Circling around Reasonable Doubt

In part of its opinion in Victor v. Nebraska, 511 U.S. 1 (1994), the Supreme Court of the United States approved the following line of reasoning:

Question: What level of proof is required for conviction of crime?
Answer: Proof beyond a reasonable doubt. 

Question: Does a showing of a "strong probability" of criminal guilt constitute proof beyond a reasonable doubt?
Answer: Under some circumstances. 

Question: Under what circumstances?
Answer: When the probability is so strong that it excludes reasonable doubt.

Except to the extent that the Court acknowledges that probabilities (of some kind and in some way) can figure in the trier's assessment of criminal guilt, the Court's reasoning has an Alice-in-Wonderland air:

"It's all very clear, my dear: Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is proof that removes all reasonable doubt. Why are you troubled by this self-evident proposition?"



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The dynamic evidence page
It's here: the law of evidence on Spindle Law. See also this post and this post.

Google Docs & Evidence Marshaling

I use Google Docs in my course in fact investigation to perform some of the functions that ready-for-prime-time evidence marshaling software (use Firefox) would perform.

My students have been using these Google Docs for two or so years now.

I now teach the course with Phil Segal. He knows many things I don't.

Collateral point: One team of student investigators is now starting to develop a time line showing the activities of a certain person during an entire calendar year (2010). This will not be easy to do!

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The dynamic evidence page

It's here: the law of evidence on Spindle Law. See also this post and this post.

Are the Reports of the Death or Demise of Real AI Exaggerated?

John Markoff perhaps thinks so.

Markoff makes an important distinction between "artificial intelligence and intelligence augmentation — A.I. versus I.A." I have been fiddling with evidence marshaling software (use Firefox) for quite some time. Some people think I am attempting to do artificial intelligence. But I am not. I am trying to augment human intelligence, support it and make it work better. Timothy van Gelder makes the point about intelligence augmentation or enhancement more clearly than anyone else I know.

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The dynamic evidence page

It's here: the law of evidence on Spindle Law. See also this post and this post.