Tea at Trianon: A New Junk Science

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, January 4, 2023

A New Junk Science

From Pro Publica:

Junk science in the justice system is nothing new. But unvarnished correspondence about how prosecutors wield it is hard to come by. It can be next to impossible to see how law enforcement — in league with paid, self-styled “experts” — spreads new, often unproven methods. The system is at its most opaque when prosecutors know evidence is unfit for court but choose to game the rules, hoping judges and juries will believe it and vote to convict.

People like Faria, defense lawyers and sometimes even the judges are blindsided. “I don’t want what happened to me to happen to anyone else,” Faria told me.

Askey, who now goes by Leah Chaney and is no longer a prosecutor, did not answer questions about the case other than to say she didn’t know about Harpster’s work until after Faria’s first trial. She has denied allegations of misconduct in other media interviews.(Read more.)