In today’s age of modern technology, one would think no criminal would ever escape justice or the wrong person ever be jailed falsely.  However, mistakes happen all the time, and there are several reasons for this.  First of all, by nature of being human, witnesses, investigators, and prosecutors still possess fallibility and cognitive biases, and organizations sometimes fall into a trap of faulty reasoning, despite their best efforts.

For one thing, presenting evidence against a person in a court of law often requires witnesses to verify what took place.  Unfortunately, the human mind may run into limitations in accurately remembering or portraying what happened.  At every stage from the witness’ viewing of the crime to the conveyance of details to the police to the sworn testimony in court, any number of miscommunications or errors could occur to taint the verity of the incident.

For instance, events that took place under cover of darkness or in the blink of an eye may leave details hazy in the mind of the beholder, causing witnesses or investigators to “fill in the blanks” with impressions or theories based on biases rather than hard facts.  Filtering through testimonies to determine fact versus mere hearsay is often a difficult task.  Also, the absence of hard evidence allows those involved to make up what they saw based on what they expected or wanted to see, basing conclusions on subjective interpretation.

In split-second decisions on the battlefield or in an emergency, intuition or “gut instinct” is desired, but in analyzing data for a court of law, one must learn to use thorough and rational logic based on evidence presented, taking into account human fallacies.  Lawmen constantly have to shift reasonings away from natural biases to sift through what actually happened, and this is why it’s a good idea to hire private investigators to examine the case and verify evidence.

If you feel you’d like a second opinion on evidence being reviewed for a court of law, please don’t hesitate to contact Forletta Investigative/Security Consultant.  Our dedicated Pittsburgh/Cleveland private investigator service boasts more than 100 years of combined experience in crime-solving and is trained in law enforcement administrative procedures.  Don’t let someone you love slip through the cracks of the justice system; hire FCIS to keep the rightful people off the streets and behind bars.