Da, hoću." Šok u američkom pravosuđu.
So in fact, we found the same identical conditions, we reconstructed the entire thing again, he came out with an entire brigade of sheriff's officers to protect him in this community, all right? (Laughter) We had him stand actually slightly in the street, so closer to the suspect vehicle, the shooter vehicle, than the actual teenagers were, so he stood a few feet from the curb toward the middle of the street. We had a car that came by, same identical car as described by the teenagers, right? It had a driver and a passenger, and after the car had passed the judge by, the passenger extended his hand, pointed it back to the judge as the car continued on, just as the teenagers had described it, right? Now, he didn't use a real gun in his hand, so he had a black object in his hand that was similar to the gun that was described. He pointed by, and this is what the judge saw.
Stvorili smo identične uslove, rekonstruisali smo čitavu stvar ponovo, on je došao sa celom brigadom oficira da ga štite u ovom kraju, ok? (Smeh) Stavili smo ga da stane malo više ka ulici, znači bliže vozilu iz koga je pucano nego što su tinejdžeri stajali, na oko metar udaljenosti od ivičnjaka ka sredini ulice. Auto je prošao, isti auto kao što su opisali tinejdžeri; unutra su bili vozač i suvozač, i kada je auto prošao sudiju, suvozač je ispružio ruku, i uperio ka sudiji dok je auto nastavio da ide, baš kako su tinejdžeri opisali, ok? Nije imao pravi pištolj u ruci, već crni predmet sličan pištolju koji je opisan. Uperio je, i evo šta je sudija video.
This is the car 30 feet away from the judge. There's an arm sticking out of the passenger side and pointed back at you. That's 30 feet away. Some of the teenagers said that in fact the car was 15 feet away when it shot. Okay. There's 15 feet.
Ovo je auto 9 metara udaljen od sudije. Ruka viri sa suvozačevog mesta i uperena je ka nama. To je udaljenost od 9 metara. Neki tinedžeri tvrdili su da je auto u stvari bio 4,5 metra udaljen kada je pucao. U redu. Ovo je 4,5 metra.
At this point, I became a little concerned. This judge is someone you'd never want to play poker with. He was totally stoic. I couldn't see a twitch of his eyebrow. I couldn't see the slightest bend of his head. I had no sense of how he was reacting to this, and after he looked at this reenactment, he turned to me and he says, "Is there anything else you want me to look at?"
U tom trenutku, malo sam se zabrinuo. Ovaj sudija je neko s kim nikada ne biste poželeli da igrate poker. Bio je totalni stoik. Nisam mogao da primetim ni trzaj njegove obrve. Niti najmanji pokret glavom. Nisam mogao da osetim kako je reagovao na ovo, i nakon što je pogledao ovu rekonstrukciju, okrenuo se ka meni i pitao: "Da li postoji još nešto što želite da pogledam?"
I said, "Your honor," and I don't know whether I was emboldened by the scientific measurements that I had in my pocket and my knowledge that they are accurate, or whether it was just sheer stupidity, which is what the defense lawyers thought — (Laughter) — when they heard me say, "Yes, Your Honor, I want you stand right there and I want the car to go around the block again and I want it to come and I want it to stop right in front of you, three to four feet away, and I want the passenger to extend his hand with a black object and point it right at you, and you can look at it as long as you want." And that's what he saw. (Laughter)
Rekao sam: "Vaša Visosti," i ne znam da li sam bio ohrabren naučnim merenjma koja sam imao u svom džepu i svojim znanjem da su tačna ili je to bila moja glupost, što su mislili advokati odbrane - (Smeh) - kada su me čuli da izgovaram: "Da, Vaša Visosti, želim da stanete ovde i želim da auto prođe još jednom i želim da zastane tačno ispred Vas, na oko metar od Vas, i želim da suvozač ispruži ruku i uperi u Vas sa crnim predmetom i da Vi gledate u njega koliko hoćete." I ovo je on video. (Smeh)
You'll notice, which was also in my test report, all the dominant lighting is coming from the north side, which means that the shooter's face would have been photo-occluded. It would have been backlit. Furthermore, the roof of the car is causing what we call a shadow cloud inside the car which is making it darker. And this is three to four feet away.
Primetićete, što sam i uključio u svoj izveštaj, da dominantno osvetljenje dolazi sa severne strane, što znači da bi lice strelca bilo zatamnjeno. Štaviše, krov automobila baca senku na unutrašnjost automobila i čini je još tamnijom. I ovo je sa daljine od oko metar.
Why did I take the risk? I knew that the depth of field was 18 inches or less. Three to four feet, it might as well have been a football field away. This is what he saw. He went back, there was a few more days of evidence that was heard. At the end of it, he made the judgment that he was going to grant the petition for a retrial. And furthermore, he released Mr. Carrillo so that he could aid in the preparation of his own defense if the prosecution decided to retry him.
Zašto sam rizikovao? Znao sam da je dubina polja oko 45 cm ili manje. Metar udaljenosti, mogao je biti i čitav fudbalski teren daleko. Ovo je on video. Vratio se, bilo je još nekoliko dana za dokaze. Na kraju, odlučio je da će dozvoliti peticiju za ponovno suđenje. Štaviše, oslobodio je gospodina Karilja da bi mogao da pomogne u pripremi svoje odbrane ukoliko tužilaštvo odluči da mu ponovo sudi.
Which they decided not to. He is now a freed man. (Applause)
Što su oni odlučili da ne urade. On je sada oslobođen čovek. (Aplauz)
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
This is him embracing his grandmother-in-law. He -- His girlfriend was pregnant when he went to trial, right? And she had a little baby boy. He and his son are both attending Cal State, Long Beach right now taking classes. (Applause)
Ovo je on kako grli babu svoje supruge. Njegova devojka je bila trudna kada je otišao na suđenje. Rodila je dečaka. On i njegov sin zajedno pohađaju kalifornijski univerzitet u Long Biču, idu na časove. (Aplauz)
And what does this example -- what's important to keep in mind for ourselves?
I šta nam pokazuje ovaj primer - šta je važno da zapamtimo?
First of all, there's a long history of antipathy between science and the law in American jurisprudence. I could regale you with horror stories of ignorance over decades of experience as a forensic expert of just trying to get science into the courtroom. The opposing council always fight it and oppose it.
Pre svega, postoji duga istorija antipatije između nauke i zakona u američkom pravosuđu. Mogao bih vas počastiti horor pričama o neznanju koje sam iskusio kao forenzički ekspert tokom decenija pokušavajući da uvedem nauku u sudnice. Protivnički advokati se suprotstave, i pobiju dokaze.
One suggestion is that all of us become much more attuned to the necessity, through policy, through procedures, to get more science in the courtroom, and I think one large step toward that is more requirements, with all due respect to the law schools, of science, technology, engineering, mathematics for anyone going into the law, because they become the judges. Think about how we select our judges in this country. It's very different than most other cultures. All right?
Jedan predlog je da svi postanemo mnogo više okrenuti ka neophodnosti, kroz pravila, kroz procedure, da bismo dobili više nauke u sudnici, i mislim da je veliki korak ka tome više zahteva - uz svo poštovanje pravnim fakultetima - za naukom, tehnologijom, tehnikom, matematikom za sve koji uče pravo, jer oni postaju sudije. Razmislite kako biramo sudije u našoj zemlji. Drugačije je nego u drugim zemljama, zar ne?
The other one that I want to suggest, the caution that all of us have to have, I constantly have to remind myself, about just how accurate are the memories that we know are true, that we believe in? There is decades of research, examples and examples of cases like this, where individuals really, really believe. None of those teenagers who identified him thought that they were picking the wrong person. None of them thought they couldn't see the person's face. We all have to be very careful. All our memories are reconstructed memories. They are the product of what we originally experienced and everything that's happened afterwards. They're dynamic. They're malleable. They're volatile, and as a result, we all need to remember to be cautious, that the accuracy of our memories is not measured in how vivid they are nor how certain you are that they're correct.
Druga stvar koju bih predložio, je oprez koji svi moramo da imamo; ja stalno moram da se podsećam koliko su tačna sećanja za koja mislimo da su istinita, u koja verujemo? Decenije istraživanja, primeri i primeri slučajeva kao što je ovaj, gde pojedinci zaista veruju u svoja sećanja. Nijedan od ovih tinejdžera koji su identifikovali počinioca nije mislio da greši. Niko od njih nije pomislio da možda nije mogao da vidi lice. Svi moramo biti pažljivi. Sva naša sećanja su rekonstruisana. Naša sećanja su proizvod onoga što smo doživeli i svega što se desilo nakon toga. Ona su dinamična. Ona su savitljiva. Ona su promenljiva, iz tog razloga, svi moramo da zapamtimo da treba da budemo oprezni i da tačnost naših sećanja ne može da se meri po tome koliko su ona živopisna niti po tome koliko smo mi sigurni u to da su tačna.
Thank you. (Applause)
Hvala vam. (Aplauz)