Machines Have No Motive to Lie: The Silent Witness in Court with Lisa A. Parlagreco

0:02John Lee Dumas:Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation? JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. Today we'll be breaking down why machines have no motive to lie, the silent witness in court. To drop these vibe bombs, we are brought to Lisa A. Parlagreco and EO Fire Studios. Lisa is an award-winning appellate and trial attorney with over 35 years of experience. Her practice focuses on applying forensic science and technology to the courtroom. And today we talk about going from curiosity to courtrooms, science versus power, the myth of GPS accuracy, and oh, so much more.

0:34John Lee Dumas:And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Lisa and our sponsors. Fire Nation, stop putting off launching your website or business. Hostinger makes it incredibly simple and affordable to get online with everything you need to succeed all in one place. Visit hostinger.com slash onfire. Use code ONFIRE for 20 % off. Your next chapter starts today. Stop duct taping your business together. High Level runs your website, your funnels, email, automation, scheduling, payments, and memberships all in one place. And when you sign up at highlevelfire.com, you get a 30-day free trial plus my exclusive bonus stack that includes weekly office hours with me and much more.

1:15John Lee Dumas:Visit highlevelfire.com. Highlevelfire.com. Lisa say what's up to fire nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with all right well hello fire nation and thanks for having me on um so something that I believe in that I think most people disagree with it and I'm basing this really off of their conduct so I think they would disagree with me um a lot of successful people post weekly on LinkedIn. And there are these formulaic AI generated posts that start with a little, a little, a little teaser, a little hook. And then they go into, now, let me tell you why this matters.

2:10And I think it's garbage.

2:12John Lee Dumas:I think these posts are, are just like clickbait. And you're not contributing anything authentic or genuine. Yes, you're going to get some views. But you're not going to get my views once I get to that point of tell me why it matters. Well, I should be able to tell from what you're writing why it matters instead of you having to tell me. And I see this in so many different formats. I forgive it on Instagram, but on LinkedIn, no, it's unforgivable. And it's a waste of time. I will never, ever put a post up that is so not organic. Lisa, I love how strongly you feel about this and Fire Nation. I really hope that you take a stand for something like Lisa is right here.

3:06John Lee Dumas:because I mean, if you're going to feel for something, feel strongly, have emotion, have passion and be strong about it. And we're talking today about how machines have no motive to lie, the silent witness in court. And I want to talk about going from curiosity to courtrooms, Lisa, take us back to the beginning. How did you first become focused on forensic science and what pulled you into working on real world cases where the stakes are sky high? I love appellate law and And I love writing briefs. And I started working with a lawyer who represented a lot of individuals who'd been convicted of first degree murder.

3:45And the stakes really don't get much higher than that when your client is serving a life sentence. And I found that in a lot of quite a few of these cases, there were issues that implicate forensic science. and also some of the evidentiary issues that I take issue with. So, you know, you don't really get a case, you know, a client situation that is more compelling than when somebody has been sentenced to prison for life. And that's where I was introduced to forensics in the cases, and that's when I started to develop some interest. and it was, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of photographic evidence.

4:35There's just so many different kinds of evidence. And I've always had a passion for science, which I think a lot of lawyers are afraid of. And if you're going to deal with scientific issues, you have to get down into the science. Yes, you're going to be working with an expert, but you need to, you need to get really, really familiar with that. And so from those cases, after I'd worked on several with them, this lawyer came to me with a photograph. And he said, I've got this case. I just have been working on it for about a year. And I'd like to have you work on it with me. It's a civil case. And I don't really get involved in too many civil cases.

5:24he said um i'm going to give you a couple photographs and i'm not telling you anything at all about the case but i want you to look at these photographs and tell me if you want to work on it and he handed me a photograph i think it was i think it was no i think it was actually one photograph and the photograph showed a little red car absolutely stuffed into the front of a school bus and I did have two photographs so stared at it stared at it I mean I spent a really long time I took it home and I stared at one side of the car and I stared at the other side of the car and this was referred to as a head-on collision but it wasn't it wasn't a head-on collision.

6:13Head-on collisions pushed the forces, the forces two things meet equally. This was an offset collision where one side, one side is, it's like it's at an angle. And I knew that because the left side of the car was completely destroyed. The engine had been pushed backwards and the right side of the car, you could take the parts off that car and put them on another vehicle. It was perfect. So from the beginning, I knew that the narrative, if this is being called ahead on collision, I knew that the narrative is wrong. And I said, I'm hooked. I need to know the rest of the story I want in. And so I got involved in this case.

7:06and there was a lot of evidence that I found had not been produced or wasn't available. And a lot of evidence that I knew should be available that just the police didn't look for. The car had a bunch of teenagers in it, and the driver, she was a 17-year-old. She had no memory of what happened, and she pleaded guilty to reckless driving. She had absolutely no memory. This child died on the scene. They ended up reinflating her lungs because she'd stopped breathing and her heart stopped. And it was just a horrific, horrific crash. Every parent's nightmare. You know, your kids are driving to school and they get into an accident.

7:56John Lee Dumas:Lisa, I'm going to jump in here because we have a lot to get to today. And I can definitely see why you're passionate about forensic science. I mean, because pictures can tell stories and stories can reveal so much that it can lead you to so many incredible things. And so that kind of leads us to where I want to go next, which is the myth of GPS accuracy, because so many people assume the GPS data that is like pinpoint accuracy, like, oh my God, that person's like on that blade of grass in that field. Like, why is this assumption wrong? And how does GPS actually function as a quote unquote, silent witness in forensic investigations?

8:33So the GPS, GPS trackers, they just, they simply take data, they don't interpret it, they simply, it's simply recording data, as it as it comes in. And every GPS tracker has got a certain amount of memory. And it's important to collect that from them immediately. As for the accuracy and precision of GPS, it's all over the ballpark. Some companies will claim that their GPS is pinpoint accurate, but the only way to get pinpoint accuracy is really when you're working with military-grade GPS or you have got survey grade GPS. And that means there's a land station that that they're connected with. Otherwise, we're we're relying on on our GPS to connect with satellites.

9:29And the signal when it comes back to Earth, it gets it gets degraded by so many things that can change it from being within a meter accuracy to 30 meter accuracy, such as, you know, trees, buildings, rocks. It can bounce off of, you know, the atmosphere can slow it down if there's bad weather. And you can also get the urban canyon effect. So it's all over the place. Sometimes it's really great. It's really accurate. Other times it's just junk. so I knew that you know I knew that it was it was sort of the first time that I'd I'd ever chased after GPS because I knew that this company had GPS and so it was like well where's your GPS come on come on let's let's let's get all data that we can you know it's like you're you're working on a case you're at least in that sort of investigation trying to find out what happened And the police didn't do much to find out what happened.

10:36They just sort of went, roses are red, the ballots are blue, car number one, hit truck number two. You know, it was basic. Oh, OK, there's nothing to figure out. We know who's at fault. And I disagreed. So that's basically the lowdown, the lowdown on GPS.

10:58John Lee Dumas:See, I think that's really fascinating. And I think a lot of people don't really understand how that works at a level that you're talking about when it comes to actually, you know, potentially changing the course of somebody's life. You know, whether you're innocent or guilty or what, you know, may actually be the result. And Fire Nation, we're going to talk about finding a unicorn case, rethinking evidence itself, and so much more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Fire Nation, I know you've been sitting on an amazing idea. Well, it's time to move from one day I'll launch this project to taking action.

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12:04John Lee Dumas:Head over to Hostinger.com slash onfire and use code onfire for 20 % off and build your site today. You are Fire Nation, and Fire Nation takes action. Hostinger.com slash onfire. That's H-O-S-T-I-N-G-E-R.com slash on fire. Fire Nation, ideas are exciting, but systems will allow you to create freedom. That is where High Level comes in. High Level allows you to build and run your entire business from one platform. Website builder and hosting, funnel and landing pages, email marketing, automation and workflows, calendar booking, payments and subscriptions, even course and membership hosting. Everything works together seamlessly.

12:45John Lee Dumas:Plus, award-winning 24-7 support, so you are never stuck. And when you go through my link at highlevelfire.com, you unlock my full bonus stack, a 30-day free trial of High Level with full access, a private 50-minute coaching call with me, weekly live office hours with me, a digital copy of my book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, my 50 Days to Something execution roadmap, and more. Stop piecing tools together. Start building momentum. Visit highlevelfire.com and start building your something today. Lisa, we're back and I want to talk about finding a unicorn case. I mean, one of the rarest things in forensics is proving the intentional destruction of video evidence.

13:29John Lee Dumas:So how did you recognize that this was one of those unicorn cases and what ultimately made it provable? I'll start with your last question first. what ultimately made it provable was that we were able to recreate the anomaly that we saw on this videotape. And when you do the scientific method, if you can recreate the results, you have proof of the fact of what happened. So you're working backwards. And what we were presented with was videotape taken from the bus that was involved in this horrific crash. And it had been discounted because the 12 minutes right before the crash were nothing but static.

14:17And I thought, that's really weird. Why is there static? 12 minutes of static? And it just so conveniently comes back in with the sound of a crash. And so we got hold of the whole tape, and I started listening to it and instead of using instead of looking at it because it was just snow I was listening through Adobe Audition where I can actually see the sound and I had noticed this strange little chirp sound kind of like I wasn't sure what maybe like on an old VCR when the heads re-engage after spinning, after the wheels spin, you press stop and it creates sort of a little, the heads make contact with the tape.

15:15They leave a little sound. And that's really what I was hearing. And I convinced my co-counsel that this was worth pursuing and hiring an expert. And we did that, hired an expert, and then we recreated the precise sound system that was on the bus. The commercial grade VCR, we got the same camera, we recreated the cables from the manufacturer, basically every single piece of it, including using a generator, because it's on, I always forget which AC versus DC. I think it's DC current that powers up trucks. So we replicated that as well. And my expert did various tests, disconnecting various things.

16:17And one step that I hadn't mentioned was we got the original videotape from the DA's office and did a frame-by-frame duplication. it took 12 hours wow um and yes so a frame by frame by frame complete duplication and we you know you see you see the status it looks like snow but when you go to the the duplication and we had to use an old like tube, tube television. And because that's what it was, that's what it would have first been viewed on, not an electronic, an electronic TV, a tube TV. And playing it back on the tube TV, we saw that the static in this one particular section was crazy. It wasn't snow, It was all these signals, these jumping, it looked like flashing patterns and colors, and it was just very, very, very distinct.

17:32And my expert went through very methodically disconnecting the various places on the VCR and recording. And when he disconnected the camera from the VCR and press record, it created a pattern of static that was identical to the static on the actual bus tape. So recreation of the result is your proof of what happened.

18:14John Lee Dumas:Lisa, I'm shocked that you don't have a true crime podcast. Like, what are you waiting for? I mean, come on. I'm like here on the edge of my seat here. I mean, all this stuff is going on. It's matching up perfectly. One thing I do want to talk about is you often say that you never have to think outside the box because there is no box. So let's talk about for investigators, for attorneys, for truth seekers who are listening right now. What does that mindset unlock and why does it matter more now than ever? Well, I think I just demonstrated what it unlocks with my unicorn tape. Because by not having that sort of box thinking, which everybody who encountered this tape had before, You know, it was the police discounted it.

19:03The DA's discounted it. Everybody discounted it and didn't question it at all. And there's sort of this, you know, you put yourself into a mind state where you're just, you're not questioning. You're just accepting. Well, I don't do that. Question everything. And when you just throw away those preconceived ideas, it opens up possibilities like finding evidence that has been overlooked by every other person that looked at a case. It helps you to sort of analyze and see things that you simply would have overlooked. And I've done this in multiple cases. I last year represented a gentleman at trial who had been wrongfully imprisoned and spent almost 30 years of his life convicted for a crime he didn't commit.

20:14And it, again, was, it came down to the forensic, the forensic science, bad forensic science that was presented in his case. And thankfully, DNA evidence was able to exonerate him. You know, there are there are about 30 over 3 ,700 people have been exonerated for from wrongful convictions, having served over 37 ,000 years in prison. Wow. 37 ,000 years ago, the mastodons are still walking. Right. You know, if you think about it. And it's because I think people, people like me, you know, said questioned, question the science. Right. Don't accept that it's that it's good. Don't accept that it's accurate, that it's true.

21:09Question everything. And as a lawyer, like I said before, you have to get down into the weeds. There's, you know, or I like to say you got to go down rabbit holes. and what's fun about going down rabbit holes, I mean, you might get stuck, but you also might find rabbits.

21:27John Lee Dumas:I mean, Fire Nation, what a reveal from Lisa. She breaks down just, you know, rethinking this whole concept itself. And Lisa, if Fire Nation wants to connect with you, wants to learn more from you, wants to maybe subscribe to your soon-to-be-released true and false crime podcast that I think you need to be putting together here, how can they connect with you? What is your call to action for our listeners today? Anybody who has any influence with their legislators to press for forensic oversight. And really, that's such an important aspect. There are aspects of evidentiary law that it's sort of like beyond the scope of what we can really talk about here, but that are just based on, on, on Victorian notions of, of, of behavior.

22:28Um, and you know, they fire nation. Don't, don't constrain your thinking to what somebody else tells you, you should believe, Find out for yourself. Question and challenge. Never, never accept what they tell you must be the truth at face value. Because very often it's wrong.

22:54John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And you've been hanging out with LAP and JLD today. So keep up the heat. And for links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com. Just type Lisa in the search bar. The show notes page will pop right up. And Lisa, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we will catch you on the flip side. Thank you. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Lisa for sponsoring today's episode. And Fire Nation, are you an entrepreneur on fire who's looking to share your amazing message with the world?

23:30John Lee Dumas:If yes, we are now accepting applications for EO Fire. To learn more about becoming a guest, visit EOFire.com slash guest. And I'll catch you there. We're on the flip side. Fire Nation, stop putting off launching your website or business. Hostinger makes it incredibly simple and affordable to get online with everything you need to succeed all in one place. Visit hostinger.com slash onfire. Use code onfire for 20 % off. Your next chapter starts today. Stop duct taping your business together. High Level runs your website, your funnels, email, automation, scheduling, payments, and memberships all in one place.

24:08John Lee Dumas:And when you sign up at High level fire.com you get a 30 day free trial plus my exclusive bonus stack that includes weekly office hours with me and much more visit high level fire.com high level fire.com