What Chance Of Innocence Can Be Tolerated For Conviction?
 

A lot of people hate the question formed this way but there is no getting around it. Assuming major felonies, equal danger to the public when a guilty guy is acquitted, identical punishments, and anything else, Pair the Board can think of to distract from the intent of this post, and also assuming that it is a pure whodonit case where the defendent hangs his whole hat on the fact that it wasn't him.

Given that. What chance of innocence in your mind is an acceptable risk?

Also should it be OK for different jury members to have different opinions on this matter? In other words is it acceptable that they come to different verdicts not because they disagree on chance of innocence but because they disagree on what that chance need be for an acquittal.

PS The definition of "chance of innocence in your mind" is how many out of one hundred cases with identical evidence would the defendent actually be innocent.

Re: What Chance Of Innocence Can Be Tolerated For Conviction?
 

5/100

Re: What Chance Of Innocence Can Be Tolerated For Conviction?
 

I'd say 1/100. I think it's fine for jury members to disagree on what this chance needs to be. It probably leads to better debate during deliberations.

Re: What Chance Of Innocence Can Be Tolerated For Conviction?
 

I'd go by the instruction of the court.

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"Any doubt which would make a reasonable person hesitate in the most important of his or her affairs."


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I don't see anything in there that requires me to put the question in terms of "chance" or some kind of psuedo-probability model.

PairTheBoard

Re: What Chance Of Innocence Can Be Tolerated For Conviction?
 

Zero

Re: What Chance Of Innocence Can Be Tolerated For Conviction?
 

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I'd go by the instruction of the court.

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"Any doubt which would make a reasonable person hesitate in the most important of his or her affairs."


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I don't see anything in there that requires me to put the question in terms of "chance" or some kind of psuedo-probability model.

PairTheBoard

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you realize that reasonable doubt IS probability its just not defined by the court, rather its left to each person to define for themselves.

Re: What Chance Of Innocence Can Be Tolerated For Conviction?
 

So if there's a one in a trillion chance a guy might be innocent, you won't vote to convict? Virtually nobody would ever be convicted if everyone had that standard.

Re: What Chance Of Innocence Can Be Tolerated For Conviction?
 

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Also should it be OK for different jury members to have different opinions on this matter? In other words is it acceptable that they come to different verdicts not because they disagree on chance of innocence but because they disagree on what that chance need be for an acquittal.

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more than ok, each jury member should apply the standards to others they woud wish to be applied to them if they were on trial or the victim or a potential victim etc

chez

Re: What Chance Of Innocence Can Be Tolerated For Conviction?
 

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I'd go by the instruction of the court.

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"Any doubt which would make a reasonable person hesitate in the most important of his or her affairs."


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I don't see anything in there that requires me to put the question in terms of "chance" or some kind of psuedo-probability model.

PairTheBoard

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you realize that reasonable doubt IS probability its just not defined by the court, rather its left to each person to define for themselves.

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I absolutely don't know that. In fact I do know that is a philisophical assertion, not a mathematical one.

PairTheBoard

Re: What Chance Of Innocence Can Be Tolerated For Conviction?
 

I see what your saying but you could make an attempt to figure out its mathematical value on average:

The first attempt to quantify reasonable doubt was made by Simon in 1970. In the attempt, she presented a trial to groups of students. Half of the students decided the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The other half recorded their perceived likelihood, given as a percentage, that the defendant committed the crime. She then matched the highest likelihoods of guilt with the guilty verdicts and the lowest likelihoods of guilt with the innocent verdicts. From this, she gauged that the cutoff for reasonable doubt fell somewhere between the highest likelihood of guilt matched to an innocent verdict and the lowest likelihood of guilt matched to a guilty verdict. From these samples, Simon concluded that the standard was between .70 and .74.

(interesting article- not definitive proof of anything- http://www.valpo.edu/mathcs/verum/pa...oubtFinal.pdf)

Re: What Chance Of Innocence Can Be Tolerated For Conviction?
 

The instructions from the court tend to be something a bit vague, and my answer will float a bit based on the severity of the situation.

For a traffic-ticket appeal, I am happy with 5/100, and could probably tolerate ten.

For a misdemeanor something less than 1/100 is ok - if I had to cite a specific one-size-fits-all number I'd probably pick something close to 1/100. For something like a murder trial I would be very nervous if there was as much as 1 in 1000 chance of being wrong.

There's a tradeoff between how many guilty people are let off the hook and how many innocent ones are jailed. People, especially classical statisticians, are prone to always fixing the risk of Type I error.

A better approach might be to compare the relative severities of being wrong in each direction, and find the spot on a power curve that matches that. In the case of the traffic fine, both types of error are more or less trivial; in the case of a murder, I would judge condemning an innocent man to be something like 100 times worse than freeing a guilty one--- and my equilibrium point would be something like accepting a 10% chance of freeing a guilty man in exchange for a 1/1000 chance of condeming an innocent one.

Re: What Chance Of Innocence Can Be Tolerated For Conviction?
 

To all:

How would the degree of punishment affect you, eg (prison, death)? I would think the reversibility of a wrong conviction should matter too.

Re: What Chance Of Innocence Can Be Tolerated For Conviction?
 

I think a better question is how do you convert each piece of evidence into some kind of probability that the defendant is guilty? How can you calculate how sure you are?

Re: What Chance Of Innocence Can Be Tolerated For Conviction?
 

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To all:

How would the degree of punishment affect you, eg (prison, death)? I would think the reversibility of a wrong conviction should matter too.

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makes a huge difference. Reversability of a wrong aquital would matter as well.

but everthing makes a difference e.g. the stupider the law the higher degree of certainty required, 101% in some cases.

chez

Re: What Chance Of Innocence Can Be Tolerated For Conviction?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I see what your saying but you could make an attempt to figure out its mathematical value on average:

The first attempt to quantify reasonable doubt was made by Simon in 1970. In the attempt, she presented a trial to groups of students. Half of the students decided the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The other half recorded their perceived likelihood, given as a percentage, that the defendant committed the crime. She then matched the highest likelihoods of guilt with the guilty verdicts and the lowest likelihoods of guilt with the innocent verdicts. From this, she gauged that the cutoff for reasonable doubt fell somewhere between the highest likelihood of guilt matched to an innocent verdict and the lowest likelihood of guilt matched to a guilty verdict. From these samples, Simon concluded that the standard was between .70 and .74.

(interesting article- not definitive proof of anything- http://www.valpo.edu/mathcs/verum/pa...oubtFinal.pdf)

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I think what it shows is that people will pick Probability Numbers if they are forced to. That doesn't mean it's a good idea to force them to do so. It also doesn't mean using those numbers in an artificial idealized probability model is a good idea. The conclusions manufactured by that model may very well be far inferior to the Best Judgement of the jurors deliberating on the evidence normally.

PairTheBoard

Re: What Chance Of Innocence Can Be Tolerated For Conviction?
 

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To all:

How would the degree of punishment affect you, eg (prison, death)? I would think the reversibility of a wrong conviction should matter too.

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makes a huge difference. Reversability of a wrong aquital would matter as well.


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Well, yeah.

Welcome to real life: the damage done by either error is completely irreparable. It's illegal to try someone for the same crime twice, and impossible to award someone extra years of life to make up for the ones he missed out on. You can take a wrong conviction off someone's record, and you can hand him some money - but this does absolutely nothing for repairing his reputation or undoing what he went through during the trial and time imprisoned.

Yes, you waste more years of someone's life by executing him than you do by locking him up awhile and then freeing him -- but that's a difference of amount of damage done, not a matter of one being reversible.

Re: What Chance Of Innocence Can Be Tolerated For Conviction?
 

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To all:

How would the degree of punishment affect you, eg (prison, death)? I would think the reversibility of a wrong conviction should matter too.

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makes a huge difference. Reversability of a wrong aquital would matter as well.


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Well, yeah.

Welcome to real life: the damage done by either error is completely irreparable. It's illegal to try someone for the same crime twice, and impossible to award someone extra years of life to make up for the ones he missed out on. You can take a wrong conviction off someone's record, and you can hand him some money - but this does absolutely nothing for repairing his reputation or undoing what he went through during the trial and time imprisoned.

Yes, you waste more years of someone's life by executing him than you do by locking him up awhile and then freeing him -- but that's a difference of amount of damage done, not a matter of one being reversible.

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I'm not sure it is illegal in the uk to try someone again if further evidence comes to light. Not sure but they were certainly talking about allowing it. Also they can retry on similar charges. Edit: yep its allowed

The rest just seems wrong. I'd be more likely to convict if there was a decent appeals procedure and a competent agency was looking for more evidence. Its not about giving them back the years lost but reducing the downside of being wrong.

chez

Re: What Chance Of Innocence Can Be Tolerated For Conviction?
 

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What Chance Of Innocence Can Be Tolerated For Conviction?

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I'll go with whatever society decides. As long as it is not too much out of whack it’s not important.

The important thing is that society, as a whole does not loose confidence in the legal system.

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is it acceptable that they come to different verdicts not because they disagree on chance of innocence but because they disagree on what that chance need be for an acquittal.

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They will do it any way, so might as well accept it.

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The definition of "chance of innocence in your mind" is how many out of one hundred cases with identical evidence would the defendent actually be innocent

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I do not have a default definition, I’m happy to go along with anyone else’s.

My Take
 

First of all I disagree with those who say that there is a problem with using numbers. If you use my definition, "the number of people out of 100 who IN YOUR OPINION would actually be innocent given the exact same evidence (including even things like demeanor on the witness stand), I believe that most people could comprehend that.

Secondly I vehemently disagree with chezlaw. If we did start putting a number on chances of guilt in whodonit cases, what possible reason is there not to specify what those chances should be in a juror's mind for various crimes? In chezlaws's scenario you could have a hung jury because eleven voted to convict each of whom thought the chances of innocence was 2% while another voted to acquit thinking there was only a one percent chance of innocence. Because he thought one percent was enough. Even worse would be the jury that should be "hung", but isn't, because the one jury member who thinks there is a 25% chance of innocence doesn't believe that he should vote to acquit.

To not specify a number threshold adds an element of luck to the verdict that shouldn't be there.

As far as what that number should be, I think it depends on the crime, the punishment faced, and other circumstances. And I'm not sure who should do the specifying, the judge, the legislature whatever. And again it only applies to purely whodonit cases.

I realize the logistics of this is daunting if not impossible. But at the very least it should be undersood that in least in theory, this is the best solution. For those who would object that it makes the process too mathematical, I would remind you again that the probability assessment is still an individual personal opinion. But there is no reason why that personal opinion can't be put in a form that is more precise than the words "reasonable doubt".

Re: What Chance Of Innocence Can Be Tolerated For Conviction?
 

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I think a better question is how do you convert each piece of evidence into some kind of probability that the defendant is guilty? How can you calculate how sure you are?

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There is a nice tool that usually works well. Especially if the pieces of evidence are unrelated. (In other words if you find out the murderer is over three hundred pinds like the defendent, and then find out the murderer is over six three like the defendent its different than if you later found out they are both redheads.) But I won't utter the name of that tool here.

Re: My Take
 

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Secondly I vehemently disagree with chezlaw. If we did start putting a number on chances of guilt in whodonit cases, what possible reason is there not to specify what those chances should be in a juror's mind for various crimes? In chezlaws's scenario you could have a hung jury because eleven voted to convict each of whom thought the chances of innocence was 2% while another voted to acquit thinking there was only a one percent chance of innocence. Because he thought one percent was enough. Even worse would be the jury that should be "hung", but isn't, because the one jury member who thinks there is a 25% chance of innocence doesn't believe that he should vote to acquit.

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You do occasional come over a bit authoritarian don't you? People act as they think right not as others (even you) think is right.

I think many (including me) are happy with the idea of some sort of majority process.

chez

Re: My Take
 

What a vague retort. You think it is ok for some jury members to believe it is OK to convict a person who they believe has a 20% chance of innocence while other members think it is OK to acquit someone based on a 1% chance? And its OK for those people to be randomly placed in jury boxes?

If that was true why the necessity of using the words "reasonable doubt" and, I might add, defining that term moderately precisely. Why not just say "convict if you think you have enough evidence to". The answer of course is that the government doe NOT want jury members to be saying to themselves "as long as he is slightly favored to be guilty lets be safe and put him away" or " I could never live with myself if I thought there was more than a miniscule chance I helped convict an innocent man". You are just flat wrong and I bet even Pair The Board agrees with me on this specific issue.

Re: What Chance Of Innocence Can Be Tolerated For Conviction?
 

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Zero

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Re: My Take
 

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What a vague retort. You think it is ok for some jury members to believe it is OK to convict a person who they believe has a 20% chance of innocence while other members think it is OK to acquit someone based on a 1% chance? And its OK for those people to be randomly placed in jury boxes?

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Absolutley. Anything else would be far worse. again majority veridics should come into play.

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If that was true why the necessity of using the words "reasonable doubt" and, I might add, defining that term moderately precisely. Why not just say "convict if you think you have enough evidence to". The answer of course is that the government doe NOT want jury members to be saying to themselves "as long as he is slightly favored to be guilty lets be safe and put him away" or " I could never live with myself if I thought there was more than a miniscule chance I helped convict an innocent man".

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what the government wants?? Who gives a flying f what the government wants? Juries are there in part to protect us from the authorities - of course the authorities don't particularly like that and have a habit of incorrectly directing juries about what they can do.

chez

Re: My Take
 

OK nevermind.

Re: My Take
 

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I bet even Pair The Board agrees with me on this specific issue.

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I agree with your general idea that we need a Standard for Reasonable Doubt. I agree with chezlaw's observation that what's important is what The People want, not the authorities. He is correct in pointing out that the people often want protection from the authorities.

The Standard for reasonable doubt that the people want is a Human standard.

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"Any doubt which would make a reasonable person hesitate in the most important of his or her affairs."


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You claim this is only "moderately precise" and should be replaced by a Number. I definitely do not agree with you on that point.

PairTheBoard

Re: My Take
 

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I agree with your general idea that we need a Standard for Reasonable Doubt. I agree with chezlaw's observation that what's important is what The People want, not the authorities. He is correct in pointing out that the people often want protection from the authorities.

The Standard for reasonable doubt that the people want is a Human standard.

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I'd just add that what people want varies from person to person and the best way to implement this is to leave the decision to a random sample of people with some averaging process - I can't think of a better averaging process that some sort of majority verdict.

chez

Re: My Take
 

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[ QUOTE ]
I agree with your general idea that we need a Standard for Reasonable Doubt. I agree with chezlaw's observation that what's important is what The People want, not the authorities. He is correct in pointing out that the people often want protection from the authorities.

The Standard for reasonable doubt that the people want is a Human standard.

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I'd just add that what people want varies from person to person and the best way to implement this is to leave the decision to a random sample of people with some averaging process - I can't think of a better averaging process that some sort of majority verdict.

chez

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This is really a side issue. The thing is, Hung Juries don't really happen that often. Some kind of averaging process must be going on during deliberations in the jury room. Otherwise, all verdicts would be decided on the first ballot. The requirement for a unanimous verdict is part of the Standard for reasonable doubt.

It's not just a question of what level of confidence implies reasonable doubt. Some people may see the evidence entirely differently. If it's a minor difference he will probably be talked out of it. That's the averaging process. But if he has a strong enough conviction that the evidence is saying something entirely different than the majority he can hang the jury. The Public sees that kind of thing as part of overall reasonable doubt for the verdict. It may subject us to crackpots. But it also helps protect us from a majority jury view that may be biased by prejudice. If I am on trial for my life, I want that protection.

PairTheBoard

Re: My Take
 

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But it also helps protect us from a majority jury view that may be biased by prejudice. If I am on trial for my life, I want that protection.

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True but that may be balanced by you also wanting protection from criminals. Would you want someone who threatened your family to be released when there's no real doubt but one of the jury is an outliner.

Maybe the averaging can take place in the jury room, I think it would be better for everyone to be free to vote as they see fit knowing that their vote doesn't have a disproportionate weight.

chez

Re: My Take
 

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But it also helps protect us from a majority jury view that may be biased by prejudice. If I am on trial for my life, I want that protection.

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True but that may be balanced by you also wanting protection from criminals. Would you want someone who threatened your family to be released when there's no real doubt but one of the jury is an outliner.

chez

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Maybe. I think it's a judgement call. I'm disposed toward the current unanimous system for criminal cases. But you have a point.

PairTheBoard

Re: My Take
 

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But it also helps protect us from a majority jury view that may be biased by prejudice. If I am on trial for my life, I want that protection.

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True but that may be balanced by you also wanting protection from criminals. Would you want someone who threatened your family to be released when there's no real doubt but one of the jury is an outliner.

chez

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Maybe. I think it's a judgement call. I'm disposed toward the current unanimous system for criminal cases. But you have a point.

PairTheBoard

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no big disagreements here. i'm disposed towards the current system as well though in my case that's the majority system [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

chez

Re: My Take
 

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You claim this is only "moderately precise" and should be replaced by a Number. I definitely do not agree with you on that point.

PairTheBoard

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Where does David advocate changing the system other than for assigning a number probability for this hypothetical question?

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I don't see anything in there that requires me to put the question in terms of "chance" or some kind of psuedo-probability model.

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The hypothetical question does. How does "reasonable doubt" not equate to say "reasonable 'chance' of innocence"?

Why do you avoid answering the hypothetical question?

Re: My Take
 

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no big disagreements here. i'm disposed towards the current system as well though in my case that's the majority system [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

chez

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Refresh me if this is correct for England: If 12 jurors can't decide unanimously then the judge can allow for a majority? What is the majority number?

Re: What Chance Of Innocence Can Be Tolerated For Conviction?
 

Let me say first that I don't particularly have a problem with the idea of putting a (more or less precise) number on the likelihood of an event having happened. But I don't believe that putting a probability on guilt fits with many people's ideas about knowledge.

The problem here is much-discussed in philosophy: on an intuitive basis, it seems that you can know A will happen, but not know B will happen, despite B being more likely than A. The typical example involves B being the outcome of a lottery. Having bought a lottery ticket, I can't say I know I won't win, or else I clearly wouldn't have bothered buying it. But people can reasonably claim to know much less likely things (or else we'd never have knowledge).

It could just be that intuition is off in these cases, but they're taken fairly seriously by philosophers. We can imagine similar criminal cases. What if a man is on trial for murder as part of a 10-man firing squad, one of whose guns fired a blank? Surely he can't be convicted (although presumably he could be convicted of attempted murder), but I don't think it's on the basis of his 1/10 chance of innocence. Personally, I'm not sure you could convict him if the squad was 100 or 1000 or more men.

Or maybe you could. Intuition only goes so far.

Re: What Chance Of Innocence Can Be Tolerated For Conviction?
 

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you can know A will happen, but not know B will happen, despite B being more likely than A.

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P(A) = 1, P(B) <= 1. B > A.

????

Re: What Chance Of Innocence Can Be Tolerated For Conviction?
 

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To all:

How would the degree of punishment affect you, eg (prison, death)? I would think the reversibility of a wrong conviction should matter too.

[/ QUOTE ]

there have been numerous juries who have publicly stated that they never would have convicted if they had known the severity of the punishment.

Re: My Take
 

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True but that may be balanced by you also wanting protection from criminals. Would you want someone who threatened your family to be released when there's no real doubt but one of the jury is an outliner.

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The chance of anyone actually going to a jury trial who is a real criminal is so miniscual as to be laughable.

Re: My Take
 

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no big disagreements here. i'm disposed towards the current system as well though in my case that's the majority system [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

chez

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Refresh me if this is correct for England: If 12 jurors can't decide unanimously then the judge can allow for a majority? What is the majority number?

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from the government website [ QUOTE ]
There is a need for a retrial if the jury cannot agree or at least reach a majority verdict. In the High Court the jury is 12 in number, so a majority can be 10 - 2, but in the County Court there are only 8 jurors, so the majority permitted is 7 - 1. It is very rare for the parties to agree to take a verdict based on a smaller majority.

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chez

Re: My Take
 

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True but that may be balanced by you also wanting protection from criminals. Would you want someone who threatened your family to be released when there's no real doubt but one of the jury is an outliner.

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The chance of anyone actually going to a jury trial who is a real criminal is so miniscual as to be laughable.

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?

Re: What Chance Of Innocence Can Be Tolerated For Conviction?
 

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Given that. What chance of innocence in your mind is an acceptable risk?

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What's the punishment? The harsher, the less acceptable risk.

I'm going to go with 1/25,000 chance of innocence for death penalty, 1/1,000 for life imprisonment (with possibility of parole after say 30 years), 1/200 for 10 years inprisonment, 1/50 for 5 years inprisonment or less. Of course I'm assuming the sentence could be adjusted a posteriori, that is, you can change from death penalty to 5 years inprisonment if after the trial the jury decides there's a 1/150 chance that the defendant is guilty but not a 1/10,000. I'm also assuming sentences could be reversed fairly easily in the face of new evidence. (maybe not in the death penalty case [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img])

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Also should it be OK for different jury members to have different opinions on this matter?


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It should be irrelevant. The jury should simply state what's the chance of innocence they've calculated. (not that I think the whole jury system is best, but that's not the point here)