Lucia De Berk

April 14, 2010 3:05 PM

As a follow up to this post on Lucia De Berk: she has (finally) had her conviction overturned, a conviction based in part on bad statistics. Ben Goldacre's follow-up summarises the case and also features two of the opposing expert witnesses going at it in the comments.
posted by Hartster to MetaFilter-Related at 3:05 PM (10 comments total)

So the conviction is overturned, but what happens to her life now? She was a nurse imprisoned for murdering her patients. Even after this reversal, what it he likelihood she will ever be hired again?
posted by misha at 3:14 PM on April 14, 2010

I don't really understand all these non-AskMe follow up posts in Meta. Why not make a new post on the blue which includes a link to the old one?
posted by gman at 3:18 PM on April 14, 2010

I'd much rather followups go here than become Newsfilter Part 2.
posted by Justinian at 3:23 PM on April 14, 2010

gman, some of us post follow ups here that are interesting, but not different enough from the original (or relatively recent) post to merit their own new post.
posted by ocherdraco at 3:23 PM on April 14, 2010

though her convictions for stealing two library books from the hospital library...will be upheld.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 3:34 PM on April 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

Yeah; I thought about the blue, but as it's a pretty straightforward followup (the result of a long-winded appeal process, rather than any new evidence) I figured it may be better here. I may not even have bothered with this without the interesting comment war on Bad Science that throws a bit more light on things.
posted by Hartster at 3:37 PM on April 14, 2010

So the conviction is overturned, but what happens to her life now?

Imprisoned for life and now free? She becomes an ultra-rich countess and spends the next dozen years exacting her revenge.
posted by yeti at 4:30 PM on April 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

Maybe it's because I just finished my first statistics class (a sometimes harrowing, but ultimately rewarding experience), but this is utterly fascinating to me. I kind of wish this was a new post on MeFi, and maybe with some interesting statistics stuff thrown in to add depth.
posted by Danila at 7:13 PM on April 14, 2010

So the conviction is overturned, but what happens to her life now?

the expectation is that she'll get a lot of money from the state. An earlier case like this where the prosecution was wrong from the start resulting in a few years in prison indicate that she can expect a bit over 1 million euro, as well as all her legal costs.

she has already publicly stated she can never work in a hospital again - the fear that any death anywhere near her will be blamed on her again is something she cannot bear.
posted by DreamerFi at 9:31 PM on April 14, 2010

It sounds like the statistics expert for the prosecutors is claiming that neither the conviction nor the exoneration were based on his statistical analysis (which he claims was done properly, but was based on the incorrect assumption that the deaths were "unnatural", whatever that means).
posted by dirigibleman at 10:04 AM on April 15, 2010