Tim van Gelder on Conscious and Unconscious Thought

I belatedly discovered Tim van Gelder's wonderful post on a question that bears directly on the question of the relationship between "tacit inference and "explicit inference": Better thinking is not conscious, and not unconscious (Nov. 30, 2006)

Three New Papers on Quantification of the Reasonable Doubt Standard

Peter Tillers & Jonathan Gottfried, Case Comment United States v. Copeland, 369 F.Supp.2d 275 (E.D.N.Y. 2005): A Collateral Attack on the Legal Maxim that Proof beyond a Reasonable Doubt Is Unquantifiable?, 5 Law, Probability and Risk 135 (2006).

James Franklin, Case comment—United States v. Copeland, 369 F. Supp. 2d 275 (E.D.N.Y. 2005): quantification of the ‘proof beyond reasonable doubt’ standard, 5 Law, Probability and Risk 159 (2006).

Judge Jack Weinstein & Ian Dewsbury, Comment on the meaning of ‘proof beyond a reasonable doubt’, 5 Law, Probability and Risk 167 (2006).

Links to abstracts of these papers are available at Current Contents

Sad Epilogue to the Sally Clark SIDS Case

Please see BBC News (March 16, 2007)

Judicial Regulation of Pretrial Investigation by Legal Counsel

Pretrial investigation has a tremendous impact on the outcome of trial outcomes. Or so every competent trial lawyer thinks. But the question of how pretrial investigation ought to be regulated is an excruciatingly difficult one. A very recent case illustrates both points. In Jones v. United States, -- A.2d --, 2007 WL 763220 (D.C.App., March 15, 2007) a man convicted of various crimes in connection with two rapes petitioned for a hearing on his claim that his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel had been denied by the failure of his appointed counsel to investigate alibi evidence. The petition was denied. On appeal, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals held that this was error, even though some of the evidence supporting the alibi defense may have been conflicting. The appellate court wrote:

With respect to the first prong of Strickland, barely touched upon by the motions judge, we think that appellant met his burden of “alleg[ing] facts which, if demonstrated, would establish ineffective assistance of counsel.” Lane, supra, 737 A.2d at 548 (quoting Johnson v. United States, 385 A.2d 742, 744 (D.C.1978)). “We have recognized previously that the failure of trial counsel to investigate properly a case, ‘to interview exculpatory witnesses, and to present their testimony constitutes constitutional ineffectiveness.’ “ Lopez, supra, 801 A.2d at 46 (internal quotation and citation omitted). Here, if believed, the various affidavits attached to appellant's § 23-110 motion, which provide alibis for the times of both assaults, present powerful assertions of innocence. Therefore, the allegations made by appellant in his motion, if true, demonstrate “that counsel made errors so serious that counsel was not functioning as the ‘counsel’ guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth Amendment.” Strickland, supra, 466 U.S. at 687.

Appellant stated, in his affidavit, that his trial counsel ignored his requests to interview his family, contact Mr. Williams, and obtain his employment records. Of course, as the government correctly notes, decisions concerning which witnesses to call at trial are often based on tactical considerations, and therefore, generally remain within the discretion of the defense attorney. See Lopez v. United States, 863 A.2d 852, 861-62 (D.C.2004) (“[T]he decision to call witnesses is a judgment left almost exclusively to counsel” (citation omitted)); Bell v. United States, 260 A.2d 690, 691 (D.C.1970) (“The decision to call or not to call witnesses on behalf of a defendant is part of the strategy utilized by counsel in the preparation of the defense. It is a question of judgment, and this court will not engage in a subjective determination of the wisdom of counsel's strategy.” (internal footnote omitted)).

Here, however, there is nothing in the record indicating that counsel's failure to call the alibi witnesses was a sound tactical decision, or, for that matter, that counsel even knew of the existence of the witnesses. The government did not produce any evidence explaining trial counsel's decisions or refuting appellant's claim that counsel ignored his requests to interview Mr. Williams and appellant's family members. See Gillis v. United States, 586 A.2d 726, 729 (D.C.1991) (remanding because “[t]he record is devoid of any meaningful explanation as to why a potential defense was not pursued” and “[a]t a minimum, there was a serious question regarding the need for a hearing”).

Finally, the government argues that, due to the strength of its case at trial, appellant could not possibility satisfy the second prong of the Strickland test, even with his affidavits, by establishing “that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.” Strickland, supra, 466 U.S. at 694. The government did not rely on the strength of its case in its presentation to the motions judge and, as a general rule, we do not consider arguments “not properly raised and preserved [in the trial court.]” Bradley v. United States, 881 A.2d 640, 646 n. 5 (D.C .2005) (quoting Miller v. Avirom, 127 U.S.App. D.C. 367, 369-70, 384 F.2d 319, 321-22 (1967)). In any event, we think that the government may overstate the strength of its case and underestimate the persuasive power of the affidavits if believed as alibis.

To be sure, LL and NN [two rape victims] each identified appellant, in and out of court, as the man who assaulted her. Each witness also testified at trial that she was certain that appellant was the assailant. However, “[t]he vagaries of eyewitness identification, and the potential for wrongful convictions or adjudications based upon such evidence, have long been recognized in the District of Columbia.” In re As. H., 851 A.2d 456, 459-60 (D.C.2004) (citing United States v. Telfaire, 152 U.S.App. D.C. 146, 149-51, 469 F.2d 552, 555-57 (1972) (per curiam); Crawley v. United States, 320 A.2d 309, 311-12 (D.C.1974)) “Even if the witness professes certainty, ‘it is well recognized that the most positive eyewitness is not necessarily the most reliable.’ “ Webster v. United States, 623 A.2d 1198, 1204 n. 15 (D.C.1993) (quoting Crawley, supra, 320 A.2d at 312).

Here, both the circumstances surrounding the identifications of appellant, and the descriptions given by the complainants of their assailant, may have given the jury some reason to pause. Although both complainants claim to have viewed their assailant in well-lit rooms, the testimony of each establishes that she was only able to view her assailant for a limited amount of time, during an extremely traumatic event. While NN, who testified that she was 5′4″, described her assailant as somewhere around 5′8′ and only slightly taller than she was, appellant testified that he was six feet tall. LL, moreover, described her assailant at trial as between 5′8′ and 5′10″, but informed the police that he was six feet tall. Furthermore, NN described her assailant to the police as darkly complected and clean shaven, but testified at trial that he had a “lighter brown complexion” and “a little hair right on his chin.” Finally, NN failed to identify appellant as her assailant at the first lineup she attended. Although she testified that she had recognized appellant, but did not identify him because she felt ill and afraid, the jury may have viewed that testimony with greater scepticism if it had also heard testimony that appellant was working when NN was assaulted. The serology evidence presented by the government at trial was of little consequence. As the trial was held in 1986, DNA evidence was apparently unavailable.FN46 The evidence here was based on crude science, and established only that appellant, along with a very large percentage of the population, could “not be excluded” as the attacker.

FN46. See supra note 19.

The presence of appellant's prints at NN's home unquestionably presents a serious problem for appellant. In Newman, supra, however, we held that appellant was entitled to a hearing on his § 23-110 motion, despite the presence of his wallet at the crime scene, in part, because appellant asserted in his motion that he had been at the crime scene earlier on the day of the crime. 705 A.2d at 262.

There, Newman and his co-defendant Samuels were convicted of various crimes related to an incident in which they allegedly burst into an apartment and robbed the occupants, shooting and killing one of them. Id. at 249-50. Among the physical evidence presented by the government was Newman's wallet, which was found at the crime scene. Id. at 250-51. Newman's photo identification was discovered inside the wallet. Id. at 250.

Following his conviction, Newman filed a § 23-110 motion in which he alleged that his trial counsel's failure to contact an alibi witness constituted ineffective assistance of counsel. Id. at 260. In the motion, Newman also asserted that “he had been [at the apartment where the crime occurred] earlier on the day of the crime and at that time had left his wallet there by accident.” Id. Newman attached two affidavits. Id. In his own affidavit, Newman claimed that although he had informed counsel of the witness's existence, counsel did not contact her. Id. In a second affidavit, the alibi witness stated “that Newman had been with her at her home-a significant distance from the murder scene-from approximately six or seven in the evening until about midnight on the day the crime occurred.” Id. We noted that “[b]ecause the murder took place at approximately 8:30 to 9 p.m., [the witness's] testimony-if believed-would have completely exonerated Newman.” Id.

We also observed that “[t]he motions judge denied the motion without a hearing and without calling for an answer from the government.” Id. (internal footnote omitted). The judge based his decision largely on the presence of Newman's wallet at the crime scene and the failure of the alibi witness to account for the wallet's presence. Id. at 260-61. According to the motions judge, “it is highly unlikely that [the witness] would leave out such important information in her affidavit.” Id. at 261. The judge further asserted that “because [the witness] could not explain away the government's ‘overwhelming evidence,’ Newman could not show prejudice from his attorney's failure to contact [the witness].” Id.

In reversing the trial judge's order denying Newman's § 23-110 motion without a hearing, we rejected the conclusion that “the government witnesses provided such overwhelming evidence of Newman's guilt that a hearing on [the alibi witness's] credibility was not necessary,” observing:

Three witnesses identified Newman as someone present at the scene of the crime, but two of these witnesses admitted they had smoked crack cocaine and drunk alcohol immediately before the robbery, and there was testimony that the third had done so as well. One of the witnesses, [an alleged accomplice], was severely impeached with evidence of her plea bargain, prior convictions, and previous inconsistent statements. The other two-the complaining witnesses-had failed to identify either defendant from a photographic array. And, only after a newspaper article about the murder had appeared did they identify Newman and Samuels as the assailants. If the jury had received the benefit of [the alibi witness's] testimony that Newman had been with her elsewhere at the time of the shooting, therefore, it might have resolved the conflicts between Newman's and the government's versions of events in Newman's favor.

18 Id. at 261-62.

Turning to the issue of Newman's wallet, we further concluded:

Contrary to the motions judge's ruling, ... the presence of Newman's wallet at the scene of the crime does not negate the exculpatory testimony of an alibi witness as a matter of law. Trial counsel told the jury in closing argument that “there's no evidence to show that [Newman] wasn't there earlier in the day,” and that “[t]he only other person that would have known that is [a] woman who hasn't testified.... Furthermore, we cannot know whether, if [the alibi witness] had testified, Newman himself would have taken the stand to present his explanation about the wallet.... While the jury might have found this proffered explanation-that Newman happened to come by the apartment on the very day of the murder and accidentally left his wallet there-too incredible to believe, it also could have found the combination of an alibi witness and the defendant's version of how the wallet got there believable. Without a hearing to assess the credibility of the witness, however, we cannot tell what a jury might have done.

Id. at 262 (internal citation omitted).

We further stated:

[W]e cannot agree with the motions judge that “it is highly unlikely that [the alibi witness] would leave out such important information [as to how Newman's wallet innocently came to be at the crime scene] in her affidavit.” While [the witness's] failure to mention the wallet might affect her credibility, it does not as a matter of law make her testimony incredible-even if only because there is no discernible reason why [the witness] could have been expected to know anything about Newman's wallet ... In any event, the jury might have believed [the witness] despite the presence of the wallet; without a hearing to assess her credibility in the context of the other evidence, we cannot tell. Therefore, because the record here is “barren of the evidentiary facts which would either confirm or refute [the] allegation” that Newman's attorney failed even to attempt to contact a potential alibi witness, Newman is entitled to a hearing on his § 23-110 motion.

Id.

The situation involving the presence of Newman's wallet at the crime scene in Newman is analogous to the situation involving the discovery of appellant's fingerprints and palm print at the home of NN. Unlike Newman, however, appellant offered an explanation for the presence of his prints at trial. Certainly, his explanation posits an unlikely coincidence, which the jury was under no obligation to credit. However, as in Newman, the testimony of an alibi witness here could have provided greater credibility to appellant's explanation. At the very least, the fingerprint evidence cannot be viewed as so conclusive that it itself destroys the credibility of the proffered alibi witness.

&&&

In short, we do not think that the evidence presented by the government, while undeniably strong, was so overwhelming that it conclusively established, without a hearing, that appellant was entitled to no relief, whatever the possible strength of the proffered testimony of the alibi witnesses might be on further assessment. Because appellant “allege[d] facts which, if demonstrated, would establish ineffective assistance of counsel,” Lane, supra, 737 A.2d at 548 (quoting Johnson, supra, 385 A.2d at 744), and because “[t]he exculpatory value of the evidence proffered by appellant turns at bottom on the credibility ... of the witnesses specifically identified in [his] § 23-110 motion,” Newman, supra, 705 A.2d at 261 (quoting Rice v. United States, 580 A.2d 119, 122-23 (D.C.1990)), we conclude that it was improper for the motions judge to summarily deny appellant's motion. In so doing, we emphasize, as we did in Newman, that “we do not address the [ultimate] merits of [appellant's] claim.” Id. at 262 (citing Gray, supra, 617 A.2d at 524).

For the foregoing reasons, we vacate the order denying the § 23-110 motion and remand the case to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

&&&&&&&&&&&

Judge Kramer concurred in the appellate court's order requiring a hearing, but he wrote separately:

As the majority notes, Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), provides that to prevail on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, a defendant must show both that the performance of counsel was deficient and that he was prejudiced by that deficiency. To meet the test, a defendant must establish “that counsel made errors so serious that counsel was not functioning as the ‘counsel’ guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth Amendment,” Id. at 687, and that the defendant suffered prejudice because “there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.” Id. at 694. Because of what I perceive to be the strength of the evidence in this case (and the deficiencies of the affidavits presented to Judge Dixon), I am persuaded that there is no realistic possibility that Mr. Jones was prejudiced by any of the asserted deficiencies of counsel.

D.C.Code § 23-110(c) provides a presumption that there will be a hearing on an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. It also provides, however, that such a hearing is not necessary if “the motion and files and records of the case conclusively show that the prisoner is entitled to no relief.” In my judgment, the motion, files and records of this case “conclusively show” that the defendant committed the acts of which he was convicted and thus should be entitled to no relief. But the government did not rely on the strength of its evidence in its presentation to Judge Dixon, and, as Judge Steadman points out, as a general rule, we do not consider on appeal arguments that were not presented below. Nonetheless, because I view the strength of the evidence so differently from the majority, I concur and explain.

To explain my differing assessment, I provide my own rendition of the facts. Although the crimes against Mrs. N. came after those against Mrs. L., I begin with the offenses involving Mrs. N. since the evidence of these crimes, in my assessment, is sufficient to prove them not “merely” beyond a reasonable doubt, but practically to “a mathematical certainty”-a standard that involves a degree of evidence that goes beyond what is necessary to convict an accused . FN1

FN1. See Criminal Jury Instructions for the District of Columbia, No. 2.09 (4th ed. Rev.2005) (“The government is not required to prove guilt beyond all doubt, or to a mathematical or scientific certainly.”)

&&&

In sum, contrary to the view implicit in the majority opinion, I conclude that the government's evidence of Jones's guilt was overwhelming. FN5 For the reasons detailed above, this evidence easily met, if not exceeded, the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt. The record, on the other hand, convincingly refutes the belated allegations in the affidavits that Jones now proffers in his motion for post-conviction relief. Thus, I might well have been satisfied that “under no circumstances could [Jones] establish facts warranting relief.” See Joseph v. United States, 878 A.2d 1204, 1209 (D.C.2005) (quoting Ramsey v. United States, 569 A.2d 142, 147 (D.C.1990)) (internal quotation marks omitted), and that the trial court was therefore justified in denying the § 23-110 motion without a hearing. However, the government's decision not to argue the strength of its evidence before the trial court prevented the trial judge from conducting its own assessment of whether the Ramsey test had been met. For this reason, despite my own view that the evidence conclusively establishes Jones' guilt, I cannot disagree with the majority's decision to remand for a hearing. Thus, I concur rather than dissent.

FN5. Guilt, of course, is rarely established with absolute certainty. It is worth noting, however, that there is no indication that Mr. Jones has sought to take advantage of the Innocence Protection Act, D.C.Code § 22-4133, which would hold out the possibility of scientific exoneration should his DNA not match the DNA on the swabs taken from the victims.

Common Sense and the Question of the Underlying Foundations of Thought and Consciousness

In legal theorizing about inference there is much talk about "generalizations" and, on inspection, these generalizations are often common sense generalizations. In Artificial Intelligence -- or, if you prefer, "computational intelligence" -- there has been much interest in and talk about common sense generalizations. I recently mentioned the pioneering work of John McCarthy, who is profoundly interested in, not only AI, but also commonsense principles about the world. He is not alone; Douglas Lenat is another example, if possibly a curious one. (He is reported to have said that "intelligence is 10 million [common sense?] rules.") Fuzzy probability and its offshoots are another example of AI theorizing that takes common sense principles very seriously.

Some neuroscience, by contrast, seems determined to do away with common sense and to ascertain, via neuroscience, what and how human beings really think. The work of the Churchlands and of Daniel Dennett strongly tends in this direction, as does perhaps the "neurolaw" that Jeffrey Rosen of the NYTimes recently described.

The question of whether what we think we think is what and how we actually think is, scientifically speaking, an unresolved question. While it seems to be true that human thought as we know it cannot take place without material entities such as the brain, the nervous system, and a functioning heart, it must not be too readily supposed that in time, as all is revealed, it will be revealed that common sense thinking is entirely epiphenomenal, entirely an elaborate artifice, as it were -- much less that it will necessarily be shown that human thought is, not only associated with and dependent on the existence of, say, physical or neural processes in the brain, but also that human thought is, in some fundamental sense, superfluous to such "[allegedly] determinative material ["neural"?] substrata "processes"?]." The reduction of human thought to the workings of neural pathways is not yet at hand -- this condition is not yet at hand in the sense that we do not yet know how to replace allegedly epiphenomenal human reasoning with the workings of neural pathways in the human brain or, more broadly, in the human body.

Is it possible that human thought will never be reducible to the workings of such pathways or to something analogous to (and perhaps "deeper" than) such pathways? The answer, I think, depends at present more on faith than on science -- more on what one believes, without proof, about the fundamental nature of things. I would offer just a word of caution to the new reductionists, those who aspire to reduce all thought to "material neural pathways" [perhaps an oxymoron]: The sense of this nonexpert in AI matters is that at present it can be said -- perhaps counter-intuitively in the eyes of some observers -- that some AI approaches that emphasize the reality and efficacy of arguably epiphenomenal ways of thinking about the world do, to some extent, allow the creation of artificial mechanisms that seem to have some capacity to deal with the workings of the world. I think here principally of the successes of soft computing in controlling matters such as the scheduling of Japanese trains and the focusing mechanisms in cameras. See the interesting Wikipedia article on fuzzy control systems. Perhaps it will turn out that common sense has vastly more "intelligence" than is sometimes attributed to it.

But we must not be too smug intellectually. Another important development in recent years, partly the result again of research in AI, is our increasing awareness of the extent to which human inference involves and requires what Helmholtz called "unconscious inference." As I see it, a new Aristotle will soon emerge. This new Aristotle will be a thinker who will suggest how these two visions of human information processing -- commonsense reasoning and tacit, or unconscious, inference -- combine in a way that does not annihilate the truth and reality of either of them, and that makes it possible for human beings to function in the world -- in a way that perhaps even makes it possible for human beings to reflect on their position in the world, i.e., to philosophize.

The Material Mind

Now that I have neuroscience on my mind ... :-)

One might call the idea that some people have the mechanical-engineering model of the mind -- or, more simply, the mechanical mind -- the idea of the mind as mechanical. But if the basis of thought is in material (and this proposition stands in some serious doubt -- since it is far from clear that the underlying substratum of everything is materium rather than, say, "information"), human thought is not embedded in metallic material.

If mind is to be material, the mind might better be called the biological mind.

And it's interesting, of course, that the biological mind is structured to produce thought, logic, etc.; that it has neurons, axons, etc. that are arranged this way and that way so that thought (and consciousness?) can emerge.

I have sometimes wondered -- this, it must be said, is pure speculation -- I have sometimes whether the Grand Orginator preferred to give man [there's that word again] neural pathways embedded in soft tissue -- rather than electric circuits embedded in, say, dense metal -- because (is it so?) neural pathways enmeshed in soft brain tissue are sloppier -- because (if the following is true) there is more signal loss, signal misdirection, signal corruption, etc., in neural paths enmeshed in soft tissue than in the circuits enmeshed in your average computer. (Let's put aside the phenomenon of signal degradation over, say, the internet or telephone lines.) Is the (presumed) sloppiness -- mushiness? -- of neural pathways -- could we say their fuzziness? -- the basis of both human creativity and human freedom?

Well, it's a thought. Does anyone have more substantive, scholarly, and scientific comments to offer about this idle thought? (This question is not meant to be a veiled invitation to Daniel Dennett or to Paul and Patricia Churchland -- but I would not be angered to see such eminences heap material scorn here on my speculative ruminations. They are free to say what they wish. :-) )

The Fashions of the Times: Neurolaw

The sort of scholarship that Jeffrey Rosen describes will give the study of law and neuroscience a bad name. See Jeffrey Rosen, The Brain on the Stand (March 11, 2007).

There seems to be something about the legal mind that sometimes just cannot resist facile practical conclusions -- and ill-considered theoretical ones -- produced by the sciences of man [yes, I know I'm retrograde -- but I use "man" in the generic sense and I think every reader understands that] and the mind.

Legal Scholarship: No. 8

In discussions of legal scholarship there is sometimes talk of

Law versus Theoryor

Legal Doctrine versus Theory

The disjunction between law and theory is spurious -- at least to the extent that the asserted disjunction is meant as an assertion that a legal scholar must choose between doctrine and theory. It is plain -- common sense suggests -- that a legal scholar can discuss both doctrine and theory.

It occurred to me just yesterday that even the admirable combination of theory and doctrine may be too narrow. Even better is

The Golden Triad

The Golden Triad consists of

Legal Doctrine, Theory & Technology

or, more simply,

Law, Theory & Technology

See The Dynamic Evidence Page

N.B. Ward Edwards once said to a friend of mine that it takes a lot of good theory to make a useful tool. Ward Edwards was a wise man.

Legal Scholarship: No. 7

Basic Research

In legal scholarship there should be an analogue to the notion of basic research in science. But academic legal scholars must not get the idea that basic research is that sort of research that never needs to be put to the test. Untestable research is cheap and easy -- because there is no way to determine whether results of such "basic research" are valid or invalid.

Legal Scholarship: No. 6

To avoid the disease of industrial scholarship -- mass-produced scholarship to satisfy the demands of employers and the appetites of consumers -- it might be a good idea to reinvigorate the the idea that the scholarly life is a quasi-monastic one.

Quasi-monastic, I say. The notion that we should reinstitute celibacy in the academy is admittedly a bit much.

A "No" Will Do -- But Perhaps "Yes" Would Also Pass Muster

I just received the following question via the UAI -- Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence -- list:

Are you good at hierarchical clustering/causal discovery/graphical modeling/link analysis/phylogenetics/string-matching?

Since I don't fully understand the question, I think I can fairly answer the question with either a "yes" or a "no."

Legal Scholarship: No. 5

The above image is Prrit Parmakson's elegant recasting of a cruder image that I created.

... but the use of citation counts or GOOGLE hits alone to measure the utility or scholarly merit of legal scholarship warrants the derogatory label "industrial scholarship"...

Legal Scholarship: No. 4

More on the legal treatise as (influential) legal scholarship:

241 U.S. law journal articles in the LEXIS database have cited volume 1 or volume 1A of WIGMORE ON EVIDENCE (P. Tillers rev. 1983).

By a broader measure there were 320 citations in scholarly literature in the LEXIS database.

In GOOGLE the search terms "Wigmore Evidence Tillers" generated 1,140 hits today (but some of these hits are to my blogs and my other online material, and I estimate that 10% of the hits are false positives).

Legal Scholarship: No. 3

Legal Treatises

The panel discussion at my law school involved many judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The gathering also involved (i) law faculty members at my law school, (ii) students at my law school, and (iii) assorted guests (many of them quite interesting).

The topic was the "utility of legal scholarship to judges." The discussion initially focused almost exclusively on the utility vel non of law journal articles to judges. But some faculty members began to mention other possible forms of legal scholarship. I was no exception to this partially self-serving attempt to re-direct discussion: I raised the question of views (both outside and inside the legal academy) about the utility of legal treatises.

Disclosure: I am working on a legal treatise. I also revised part of a legal treatise, part of John Henry Wigmore's monumental treatise on the law of evidence; I converted one of the volumes -- a hefty volume in small print -- into two hefty volumes (also in small print, with some of the longest footnotes known to man).

A Sign of the Times: This treatise is now available online.

More than two decades ago several prominent law teachers doubted the value of "doctrinal scholarship," including legal treatises. (The doubters were mainly lodged on the right side of the political spectrum and on the left side, but not in the moderate, or mushy, middle.) Earlier on this blog I expressed -- I reiterated -- my opinion that the notion that legal treatises cannot harbor original or creative thought is twaddle. See Platonic Hierarchies of Legal Scholarship.

After the panel discussion with the judges, I had a hallway conversation that moved me to gather some data about the number of times that prominent courts cite to Wigmore's treatise, including my part of the treatise. Here is a bit of the largely self-serving stuff that I found and noted:

There were a total of ca. 1,700 citations to the Wigmore Treatise by all U.S. courts from and including 2000 to the present.

During the same period the Supreme Court of the United States cited to Wigmore's treatise in 17 judicial opinions.

For purposes of this count I do not distinguish between opinions of the Court, concurring opinions, and dissenting opinions.

&&&

There were 16 citations to Wigmore by the 2nd Circuit from and including 2000.

My procedure here is to count the number of judicial opinions that cite the Treatise, not the actual number of citations. Hence, mutiple citations in one judicial opinion count as one citation.

There were 27 citations to Wigmore by the 9th Circuit from and including 2000.

There were 6 citations to Wigmore by the 5th Circuit.

There were 16 citation by the 4th Circuit.

There were 15 citations by the 1st Circuit.

So (as might have been expected) there is substantial variation among the circuits in the frequency to citations to Wigmore.

&&&

There were 9 citations by the NY Court of Appeals in the same period.

In all New York state courts there were ca. 55 citations to Wigmore (but in this instance I didn’t check for false hits).

&&&

83 Supreme Court briefs cited to Wigmore during the same period.

Westlaw’s database contains 9,428 appellate briefs around the country that cited to Wigmore during the same period (but I didn’t check for false positives).

WESTLAW shows 337 appellate briefs in New York that cited to Wigmore during the same period.

***

The Supreme Court of the United States has cited my Wigmore volumes -- 1 & 1A WIGMORE ON EVIDENCE (P. Tillers rev. 1983) -- four (4) times. See Selected Judicial Citations to vols. 1 & 1A J. Wigmore, Evidence (P. Tillers rev. 1983)

The High Court of Australia has cited my volumes six (6) times.

The Supreme Court of Canada has cited my revision seven (7) times. Id.

The Constitutional Court of the Republic of South Africa cited my revision once.Id.

For citations by U.S. Courts of Appeals and by the highest courts of the States of the United States, please see Selected Judicial Citations to vols. 1 & 1A J. Wigmore, Evidence (P. Tillers rev. 1983)

***

More about citation counts later.

Legal Scholarship: No. 2

Are "blawgs" -- law blogs -- legal scholarship? Can they be? There was very recently a panel discussion about legal scholarship at my law school. One discussant mentioned blawgs. But there was no discussion of the scholarly standing ofblawgs. (The talk was almost entirely about law journals.) In the blogosphere there is considerable discussion about the scholarly status of blawgs. See, e.g., Blogs: Scholarship (with links) at ProfessorBainbridge.com (a blawg).

It is a fair guess that bloggers have a more favorable opinion of blawgs than non-bloggers do.

It is true that the panel discussion at my law school lasted only ca. 90 minutes. Hence, there was not much time to talk. Nonetheless, the decision to talk almost exclusively about law journal articles and not at all about blogs is some evidence of the scholarly standing (or non-standing) of blawgs.

But blawgs are a recent development. Views about them will change. But precisely how they will change, I do not know -- and, at the moment, I won't venture to guess.

Legal Scholarship: Official Post No. 1

Legal scholars -- but the phrase is perhaps presumptuous -- love to talk and write about legal scholarship. That's partly because they love to talk about themselves. That's partly because they are narcissistic. (And that makes them solipsistic.) Considerations such as these -- and others (e.g., my insecurity about the value of my own scholarship, fear of the scorn of others, fear of retaliation) -- have made me hesitate to talk and write very much about legal scholarship -- its condition, its prospects, its purposes, etc. But now that my academic credentials seem to be reasonably well established, it's time that I speak out about legal scholarship a bit more frequently and a bit more frankly than I have in the past. Inevitably, many of my remarks will be self-serving. But I will do my best to make my comments be of some interest to someone other than myself. Moreover, I promise that some of my comments will have a contrarian tone. But this post is just an opening salvo: it is only an announcement of my intentions. Later posts will be substantive.

N.B. I may have made a kind of promise. But caveat emptor: the promise I have made here is not enforceable. Do not rely on any assurance given here that I will comment on legal scholarship. I may change my mind.

What sorts of matters will I discuss? I'm not sure. But here are some possibilities:

1. Legal scholarship and science

2. Legal scholarship and religion

3. Legal scholarship -- in and out of the academy

4. Legal scholarship and narcissism

5. Legal scholarship and uncertainty

5. Legal scholarship and law practice

6. Legal scholarship and legal treatises

7. Legal scholarship and "theory"

8. Legal scholarship and evidential inference and factual proof

9. Legal scholarship and "artificial intelligence"

10. Legal scholarship and the rule of law

You will forgive me, I hope, if many of my forthcoming ruminations are suffused by notions that I have acquired over the years as a result of my study of evidence, inference, and uncertainty about (and in) the world. (But not all of my thoughts are the result of this sort of preoccupation.)

An Innocent(?) Man on Death Row in Japan for Forty Years

Different people may be shocked by the below story for different reasons.

Some people may be principally revolted by the possibility that an innocent man has been imprisoned for four decades.

Other people may be shocked to learn that a prisoner has had to face the prospect of execution for forty years.

The truth, of course, is that both things are appalling.

Japan Times Online (March 10, 2007):

One of the three Shizuoka District Court judges who in 1968 sentenced a pro boxer to hang for four murders said Friday he thought at the time the man was innocent.

The judge, Norimichi Kumamoto, 69, said he agreed to the death sentence after the two other judges involved in the case made the decision, despite having prepared a 360-page document citing reasons supporting the man's innocence.

Kumamoto, who resigned from the bench shortly after agreeing to the sentence, made the remark the day before the 71st birthday of Iwao Hakamada, who has been on death row for over 40 years, during which time he has sought a retrial for the murder of a family of four Shimizu in June 1966.

The Glue That Ties Inferences to Evidence: "Complex Ancillary Generalizations"

In much theorizing about inference from evidence during the last 50 years and more there has been much talk about the role of "generalizations." I have long thought that the ordinary connotation of "generalization," though not necessarily its definition, fails to do justice to the complexity and depth of the complexes of ancillary theoretical propositions and arguments that bear on inferences from evidence. A nifty illustration of this might be the discovery or rediscovery that medieval Iranian craftsmen may have had an understanding of "an advanced math of quasi crystals, which was not understood by modern scientists until three decades ago." John Noble Wilford, In Medieval Architecture, Signs of Advanced Math, NY Times (Feb. 27, 2007). This understanding is inferred by Peter J. Lu and Paul J. Steinhardt from the patterns they observed in medieval Islamic architecture. See Decagonal and Quasi-Crystalline Tilings in Medieval Islamic Architecture, Science 23 February 2007: Vol. 315. no. 5815, pp. 1106 - 1110.

One practically imagines Umberto Eco noting that one tile does not fit the usual pattern and attempting to infer some message that the designer of the ill-fitting tile might have been trying to send to some observer eight centuries later.

The trouble (if any) with "generalization" is that it connotes "relative frequency statement." But is there an adequate substitute for "generalization"? "Law-like statement"? Are all generalizations "like" natural laws? "Nomological construct"? Such a phrase is redolent of all the ugly academic language that causes nightmares and public scorn. "Principles"? This is too broad and fuzzy.

N.B. Scientists are not the only people who use complex theoretical constructs to draw inferences about the world. The difference between scientists and ordinary people with ordinary generalizations in their heads (and in their hearts?) may be mainly or only that (i) ordinary theoretical constructs are not usually (if ever) fully spelled out and (ii) ordinary theoretical constructs -- "generalizations" -- are not systematic in the way that principles in a scientific theory such as Newtonian mechanics are systematic (but this does not mean that "ordinary," or everyday, theoretical constructs are necessarily invalid or somehow "bad" -- because if that were the case most of us would have been dead long ago).

Argumentation Map Etc.

Check out Ib (diagramming excited utterances) in this periodic table

See also Kn (the element "knowledge map," of course).

Credit for reference to table: Ilga Blankmeyer

What Is Happening to the Antarctic Ice Sheet(s)?

Curt H. Davis, Yonghong Li, Joseph R. McConnell, Markus M. Frey & Edward Hanna Snowfall-Driven Growth in East Antarctic Ice Sheet Mitigates Recent Sea-Level Rise, SCIENCE (June 24, 2005)(abstract):

Satellite radar altimetry measurements indicate that the East Antarctic ice-sheet interior north of 81.6°S increased in mass by 45 ± 7 billion metric tons per year from 1992 to 2003. Comparisons with contemporaneous meteorological model snowfall estimates suggest that the gain in mass was associated with increased precipitation. A gain of this magnitude is enough to slow sea-level rise by 0.12 ± 0.02 millimeters per year.

Compare: "Insignificant change in Antarctic snowfall since the International Geophysical Year," A. J. Monaghan, D. H. Bromwich, R. L. Fogt, S.-H. Wang, P. A. Mayewski, D. A. Dixon, A. Ekaykin, M. Frezzotti, I. Goodwin, E. Isaksson, S. D. Kaspari, V. I. Morgan, H. Oerter, T. D. Van Ommen, C. J. Van der Veen, and J. Wen (2006) Science 313, 827-831