AI misidentification results in wrongful arrest; man seeks justice

Posted by text0404 5 hours ago

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Comments

Comment by inopinatus 4 hours ago

origin is geoblocking. https://archive.is/DtYSf

Comment by dqv 3 hours ago

> He stated he was held in the Mecklenburg County Jail for one month.

> While he was incarcerated, Richardson lost his job and his home. He also said he lost custody of two of his children.

Alright. Time to ban AI in policing. It can't be used responsibly, so it can't be used at all.

Comment by blastonico 2 hours ago

Do you prefer human identification, like picking the suspect among a group lineup? More accurate I guess?

Comment by hackingonempty 1 hour ago

The article says the cops used "AI" to find a suspect then the victim identified them in a photo lineup. That provided the probable cause to get a judge to sign a warrant.

Comment by daohieu91 3 hours ago

85% accurate is doing a lot of hiding LOL. Searching a multi-million-face gallery and even high per-comparison accuray turns into mostly false positive. THese systems are only ever defensible as an investigative lead, neve as probable cause.

Comment by hackingonempty 1 hour ago

> THese systems are only ever defensible as an investigative lead, neve as probable cause.

That's why the cops followed up with a photo lineup shown to the victim before applying for a warrant.

Comment by hattmall 47 minutes ago

Which is stupid though because obviously it's just going to be someone that looks like the person they are after. The idea with a lineup is that you have some other sort of evidence, not based on how people look, and then have them identify the person. If you used a tool to find people that look a certain way and then put that person in a line up with other "non-85%" matches it's reasonable the respondent would pick that person.

Comment by m463 26 minutes ago

"followed up"...

he was extradited from 400 miles away in a different state, had never been to florida, and had timesheets from working at his job at the time.

how did that craziness even pull him into the lineup?

Honestly, at some point this kind of tool is going to find LOTS of similar people from a pool of 350,000,000

We need a new term for this, maybe likeness-fishing.

Comment by ufocia 3 hours ago

What does 85% accurate even mean?

Comment by Paracompact 3 hours ago

To the average person it means: No matter what task you apply the tool to, that you will be right 85% of the time, and 85% is a solid B, a passing grade, so let's use it.

Comment by LPisGood 4 hours ago

This is horrifying. The prosecutor who sought an extradition based on an 85% accurate AI model should be disbarred.

Comment by monster_truck 3 hours ago

I have bad news about the accuracy of almost all forensic science, especially fingerprints and dna

Comment by okanat 3 hours ago

That's why we don't trust them alone or can demand tests from different sources. AI, however, gets sold as an ultimate cure. Just like anything computers touch, it is assumed infallible.

Comment by jfengel 3 hours ago

I have bad news about Prosecutorial Immunity. It is damn near impossible to punish a prosecutor for anything done in the line of work.

Comment by delichon 4 hours ago

Kidnapping and false imprisonment charges seem reasonable.

Comment by trumpdong 3 hours ago

Reasonable, yes, but they won't happen, because prosecutors never prosecute themselves.

Comment by jfengel 3 hours ago

"Reasonable" does not have a legal meaning. Or rather, it has hundreds of thousands of pages of legal meaning. Which means it means nothing.

Comment by giantg2 3 hours ago

[dead]

Comment by NDlurker 4 hours ago

This is exactly like that case from Fargo earlier this year. We got a new police chief after this, but she still hasn't been compensated and nobody got in trouble for it.

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/03/18/fargo-polices-use-o...

Comment by giantg2 3 hours ago

This isn't just AI misidentification. This is also an eye witness picking him out of a lineup. This is really AI extending the reach of the already sketchy eye witness practice.

Comment by none2585 3 hours ago

Racist technology and a racist plaintiff in two racist states. What could go wrong????

Comment by blastonico 2 hours ago

Three "racist" in a sentence is a bingo. Congratulations.

Comment by momentmaker 4 hours ago

It sounds like a plot for this movie: Mercy [0]

[0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31050594/

Comment by SpicyLemonZest 3 hours ago

> Richardson’s attorney showed time sheets proving he was at work 400 miles away from Florida when the stolen car was sold. Richardson said he has never been to Florida, and his attorney tried to present this evidence for months.

I continue to not understand why anyone finds it tolerable for the justice system to move so slowly. I don't want to make excuses for AI identification, but no identification process is perfect, it should not be possible that it takes months to clear up.

Comment by Paracompact 3 hours ago

> I don't want to make excuses for AI identification, but no identification process is perfect, it should not be possible that it takes months to clear up.

Indeed you shouldn't make excuses. "{Sketchy component} is just one part of the process and is harmless in principle because we have other safeguards such as... nothing we care to subject to your scrutiny" is the prototypical excuse of a broken system:

> The office stated, “Facial recognition technology is used as one tool among many available to investigators. In this case, it was one tool, but certainly not the only tool, which lent to the probable cause determination that Mr. Richardson was the perpetrator of these crimes.”

The other tool appears to have been good ol' fashioned racism:

> Richardson alleged racial profiling played a role in his misidentification. “I want to say racial profiling. The guy said it was a guy with dreads and a big nose, and then they picked me out of a lineup of guys that look nothing like me,” Richardson said.

Comment by dqv 38 minutes ago

It's obvious what any sane society should do in this case, what actual safeguards would be. A sane society would have a social safety net so that being jailed for 3 months and subsequently released innocent wouldn't ruin your life. Not only did he get punished by having to spend 3 months in jail, he also now has to go and find housing, a job, and go through the civil court system, which is even slower, to ... still be made less than whole. I won't be surprised that the police argue and win with a qualified immunity defense.

To make matters worse, mugshots get people prejudiced from jobs regardless of an HNers ability to discern between a charge and a conviction.

True criminal justice, true innocence until proven guilty would have had his obligations to pay rent/mortgage/bills paused, his employer barred from firing him for missed work, and so on.

(I had to keep editing my post - I just want to say I think it's ridiculous that this dude had to be in jail FOR 3 MONTHS)

Comment by jfengel 3 hours ago

The first word of the article is "Jalil", the name of the person involved.

That is the answer to your question.

Comment by SpicyLemonZest 3 hours ago

I don't blame him for a second for thinking that, but the Fargo woman this last happened to was white. There's something wrong with the procedures themselves.

Comment by insane_dreamer 4 hours ago

Maddening.

This will happen more often in many domains, and it raises the general question of liability.

Should it be the AI company that created the model? The company that build the face recognition software using the model? The police department that decided to use the face recognition software?

I would assume the police department is the one legally liable, though they may turn around and sue the software company, and I guess the question is whether they can sue the frontier model company.

Comment by 3 hours ago

Comment by FpUser 3 hours ago

In this particular case false AI identification was only small part of generic fuckup. Choosing guy from line-up done in completely racially biased way, prosecutor office refusing proof of crime has been committed by someone else, etc. etc. The only way this ever going to be fixed is when our fucking overlords will be held personally responsible which is never.

Comment by AndrewKemendo 4 hours ago

I sent this to my lawyer friends who like to help so hopefully we can get some restitution for him

These clowns need to be taken for all the money they can

Comment by Paracompact 3 hours ago

I don't understand why you would be downvoted. Is your comment raising a pitchfork? Yes. But sometimes when a person's life gets ruined, pitchforks deserve to come out.

> Richardson’s attorney showed time sheets proving he was at work 400 miles away from Florida when the stolen car was sold. Richardson said he has never been to Florida, and his attorney tried to present this evidence for months.

> Richardson alleged racial profiling played a role in his misidentification. “I want to say racial profiling. The guy said it was a guy with dreads and a big nose, and then they picked me out of a lineup of guys that look nothing like me,” Richardson said.

> While he was incarcerated [for two months], Richardson lost his job and his home. He also said he lost custody of two of his children.

Everyone: It's okay to get angry at injustice. Indeed it is the more noble reaction than to shrug and say, "Now let's be reasonable, I'm sure the institution that caused this will redress this."

Comment by AndrewKemendo 3 hours ago

People have made accounts just to downvote me. So I must be doing something right.

Comment by Paracompact 2 hours ago

> People have made accounts just to downvote me.

How can you tell?

Comment by AndrewKemendo 2 hours ago

A greentext username with 10 minute old account, zero karma and 1 comment that comment being something negative in response usually

There was an example months ago but I don’t keep track of the specifics

Comment by lordleft 3 hours ago

I sincerely hope this man get seek redress for this disgusting miscarriage of justice.

Comment by 3 hours ago