Talk:Alice Sebold

Issues with Broadwater section

This whole section is rife with factual errors and other issues—and a great example of why Wikipedia should be cautious in including developing news stories, as well as the dangers of careless, sloppy editing. It reads more like a combination conpiracy-theory-and-defense-team-PR-release than an encyclopedia, and needs to be immediately corrected.

• [Timothy Mucciante] ultimately left the project because of his concerns about the story. This appears to be untrue, according to… Mucciante himself. He acknowledged that he was in fact fired from the production: "I received a notice of termination from producer James Brown, primarily for not providing the film with funding I initially had agreed to." And to say he had "concerns about the story" gives the highly misleading impression that he left because he questioned Broadwater's guilt—on the contrary, his main complaint seems to have been his opposition to the director casting a white actor as Broadwater in an attempt to avoid "stereotypes" about black rapists.
• When police told her she had picked out the "wrong person", she said the two men looked "almost identical". This appears false on multiple levels, at least per her book. First, the police weren't allowed to tell her she hadn't picked Broadwater. Second, she said they looked like twins immediately after stepping out of the lineup, before she gleaned that she hadn't picked Broadwater. And what is meant by "wrong person" here? It ought to be "someone other than Broadwater", or "a different man", etc. Worst of all, "wrong person" is presented in quotation marks—despite the fact that it's not a quotation from the cited source at all. Including invented quotes in Wikivoice is the height of irresponsibility.
• After she picked out the wrong man, the prosecutor lied to Sebold, telling her that the man she identified in the lineup and Broadwater were friends and that they both came to the lineup to confuse her. There's no evidence this is true, and no excuse for it being in Wikivoice. Only Broadwater's attorneys claim the prosecutor "lied" when telling her that Broadwater had intentionally confused/tricked her by personally selecting the man who looked so similar to him and whom she picked in the lineup. In fact, Broadwater's defense attorney did demand that man be added to the lineup at the very last minute—this was confirmed by the NY Supreme Court in 1984 when it rejected one of Broadwater's appeals, and has been mentioned in recent news articles. And again, "wrong man" is the wrong phrase here.
• Sebold wrote in Lucky that the prosecutor coached her into changing her identification. Again, the source is clear that Broadwater's attorneys claim this—so it cannot be written in Wikivoice. It also appears the claim is bogus: a careful reading of "Lucky" doesn't support that statement at all. This raises the question of whether an attorney's specious, unsupported characterization of a memoir's content ought be included—especially as there's no evidence this claim contributed to his conviction being overturned.
• District Attorney William J. Fitzpatrick… argued that suspect identification when the suspect is a different race from the victim is prone to error. This isn't an outright falsehood, but our current article doesn't quite accurately represent the cited source's description of his statement—which was a claim that eyewitness identification of strangers can be prone to error, and more so when interracial.

I could go on, but I hope the point is clear—there's an entire paragraph devoted to unsubstantiated claims by Broadwater's attorneys that don't appear to have contributed to his conviction being overturned. Why should an encyclopedia repeat those claims, rather than simply state that his conviction was overturned, largely because it relied in good part on microscopic hair analysis which has recently been found to have had its forensic value overstated? The article currently seems to be outlining a fringe conspiracy theory about recently discovered prosecutorial "lying" and "coaching"—when nothing could be further from the truth. The facts of the case have been known for decades; Sebold sold a million copies of a book that includes all the information about the lineup and subsequent testimony; and Broadwater's appeals were soundly rejected until overstatements regarding hair analysis recently became an appealable issue. Elle Kpyros (talk) 21:57, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the review. I think I've addressed all of your concerns: [1] I've also had concerns about the weight of the Broadwater exoneration in this article. At one point I tried to move the bulk of it to Lucky (memoir), but changed my mind on it, though I still think that's a possible path forward. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 23:33, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

@GorillaWarfare: Thanks for making the changes! There are a couple things that could still be tweaked, I think:

• The same lawyers referred to in several different sentences keep getting reintroduced.
• What do you think about removing the unsubstantiated claims by Broadwater's attorneys that didn't result in his exoneration, as far as we know? I hardly see how it's worth quoting their mischaracterization of what's in her book. And until it's established that the prosecutors "lied" and that doing so had any relevance, I think they're extraneous.
• A large number of articles have now mentioned Mucciante's criminal history—enough that it might be worth adding.

I'll wait for input, then try to take a whack at some of that. Far more importantly are larger questions for all:

• I removed the Broadwater stuff from the lead where it made up more than half the summary. As I wrote: "She has had no involvement in Broadwater's criminal case for 30 years, and she didn't arrest, charge, convict, or exonerate him. She was raped and testified at trial—whatever legalities ensued were not her doing and not what she's notable for." I'd add that no one has impeached her testimony, nor has any new evidence come to light about the crime, the prosecution, or the conviction. Doubling the lead of someone who's essentially a non-player in a breaking, still-unresolved news story seems gratuitous and a patent violation of both WP:NOTNEWS and WP:NPOV. That said, my edit was promptly reverted by someone apparently so unaware of the basic facts they claimed Broadwater was convicted "due to her memoir" (and thus subsequent to its publication)! But rather than undo even such a misguided revert, I thought I'd bring it for discussion here. Thoughts as to whether half the lead should be about Broadwater?
• And this leads to the broadest and most essential question: Why is breaking news about a convicted rapist's conviction being overturned thanks to new standards in hair analysis testimony detailed solely in the rape victim's Wikipedia article? If the story of Broadwater's overturned conviction is worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia—and to me, that's a big if—then it has to be in another article. I agree with that the Lucky article is the wrong place for it. The obvious choices are: an article specifically about Broadwater's overturned conviction—or a more general article about overturned convictions. My question to everyone: do you think this material merits inclusion in Wikipedia at all—and if so, where?

Appreciatively, Elle Kpyros (talk) 23:11, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Pinging GreaterPonce665 to weigh in on the reintroduction of the Broadwater content to the lead.

Can you explain why you think Lucky (memoir) is the wrong place for the information about Broadwater? To clarify, I changed my mind on removing the content from this article and leaving it only at the Lucky page, and rather left it in both places. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 16:48, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

@GorillaWarfare: I have not claimed that Broadwater info should only be kept at Lucky (memoir); I'm not sure where you see this claim? If you are talking about my edit comment here, that was about LEAD & not section content. I agree with you that this info should be on both the pages. GreaterPonce665 ^(TALK) 17:11, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

@GreaterPonce665: Sorry, my message was really confusing now that I look at it again. Only my first paragraph was directed at you—I wanted to draw your attention to Ekpyros's concerns about the lead content since you were the one who reverted them. My second paragraph, about Lucky (memoir), was directed at Ekpyros and was meant to be a reply to their thoughts on that. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 20:46, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

@GorillaWarfare:, @Ekpyros:. My comment said, ...she's notable for her memoir (due to which an innocent guy mistakenly spent years imprisoned).... I meant to say due to the life event, not the memoir itself. I apologize for the confusing wording, but stand by the underlying reasons listed. I also don't understand how she's a non-player in broadwater story? His entire adult life is ruined by her mistaken testimony. If you think this is WP:UNDUE content, feel free to expand the LEAD so this takes up a little less space, is somewhat less prominent. GreaterPonce665 ^(TALK) 14:35, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

There seems to be a lot of inappropriate speculation that the conviction was based on hair analysis. In fact, the original evidence statement at trial said only "The negroid pubic hair ... was consistent with having a common origin with the known pubic hair from Anthony Broadwater".

The claim that this was a slam-dunk comes from Sebold's book, written years' later. She claimed it matched on '17 features', however there is no evidence that this was ever claimed, and her book is not a credible source, and it appears to be false.

Your assertion that the appeal hinged on " overstatements regarding hair analysis recently became an appealable issue" seems doubtful. The forensic chemist refused to say how many other people the hair could match. [2]

Broadwater was found guilty based on Sebold's testimony. It seems to me that the major part of this successful appeal was that Mucciante, a serial conman and disbarred lawyer, and obviously a charming man, dealt with this directly with his peers: prosecutors, and this was not a 'guilty criminal' trying to appeal, but quite a different approach to the case. It's hard to get an accurate impression of what went down at the trial, but Sebold goes to very great lengths in her book to say that she was a young white virgin college student was given a large amount of credibility, whereas had she not been all of those things, her testimony would have been taken less seriously Sumbuddi (talk) 07:42, 10 February 2022 (UTC)