Thursday, August 04, 2011

A Discussion of Quantification of Proof beyond a Reasonable Doubt


  • Jon O. Newman

Quantifying the standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt: a comment on three comments

Law, Probability and Risk (2006) 5(3-4): 267-269 doi:10.1093/lpr/mgm010

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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.

Computable Document Format in the Courtroom or the Law School Classroom?

I have written now and then about the possibility of using visual aids and crutches to make probabilistic evidence more intelligible to judges, lawyers, law teachers, law students, and jurors. I see that Wolfram has now created a type of document called computable document format. These are (clever!) interactive documents that allow the reader, or user, to manipulate mathematical relationships, expressions, equations, and the like. The mathematical and quantitative relationships etc. are depicted and manipulated visually. I wonder if CDFs might be used to enlighten or educate non-mathematicians. The CDF documents I have sampled are aimed mostly or exclusively at mathematicians and scientists: The accompanying prose is not easy to follow. But I wonder if the accompanying explanatory prose might sometimes be "dumbed down" (without distortion) for non-scientists and non-mathematicians.


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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.

"Gene Robbing"

See Eriq Gardner Gene Swipe: Few DNA Labs Know Whether Chromosomes Are Yours or If You Stole Them ABA Journal [online] (August 1, 2011)






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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.

Book about Judge Jack B. Weinstein

Judge Jack B. Weinstein has had a large influence on many areas of the law. He has had an immense amount of influence on the law of evidence, including (but not limited to) the law governing expert and scientific evidence as well as the law governing statistical evidence. I am pleased to report there is a new book about this renowned and thoughtful judge: Jeffrey B. Morris, THE CRAFT AND ACTIVISM OF JACK WEINSTEIN: LEADERSHIP ON THE FEDERAL BENCH (Oxford 2011). Having just gotten my hands on a copy of this book, I cannot definitively proclaim that it is a good book. But I have skimmed a few parts of the book and what I have read so far is very interesting.

The book grew out of what was originally envisioned as an oral history project. The interviews were conducted over a period of a decade! Transcripts of the interviews, the book proclaims, were to be deposited with the Columbia University libraries and the law library of the Touro Law School.

The blurb on the front flap of the book cover states (in part):
[The book] considers the ways a particularly gifted federal judge has seized the opportunities and tools available to federal trial judges to make policy which has had a national impact. ... Beginning with an explanation as to why Weinstein, as scholar and jurist, is entitled to an in-depth study, Morris then considers Weinstein's background before appointment to the bench and...offers many examples of how Weinstein's background has affected his decision making. ... A leader in the battle against harsh sentencing, Weinstein has endeavored to bring a "human face" to the law in a variety of ways.
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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.