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Prosecutor Loses Case For Citing Wikipedia

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the citation-needed dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "The Philippine Daily Inquirer reports on a recent case where the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) lost an appeal after seeking to impeach the testimony of a defendant's expert witness by citing an article from Wikipedia. In her brief, the defendant said 'the authority, alluded to by oppositor-appellant, the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders DSM-IV-TR," was taken from an Internet website commonly known as Wikipedia,' and argued that Wikipedia itself contains a disclaimer saying it 'makes no guarantee of validity.' The court in finding for the defendant said in its decision that it found 'incredible ... if not a haphazard attempt, on the part of the (OSG) to impeach an expert witness, with, as pointed out by (the defendant) unreliable information. This is certainly unacceptable evidence, nothing short of a mere allegation totally unsupported by authority.'"

13 of 315 comments (clear)

  1. so... by conspirator57 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    who was actually correct about the facts of the matter?

    sight unseen, i bet Wikipedia.

    --
    "If still these truths be held to be
    Self evident."
    -Edna St. Vincent Millay
    1. Re:so... by mcgrew · · Score: 5, Informative

      It doesn't matter which was right, what matters is you don't use an encyclopedia, any encyclopedia as a source to cite. If you try to cite wikipedia (or Britannica) in a college class, you'll flunk your paper.

      I don't see how anybody who's ever been to college (including someone like me who was in college long before the internet existed) could be ignorant of this. Encyclopedias are only a starting point; you don't cite them in your paper, or in court. You go for their sources for your real research.

      --
      Free Martian Whores!
    2. Re:so... by codegen · · Score: 5, Insightful

      sight unseen, i bet Wikipedia

      I think you would loose that bet. If you actually read the article (I know, I know, this is slashdot), you would find that it involves the psychological evaluation of a woman and her husband. At the trial, the expert who had done the evaulation was not cross examined, and in the appeal the OSG attempted to impeach the expert using general information from Wikipedia. Using an article from any general information source (encyclopedia britannica or wikipedia) to attempt to contradict a specific evaluation of a specific case by a recognized expert in the field is foolhardy at best and deserves to be shot down. In Addition, the court noted that the Solicitor General had access to government mental health experts that could be used, and failed to use them.

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      Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
    3. Re:so... by davev2.0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, it is NOT.

      The problem lies here:

      First, the "amateurs" who wrote the Wikipedia article are almost certainly people trained in its field, in the same way that the physics and computer articles are generally edited by physicists and computer people.

      First, The writers and editors do not have to be people trained in the field and this is acknowledge by Wikipedia in its disclaimer. Second, anyone can change almost any Wikipedia article to support a position, then site that version of the article.

      Those two facts render any and every Wikipedia article less reliable than the testimony of a doctor who has examined and interviewed the people at the heart of the case.

      To suggest otherwise would be to say that one is better off relying on Wikipedia articles to make medical diagnoses over one's doctor.

    4. Re:so... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Because nobody cares about the path to the answer, it's not important. Nobody cares that you started with Wikipedia to get the real reference to a reliable source. You cite the original source of a fact.

      Exactly. It is also important to actually read the original source for yourself. It's been known to happen that some Wikipedia editor cites a source and then completely makes up what it says. It can take a long time for someone to notice this, if ever.

      In this example someone eventually did notice, after several years of tendencious unsupportable "facts" being "backed up by citations" in the article.

    5. Re:so... by cdrguru · · Score: 5, Funny

      I suggest a new standard:

      Std. English "lose" : New Slashdotese: "loose"

      Std. English "loose" : New Slashdotese: "looose"

      This is obviously a recursive transformation that can be applied as many times as necessary to effectively lose the reader in the dust. Or should that be loose. Or maybe loooooooooose.

    6. Re:so... by yekim · · Score: 5, Funny

      If I add the comment "I guess this was a self-fulfilling prophesy, so to speak?", will I get "Score:5, Funny"?

  2. Wikipedia is useful... by digitalunity · · Score: 5, Insightful

    but I wouldn't cite it in court! What a moron.

    It's crowdsourced knowledge, which is likely correct in many cases but is still subject to errors and abuse from bored teenagers and people with an agenda.

    --
    You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
    1. Re:Wikipedia is useful... by mysidia · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It could probably reasonably be cited, with support from other sources, for non-contentious info.

      However... to use an under-construction Wiki-based encyclopedia to try to impeach an expert is insane.

      Wikipedia is not an authority. If the expert is really an expert on the subject, then what they say is more likely to be correct than what Wikipedia says, because they are an expert in the subject they discuss.

      And not only is Wikipedia not created by experts... Wikipedia derides expertise, and scorns authority. It also sometimes includes blatantly false, crackpot info, sometimes even vandalism.

      Due to the wide range of people who edit it.

      Errors will eventually be corrected; however, it's not like a court can reverse its verdict next week because someone corrected the cited WP article.

      Not until courts reach the point where the opposition can look at the Wikipedia article, edit it to their liking, and have the witness "citation" automatically changed and taken into account, before trial ends.

      In that case, there could be a fun edit war between prosecutor and defendant over the definitions of certain things.

      If you change the definition of legal terms on WP, do courts automatically change their rules to match? :)

  3. Please post on slashdot in the form of a meme :) by Fractal+Dice · · Score: 5, Funny

    The judge proclaimed "[citation needed]"

  4. I work at an international litigation consulting.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... firm and I've seen this done, uncontested

    I'm not sure what's sadder, that someone I work with has done this, or that the other side doesn't even understand how bad it is...

  5. Re:Ha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Your statement is completely true, but the smilie face at the end makes me feel as though you posted it as a joke, or feeling smug, by perhaps implying that following your solution would "cheat" the would-be checkers into believing the otherwise "unreliable" wikipedia information would suddenly become "reliable" by citing it's source instead of the article itself.

    In fact, the above statement is exactly how things are supposed to be, no joking or smugness. Wikipedia in and of itself is NOT a realiable source, does NOT try to be a reliable source, does NOT pretend to be a reliable source, and does NOT want anyone assuming it is a reliable source. It's the sources it cites which, depending on the circumstances, MAY constitute a reliable source. This is why any researches is supposed to do EXACTLY what you described, and it is not cheating or circumventing, but the actual legitimate way to do research when using Wikipedia.

  6. Summary not so clear by spun · · Score: 5, Informative

    The summary is clear as mud, but it sounds like the prosecutors made reference to the DSM. Why refer to the wikipedia article on it? The DSM itself is the authority on psychological disorders. If wiki quoted the DSM correctly, then it is likely correct on the matter. So why did the prosecutor cite wiki, and not the actual authoritative source that wiki cites? Stupid.

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton