MarshalPlan 2.7 Now Has a Narrative Stack (a Story-Telling Stack)

I have uploaded a "Narrative" stack and have made it part of MarshalPlan, my evidence marshaling system. Hence the new moniker: MarshalPlan 2.7

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Years ago David Schum and I developed the notion of an evidence marshaling system. We laid out the underlying theory of this evidence marshaling system in A Theory of Preliminary Fact Investigation. We developed a kind of computer embodiment, or computer-based expression, of our idea of an evidence marshaling system. Eventually we decided to call our system "MarshalPlan".

More than one year ago I released MarshalPlan 2.2. This moniker -- MarshalPlan 2.2 (now 2.7) -- amounts to a bit of self-mockery: MarshalPlan 2.x is not a prototype of a working application suitable for "real-time" use. Far from it! However, MarshalPlan 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, and 2.7 are more than mere scratchings on a page that state in words (text) how a MarshalPlan application might work.

MarshalPlan 2.7 is a software application based on the user-friendly programming language Revolution Enterprise(tm). This application -- MarshalPlan 2.7 -- illustrates -- with images, fields, buttons (links), and so on -- how a computer program to support the marshaling and assessment of evidence in preparation for possible trials and also for the conduct of trials, might work.

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To retrieve MarshalPlan click on this link. Download all of the Revolution stacks, including the "Revolution Player," into a single folder on your computer. These stacks all have the suffix "rev". (To make these stacks run properly you need a "Revolution Player." If your computer doesn't use a Windows operating system, go here and download the version of the player (Mac OSX or other) that you need.) Open the Revolution Player and then drag-drop the "Network.rev" icon and all other "rev" stacks onto the "Revolution Player" icon; or run the Revolution Player and, using the Player, open all of the "rev" stacks. You should be in business now: the buttons, or links, in the various stacks should allow you to navigate between the stacks as well as within the stacks.

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I am very pleased to report that MarshalPlan will be available this fall as an application that runs directly on the web, in your browser. This will make it much easier for you (and my Fact Investigation students) to try out the software; you will only need to download a plug-in.

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SOME IMPORTANT CAVEATS: The software application that you will retrieve by clicking on the links found above has serious gaps and limitations, including the following:

1. In the application itself there is little explanation of the theory underlying the evidence marshaling strategies that are embedded in MarshalPlan 2.7.

To get that some of that theory and those explanations (but not all of them) you will have to (i) read the article I mentioned earlier, A Theory of Preliminary Fact Investigation, and (ii) wander about my personal web site. If you want a truly comprehensive theory-laden explanation of MarshalPlan, you will have to invite me to give a leisurely talk (preferably on a tropical island or some other attractive venue).

2. A few buttons and links don't work. When that happens, try other buttons and links. (Otherwise resort to expletives. You have my permission.)

3. Some important stacks are entirely missing. The most important missing stacks are those having to do with the development of evidential argument from evidence to factual propositions and with the assessment of the probative value of the evidence -- in particular, the "Witness Credibility" and "Probative Value" stacks. For a discussion of the methods that might be used for this purpose, see Special Issue on Graphic and Visual Representations of Evidence and Inference in Legal Settings, 6 Law, Probability and Risk Nos. 1-4 (Oxford University Press, 2007).

4. MarshalPlan 2.7 is not set up to be linked to a database. This is a most serious deficiency.

But -- in my defense -- I repeat: MarshalPlan 2.7 is NOT a prototype of a working software application, suitable for use in real-time contexts.

MarshalPlan is, instead, an elaborate visual illustration of some of the directions that development of software for marshaling evidence in legal settings should take.

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The dynamic evidence page

Coming soon: the law of evidence on Spindle Law

MarshalPlan 2.7 (an evidence marshaling system)

I have uploaded a "Narrative" stack and have made it part of MarshalPlan, my evidence marshaling system. Hence the new moniker: MarshalPlan 2.7

&&&&

Years ago David Schum and I developed the notion of an evidence marshaling system. We laid out the underlying theory of this evidence marshaling system in A Theory of Preliminary Fact Investigation. We developed a kind of computer embodiment, or computer-based expression, of our idea of an evidence marshaling system. Eventually we decided to call our system "MarshalPlan".

More than one year ago I released MarshalPlan 2.2. This moniker -- MarshalPlan 2.2 (now 2.7) -- amounts to a bit of self-mockery: MarshalPlan 2.x is not a prototype of a working application suitable for "real-time" use. Far from it! However, MarshalPlan 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, and 2.7 are more than mere scratchings on a page that state in words (text) how a MarshalPlan application might work.

MarshalPlan 2.7 is a software application based on the user-friendly programming language Revolution Enterprise(tm). This application -- MarshalPlan 2.7 -- illustrates -- with images, fields, buttons (links), and so on -- how a computer program to support the marshaling and assessment of evidence in preparation for possible trials and also for the conduct of trials, might work.

&&&

To retrieve MarshalPlan click on this link. Download all of the Revolution stacks, including the "Revolution Player," into a single folder on your computer. These stacks all have the suffix "rev". (To make these stacks run properly you need a "Revolution Player." If your computer doesn't use a Windows operating system, go here and download the version of the player (Mac OSX or other) that you need.) Open the Revolution Player and then drag-drop the "Network.rev" icon and all other "rev" stacks onto the "Revolution Player" icon; or run the Revolution Player and, using the Player, open all of the "rev" stacks. You should be in business now: the buttons, or links, in the various stacks should allow you to navigate between the stacks as well as within the stacks.

&&&

I am very pleased to report that MarshalPlan will be available this fall as an application that runs directly on the web, in your browser. This will make it much easier for you (and my Fact Investigation students) to try out the software; you will only need to download a plug-in.

&&&

SOME VERY IMPORTANT CAVEATS: The software application that you will retrieve by clicking on the links found above has serious gaps and limitations, including the following:

1. In the application itself there is little explanation of the theory underlying the evidence marshaling strategies that are embedded in MarshalPlan 2.7.

To get that some of that theory and those explanations (but not all of them) you will have to (i) read the article I mentioned earlier, A Theory of Preliminary Fact Investigation, and (ii) wander about my personal web site. If you want a truly comprehensive theory-laden explanation of MarshalPlan, you will have to invite me to give a leisurely talk (preferably on a tropical island or some other attractive venue).

2. Some buttons and links don't work. When that happens, try other buttons and links. (Otherwise resort to expletives. You have my permission.)

3. Some important stacks are entirely missing. The most important missing stacks are those having to do with the development of evidential argument from evidence to factual propositions and with the assessment of the probative value of the evidence -- in particular, the "Witness Credibility" and "Probative Value" stacks. For a discussion of the methods that might be used for this purpose, see Special Issue on Graphic and Visual Representations of Evidence and Inference in Legal Settings, 6 Law, Probability and Risk Nos. 1-4 (Oxford University Press, 2007).

4. MarshalPlan 2.7 is not set up to be linked to a database. This is a most serious deficiency.

But -- in my defense -- I repeat: MarshalPlan 2.7 is NOT a prototype of a working software application, suitable for use in real-time contexts.

MarshalPlan is, instead, an elaborate visual illustration of some of the directions that development of software for marshaling evidence in legal settings should take.

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The dynamic evidence page

Coming soon: the law of evidence on Spindle Law

Help Me Construct a Stack for Narrative, or Story-Telling, for Litigation and Similar Situations

I have long delayed developing a "stack" (in my MarshalPlan software) that can support the development of narratives, or stories, for litigation -- or, at a minimum, remind budding trial lawyers and others of the importance of story-telling in litigation and trials (and in investigation?). This is partly because it is unclear -- as least to me -- how narratives, or stories, relate to the search for the truth about facts. (MarshalPlan began as a system to support investigation and I have implicitly assumed that the purpose of good investigation is to produce accurate judgments about factual questions.) However, I can no longer postpone the important chore of supporting the formation of productive stories and narratives. So I have begun developing a stack called "Narrative."

I have put the following blurb, or explanation, on the "Narrative" stack:

Narrative has an uneasy and complicated relationship to the search for truth about fact and law. (I wonder if Aristotle might not be the best guide on this.)

This stack invites you to construct one or more narratives for a case. A narrative normally involves actors. A narrative often involves a theme that runs through all or many events in the narrative. A narrative may have more than one theme. A theme may involve actors' motivations and their character.

A narrative involves settings in which events happen. These settings include an initial setting, intermediate settings, and a concluding setting, or denouement. A narrative involves a temporal series of events (including actions) in a series of settings. An effective narrative also involves a conjecture and an argument about how some or all of the temporal events in a case are connected with each other. But a narrative does not necessarily recount possible events in chronological order. Nonetheless, effective narratives rest on time lines and scenarios; narratives bereft of such temporal foundations are incoherent and unintelligible. (The purpose of a narrative in a legal context is to persuade the audience of the truth of factual hypotheses, and not merely to entertain.)

A narrative that seek to persuade an audience of the truth of the story recounted is effective only to the extent that the audience believes that the story advanced by the narrator is adequately supported by the available evidence and probable facts. This is so unless the narrator is able to confuse the audience about the apparent evidence and the apparent facts or induce the audience to ignore what it believes to be the evidence and the facts. But the willingness of an audience to accept the narrator's story may be affected by the apparent logical force of the inferences generated by the available evidence.

A narrative ordinarily involves the use of drama or other devices to engage the emotion, attention, and interest of the audience. A narrative may be designed -- and it very often is designed -- to serve partisan purposes rather than or other than the discovery of the truth about factual questions. But narrative -- whether wittingly or unwittingly -- can promote the search for the truth. This is because the drawing of good inferences by an audience in part requires that (i) the audience pay attention to the issues and the questions before it and (ii) the audience care how those issues and questions are answered. Narrative engages the emotion of the audience and it thereby engages the attention of the audience and the audience's appreciation of the importance of arriving at the right answers.

By the way: analysis of narrative can also help a person, party, or a trier of fact to assess the strengths and weaknesses of another party's or person's narrative.

Well, that's a start.

On the next card in the stack I have created fields with the following labels (designating what kind of text is to go into those fields):

name of case:

setting:

time of event or action:

actor or actors:

general theme (e.g., character of person, fate, accident, desire for vengeance, malicious recklessness):

theme of this specific event or act and relationship to general theme (e.g., motivation or purpose of action; or motivation or character of actor or actors, and relationship to general theme [such as the dangerousness and fragility of everyday life or the greedy character of large corporations]):

Below the above fields I plan to put buttons that link to (existing) stacks such as "case time line", "actors", and "case scenarios".

OK. Is the stuff above helpful? What next?

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The dynamic evidence page

Coming soon: the law of evidence on Spindle Law

Constitutional Law -- Is That All There Is?

I got the latest e-mail message notifying me of the contents of the latest issue of Harvard Law Review: Vol. 122 · June 2009 · No. 8. All three headlined articles -- correction, two of the three headlined articles are about constitutional law. (The third paper is not much better: it's an abstract review of an abstract discussion of statutory interpretation.) What's the matter with those people (yes, "those people")? Don't they realize there is more to law than constitutional law (or theories of legal interpretation and reasoning)?

I can understand the impulse to flee courses such as those about the Uniform Commercial Code or bankruptcy; I zealously avoided taking such courses when I was in law school. And I can understand people who find themselves in law school and wondering why they are there. I had similar sentiments when I was a student in law school. But I cannot understand people putatively learned in the law who think that only constitutional law matters.

I rather think that nonconstitutional law -- contracts, environmental law, labor law, corporate and securities law, property law, local government law, and all that -- has a bigger effect on daily life than constitutional law does. In any case, such nonconstitutional legal fields are not unimportant. So suck it up, you law review editors, and decide that if you're in law school, you're going to study all the law that matters -- including, of course, the law of evidence.

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The dynamic evidence page

Coming soon: the law of evidence on Spindle Law

Tim van Gelder on Argument Mapping

Those of you who are interesting in charting, or mapping, argument about and from evidence for trials or in anticipation of possible trials should keep your eye on Tim van Gelder's work on mapping argument of various kinds and in various contexts. He has recently written a nifty summary of research and work on argument mapping. TvG's summary will eventually be published as an encyclopedia entry.

Indeed, legal professionals should keep an eye on TvG's work (and software) even if they are not interested in argument mapping as such; they should consider his work even if they are (they think) just interested in careful (but "ordinary" or "commonsense") argument about (or "analysis" of) evidence in or for litigation.

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The dynamic evidence page

Coming soon: the law of evidence on Spindle Law

Leibniz on Age

"‘I have never,’ [Leibniz] reflected, ‘been so old as I am now.’" (Jonathan Rée, "Dispersed and Distracted," London Review of Books(June 25, 2009)

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The dynamic evidence page

Coming soon: the law of evidence on Spindle Law