The Problem of Certainty and “Making a Murderer”

The Problem of Certainty and “Making a Murderer” February 12, 2016

Like a lot of the rest of America, I was entranced with the Netflix documentary “Making a Murderer.” (Spoiler alert!)

Dean Strang. Image: Netflix Screenshot via the Guardian
Dean Strang. Image: Netflix Screenshot via the Guardian

The series–filmed over a period of 10 years–follows the story of Wisconsinite Steven Avery, a two-time convict. Avery was exonerated by DNA evidence while serving time for his first conviction, only to be convicted again for a second violent crime shortly after his exoneration and release.

30-making-a-murderer-netflix-steven-avery.w529.h529
Steven Avery, mugshot (Netflix Screenshot)

I’m not going to speculate as to Avery’s (or his nephew, Brendan Dassey’s) guilt or innocence regarding his second conviction. There are numerous theories out there as to what may or may not have actually happened. A new theory, based in part on a photograph of victim Teresa Holbach, suggests that the conviction of Avery and Dassey was the result of a perfect storm of being simultaneously framed by two independent parties.

The documentary does a fantastic job at shining the light on weaknesses (flaws, even) within our criminal justice system and making a case at how easily things could go awry. They press the point that, no matter the well-intentions of police and prosecutors, personal biases can get in the way and clouded judgment can have serious, life-destroying consequences.

The series closes with a moving reflection by Avery’s attorneys–both of whom come of as probably the most likable (and most rational) people in the series. The remarks of Attorney Dean Strang caught my attention.

Reflecting on the jury’s verdict of “guilty,” Strang had this to say:

I just can’t imagine he [Avery] did them…and I don’t believe he did them.

The forces that caused that I understand and I don’t think are driven by malice. I think [they] are just expressions of ordinary human failing. But the consequences are what are so sad and awful.

Most of what ails our criminal justice system lie in unwarranted certitude on the part of police officers and prosecutors and defense lawyers and judges and jurors, that they’re getting it right. That they simply are right. Just a tragic lack of humility—of everyone who participates in our criminal justice system.

Granted, Strang has his biases, too.

But that phrase, “a tragic lack of humility,” seems to me to describe not only the glaring weaknesses in the criminal justice system–at least as portrayed in “Making a Murderer”; it also captures so much of what ails our society as a whole. So often we are driven by certainty, empowered by a dogmatic feeling that we (me, my tribe, my party, etc.) are absolutely, unequivocally in the right.

The feeling of being in the right may or may not be warranted by solid reasons.

In the book, On Being Certain, neuroscientist Robert Burton explains, from a scientific perspective, this “feeling of certainty” or the “feeling of knowing.” It’s a common, unavoidable phenomena–part of the human experience. He argues that the feeling of certainty is not–despite assumptions to the contrary–a product of “conscious deliberation” or of reasoned, deliberative judgment:

Despite how certainty feels, it is neither a conscious choice nor even a thought process. Certainty and similar states of “knowing what we know” arise out of involuntary brain mechanisms that, like love or anger, function independently of reason. (xiii)

The feeling of certainty is based in biology. How much more natural can it be?

The brain creates an “involuntary sensation of ‘knowing’ and this “sensation is affected by everything from genetic predispositions to perceptual illusions common to all bodily sensations.” This intuition or feeling of having knowledge or being certain is, Burton suggests, the source of many of our “seemingly irresolvable  modern dilemmas.”

The feeling of knowing can lead to, as Strang put it, a “tragic lack of humility on the part of everyone.”

Perhaps by understanding the biological, neurological, and genetic basis of the feeling of knowing we might be able to expose unwarranted certainty for what it is.

Aside from having a more just judicial system, perhaps we could also minimize the political rancor, religious and ideological warfare, and unwarranted dogmas that cause so much of our current social conflicts.

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Image Source (Dean Strang)

Image Source (Steven Avery)

 


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