> it's orthogonal to the important reforms to stop convicting innocent people of crimes
This is a good ideal. But in practice unachievable.
Realizing that, we should have mechanisms for double checking our work, correcting mistakes when found, implementing procedures to prevent it from happening again and minimizing the degree to which irreversible consequences are dealt.
But I'm not talking about setting the unachievable as the requirement, I'm talking about doing these really easy trivial reforms to take a step towards this ideal.
It's the difference between "We can't entirely rule out insect fragments in flour" and "I reckon we ought not to let 'em dump diseased livestock in the flour silo".
Americans think it's normal that their police get to lie to suspects. I guess this is cheaper than teaching them literally anything about interrogation, but it means all interviews are worthless by a reasonable person's standard. And yet because this is legal, and not only legal it's normal, the US courts will accept this as somehow evidence. Not evidence that the police are corrupt and incompetent, but evidence that the person being interviewed is guilty!
This is a good ideal. But in practice unachievable.
Realizing that, we should have mechanisms for double checking our work, correcting mistakes when found, implementing procedures to prevent it from happening again and minimizing the degree to which irreversible consequences are dealt.