testified<\/a> about their precision. <\/p>\nDiaz often testifies as an expert witness in criminal trials. He told The Verge<\/em> that it\u2019s personally gratifying to participate in trials but that it\u2019s also a challenge. The way he usually thinks about Fitbit data as a scientist is different from the way he\u2019s asked about it in a courtroom. \u201cThe scientific questions we\u2019re answering are different from the criminal questions,\u201d he says. \u201cWhat I\u2019ve strived to do in these cases is translate that.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
\u201cThe scientific questions we\u2019re answering are different from the criminal questions.\u201d<\/q><\/aside>\n<\/div>\nFitbits are generally accurate devices, Diaz says, but they\u2019re by no means perfect. For scientific research, that\u2019s expected \u2014 nothing is ever absolute, and it\u2019s rare to get an answer that comes with 100 percent certainty. Science lives with some amount of statistical error. But the law operates under different guidelines: it wants to know if something happened beyond a reasonable doubt. \u201cThis has very serious implications for if someone could go away for 25 years to life,\u201d he says. \u201cSo is it okay to live with some gray area \u2014 and under what conditions? That\u2019s been some of the challenge and the hurdles to clear.\u201d <\/p>\n
Diaz talked to The Verge<\/em> about his experiences testifying in the trials and how he navigates the tensions between science and the legal system in the process. <\/p>\nThe following has been lightly edited for clarity. <\/em><\/p>\nWhat\u2019s the difference between what a scientist might want to know about a Fitbit and what a jury might need to know? <\/strong><\/p>\nIn science, we care about things \u2014 like if I took 100 steps but the device says I only took 92 steps. That matters in science, but how much does it matter in the criminal cases? With those, it\u2019s often just a matter of if the device detects movement. That\u2019s good enough for the case. It doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s 100 steps versus 92; it\u2019s really just about if they moved. With this Connecticut case, there was a lot of back and forth in the cross-examination about the error rate. But the error rate was on the number of steps someone took \u2014 not the error rate of if they were moving. That\u2019s a very different story. <\/p>\n
And in science, especially in a lot of the studies I work with, you\u2019re working with large sample sizes that could have thousands of people. Any noise gets dissipated with so many people. But, with a criminal case, you have just one person \u2014 so noise matters and can bring in some doubt about what really happened. In criminal cases, there\u2019s a level of precision you want to have around, okay, who moved exactly at this minute. Versus in science, if there\u2019s an error because you have such a large sample size, it can get filtered out. So it\u2019s been challenging to figure out how you convey that these devices can\u2019t tell you perfectly what\u2019s happening. <\/p>\n
How do you adjust the science to meet the needs of a criminal case?<\/strong><\/p>\nYou can leverage the things that science might see as errors. So, if you\u2019re brushing your teeth and wearing a device on your wrist, there are cases where the device misregistered that as steps. Obviously, in science, that\u2019s an error. But that can actually be really helpful with some of these cases because it shows that it\u2019s a high-sensitivity device. It\u2019s actually a strength to use these devices in this context because of their high sensitivity. When there is no motion detected, when it is not recording any steps, we should be pretty darn confident that a person is not moving.<\/p>\n
So it\u2019s been having to shift what we looked at in the science to say, \u2018Well, what is the most important thing in the context of this criminal case?\u2019 We can say that this person wasn\u2019t moving anymore because the device wasn\u2019t recording anything. So what does that mean in this context?<\/p>\n
In a criminal trial, there are two sides, and you\u2019re asked to testify for one side or the other. What\u2019s that like as a scientist? <\/strong><\/p>\nI\u2019ve been hired by prosecutors, never by the defense. And some of the prosecutors have made efforts to bias my interpretation. It may be unintentional, but they are going to have the perspective that they believe this person is guilty and that they need someone to come in and support the case. But I don\u2019t want to just go in and be ammunition for the prosecutor; I want to give a balanced interpretation of what the science means and how it can be applied in the situation. It could be easy for me to go in and say things that would support the case for the prosecutor. But how do you balance that with also acknowledging that there is error, and it\u2019s not a perfect device? <\/p>\n
\n
I don\u2019t want to just go in and be ammunition for the prosecutor<\/q><\/aside>\n<\/div>\nIt\u2019s hard because obviously the prosecution doesn\u2019t want to highlight the errors. But from the defense side, I\u2019ve noticed them not asking the right questions about that. They\u2019re not scientists, so they don\u2019t know what to ask to highlight the limitations of the device. And I can only answer the questions that are asked of me. <\/p>\n
Has this experience changed how you think about your research?<\/strong><\/p>\nIf this is something I go further down the road into, I would want to conduct more scientific studies. In a lot of the situations that I\u2019ve seen with these cases, the science that exists is not really designed to answer the important questions. Like: is it possible for a person to get from a bed to a bathroom 15 feet away without the device registering? So I might look into things like that because I think it would strengthen my ability to give expert testimony. And for a jury, it would be helpful to have better answers to these kinds of questions that come up in a criminal case that don\u2019t come up in science. But for now, it\u2019s kind of a side gig. This is a bit outside of what my day-to-day job is. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Source: https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/5\/12\/23068898\/fitbit-murder-trial-testimony-scientific-evidence<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Source: This week, a Connecticut jury convicted Richard Dabate of murder in the killing of his wife, Connie Dabate, after a five-week-long trial that hinged \u2014 in part \u2014 on data from her Fitbit. Richard said a man dressed in camouflage broke into their home in 2015 and shot Connie. But Connie wore a Fitbit, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5756,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,8],"tags":[27],"class_list":["post-5755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","category-technology","tag-science"],"yoast_head":"\n
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