What Chance Of Innocence Can Be Tolerated For Conviction?

[chezlaw]

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"The problem with putting a number to the question is that it lends a false air of precision where none should exist. Do you really want the prosecutor to say, "The chance that David didn't do it is LESS THAN 2%!" Especially if you happen to know you in fact didn't commit the crime for which you were convicted?"

This particular argument is silly. What's the big difference between saying "his chances of being innocent is less than 2%" and he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

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Its not silly at all. There's a massive problem that as soon as numbers are put on things people start believing the numbers, base further decisions firmly on the numbers forgetting they were probably made up in the first place.

The idea that jury members are going to come up with meaningful numbers is a triumph of hope over experience.

chez

[djames]

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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

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It's almost commonplace for liability prosecuting attorneys in civil cases to use the "price in parts" method to obtain punitive damages. By this, I mean that once the defendent is deemed liable and the damages are being tallied, the prosecuting council lists all of the different types of damages that are awarded. For each one, the jurors are often asked to put a number of the value of these damages. In the end they are tallied and awarded (if the judge agrees). It has been determined that this method produces a much larger value than what would be awarded if the jurors put a single price tag on all of the various damages.

Anyway, a practical application where asking the public to place numbers on values that aren't quantifiable is quite dangerous. In this example, it's dangerous because it jacks up the costs of insurance which is nearly immediately passed onto other consumers.

[David Sklansky]

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[ QUOTE ]
"The problem with putting a number to the question is that it lends a false air of precision where none should exist. Do you really want the prosecutor to say, "The chance that David didn't do it is LESS THAN 2%!" Especially if you happen to know you in fact didn't commit the crime for which you were convicted?"

This particular argument is silly. What's the big difference between saying "his chances of being innocent is less than 2%" and he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

[/ QUOTE ]
Its not silly at all. There's a massive problem that as soon as numbers are put on things people start believing the numbers, base further decisions firmly on the numbers forgetting they were probably made up in the first place.

The idea that jury members are going to come up with meaningful numbers is a triumph of hope over experience.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

But I am not asking for people to put a number on it. I am asking for the judge to and want the jurors to merely decide which side of the line they are.

As for your last sentence I agree. I just find it odd that people can simultaneously believe that most people are fuzzy thinkers, yet also think that the important decision of guilt or innocence should be left to them.

[PairTheBoard]

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But I am not asking for people to put a number on it. I am asking for the judge to and want the jurors to merely decide which side of the line they are.

[/ QUOTE ]

You do more than just ask the Jurors to deliberate on the totality of evidence and compare their judgement of guilt to the Number assigned by the court. That alone is a bad idea. The Human definition of Reasonable Doubt is something people can understand in human terms. The subjectivity involved in that is a good thing because it connects Justice to a breadth of human experince. Converting to the Number system does not reduce that subjectivity. However, what gets lost in translation by that conversion is likely to reduce the quality of the decision rather than clarify it.

Furthermore, you don't just ask for the Jury to compare their judgement of the totality of evidence to the Number assigned by the court. You ask the Jurors to assign intermediate numbers on pieces and subsets of evidence to use as Inputs into your psuedo-probability model. A model based in part on the unsubstantiated claim of independence of evidence. As djames points out in his post - somewhere in the 3 threads you have going for this topic - Jurors are very inconsistent when forced to parcel things in that way.


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As for your last sentence I agree. I just find it odd that people can simultaneously believe that most people are fuzzy thinkers, yet also think that the important decision of guilt or innocence should be left to them.


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You may be underestimating the power of what you consider human "fuzzy" thinking when applied to complex problems that cannot be easily modeled mathematically. Especially when the thinking is focused by collaboration in a group.

PairTheBoard

[PLOlover]

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I think plea bargining is still illegal though those government people are trying to introduce it. Whilst the advantages are obvious there's an insidious side to it thats should keep it firmly illegal.

chez

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r u serious? every criminal case in the UK goes to trial?

[chezlaw]

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I think plea bargining is still illegal though those government people are trying to introduce it. Whilst the advantages are obvious there's an insidious side to it thats should keep it firmly illegal.

chez

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r u serious? every criminal case in the UK goes to trial?

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Maybe some exceptions but I don't think so.

chez

[chezlaw]

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[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
"The problem with putting a number to the question is that it lends a false air of precision where none should exist. Do you really want the prosecutor to say, "The chance that David didn't do it is LESS THAN 2%!" Especially if you happen to know you in fact didn't commit the crime for which you were convicted?"

This particular argument is silly. What's the big difference between saying "his chances of being innocent is less than 2%" and he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

[/ QUOTE ]
Its not silly at all. There's a massive problem that as soon as numbers are put on things people start believing the numbers, base further decisions firmly on the numbers forgetting they were probably made up in the first place.

The idea that jury members are going to come up with meaningful numbers is a triumph of hope over experience.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

But I am not asking for people to put a number on it. I am asking for the judge to and want the jurors to merely decide which side of the line they are.

[/ QUOTE ]
It would make no great difference to me because I see the judge's rule here as purely guidance. As long as the jury understands that they are empowered to ignore this guidance then fine (In practice if they feel strongly they will anyway, most are going to make up the number so they will make up a number that fits the instructions and gives the result they were going to give anyway).

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As for your last sentence I agree. I just find it odd that people can simultaneously believe that most people are fuzzy thinkers, yet also think that the important decision of guilt or innocence should be left to them.

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It's because the alternative is worse not because the current situation is good.

chez

[jogger08152]

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"Another problem with insisting on a numeric standard for guilt when this may be difficult to quantify accurately, is that it might push us away from a "jury of peers" system toward having "professional" jurors, perhaps trained in statistics. And while this might sound nice in terms of accuracy, its disadvantage for society is that it would undo one of the truly strong protections we have against tyrrany."

Truly strong? Cmon. A moderate protection perhaps. So how much of a reduction in the error rate of juries would be needed before you would accept the idea of eliminating people who can't think well from the jury pool. Especially if it was only done for whodonit cases.

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I'm not thrilled that some people have brains with (and forgive the appropriation) "very low horsepower" doing anything important.

That said, how much improvement do you think a change would actually supply?

Many wrongful convictions (for the record: I'm much more concerned with these than wrongful acquittals, although both are worth reducing) will result from judicial malpractice, unreliable witnesses, prosecutorial negligence or misconduct, police negligence or misconduct, etc - in other words, problems not necessarily solvable by a mere change in the makeup of the jury pool.

[cgrohman]

41%

[Money2Burn]

To all,

Which do you feel is worse: An innocent person being convicted of murder, or a murderer being let off? What if the only reason the murder got let off despite overwhelming evidence pointing ot his guilt was becuase some officer didn't follow some miniscule procedural duty?

The reason I ask this is that it seems to me that many more criminals get away without having to pay their proper debt to society than innocent people are convicted yet the focus is always on the case where the innocents are convicted.