Important Evidence Evaluation Scenario/Question
 

A guy is convicted of murder. His lawyers appeal. A transcript of the trial is read by the appeal judge. The evidence is circumstantial. One piece of evidence is that the footprint of the killer is the same shoe size as the defendent.

After reading through the transcript the judge feels like their is a 5% chance the guy is innocent. It makes him want to find an excuse to reverse the conviction. While mulling things over his secretary comes in to tell him that she mistyped something. The shoe size that matched was not the common 10D she typed but rather the much rarer 12B.

Upon hearing this the judge breathes a sigh of relief, reevaluates the guys chance of innocence to well below one percent, and rejects the appeal.

Was the judge completely correct to reassess this way? Somewhat correct? Or really off base? Logically, not legally, speaking.

(This is being belatedly added now that I have read several replies off my intended point. All I really want to know is whether the judge is correct in seriously reducing his opinion as to the defendent's innocence based on his discovery that the shoe size is much rarer.)

Re: Important Evidence Evaluation Scenario/Question
 

Sure. Look at the extreme cases.

Everyone in the world has that shoe size - that evidence is worthless

Only the defendant has that shoe size - proof he was there.

The judge is correct to consider him as much more likely to be guilty.

Re: Important Evidence Evaluation Scenario/Question
 

This question is the legal equivalent of "How Do I Play Pocket Jacks?" There are way, way too many peripheral variables in play that would ultimately dictate the appropriateness of the decision.

You will be hard pressed to find someone convicted solely on the basis of a shoe size common with a footprint at a crime scene.

Lets reevaluate the question. (I wish this could be shorter, but the details mitigate that it be somewhat detailed)

Lets say that John is convicted of a murderering his wifes lover... He is found (by two priests, a nun and a Rabbi) standing over the body holding a bloody knife, he had threatened the victim in public, he had written a death threat and sent it to the victim... His fingerprints are on the doorknob, the knife, the walls, etc. And he confessed...

He is tried and convicted.

Now, your scenario comes into play.
Say there is an error with a shoe-size casting at the crime scene; be it a procedural error or a data-entry error. Will he be released on that "technicality" even though the existent body of evidence is overwhelming to his guilt?
No.

Now, lets reverse that premise a bit.

Say that someone is murdered... The body is discovered by a horrified loved one, some hours after the crime was committed. The police arrive and evidence technicians start to process the scene. Fingerprints, fiber gathering, blood, and one curious footprint right beneath the jimmied window where the murderer is believed to have gained entry. The shift Sargent interviews the neighbors, and one of them (an 82 year old lady) says that she saw a young black man- about 5-7 to 5-11- in a blue hooded sweatshirt prowling around the neighborhood not too long before the murder was believed to have been committed.

The mustaches with badges descend on the surrounding area looking for any "suspect" that fits the neighbors coarse and loosely correlated description. Poor Tyrone- a young black kid in a black hooded sweatshirt, about 5-9- is seen sitting in front of 7-11 drinking a coke and reading a newspaper.
He is immediately arrested.
While in custody, he is intimidated, humiliated, denied council, severely beaten by cops and forced to confess that he was the murderer. Scared, he does sign the confession documents...

At trial, he pleads not guilty and says the confession is coerced, but the old neighbor is willing to testify that he was the one she saw around the house not too long before the murder, they have that signed confession (not to mention 7 of the interrogating "officers" who testified that they didn't touch or harm a hair on his head... They "followed the book" and he confessed out of guilt) not to mention his uncommon shoe-size is the exact same size as the shoe-impression below the window at the crime scene.

Convicted, sentenced to life, sent away by a judge with the nickname of "The Father Of Time" who is known for his absurdly high sentences.

Now, say another, more fair-minded judge discovers that the shoe-size of the defendant WAS NOT the same size as that of the imprint at the crime scene; the only piece of evidence (albeit circumstantial) linking him to the crime scene beyond the testimony of a half-senile neighbor who identified him from 120 yards away at midnight...

Now, that really throws things into question.

Re: Important Evidence Evaluation Scenario/Question
 

I think the NFL has it right, ruling on the field stands.

Re: Important Evidence Evaluation Scenario/Question
 

Logically, if one assumes people are to be convicted only when they have less than 1% chance of being innocent, the judge has acted correctly.

I'm not sure about where the "finding an excuse" part would fall. I need you to provide the full paradigm to answer this question, David; and I think everyone should.

The way your question is posed, it asks for the individual to use his/her own paradigm to analyze any possible logical fallacies in your statement.

Re: Important Evidence Evaluation Scenario/Question
 

[ QUOTE ]
Logically, if one assumes people are to be convicted only when they have less than 1% chance of being innocent, the judge has acted correctly.

[/ QUOTE ]

But you don't see the difference between an appeals claim and the actual trial? IMO, one must be far more sure of a person's innocence if he is to overturn a previous ruling.

Said differently, the judge has to take into account that his assessment of guilt/innocence probability is not infallible, thus he should not ignore a previous ruling without a firm belief of his own.

So if he isn't willing to free the person on the grounds of the evidence being only circumstantial (which apparently he isn't), he shouldn't consider doing it at 5% in the first place.

Re: Important Evidence Evaluation Scenario/Question
 

[ QUOTE ]


Said differently, the judge has to take into account that his assessment of guilt/innocence probability is not infallible, thus he should not ignore a previous ruling without a firm belief of his own.


[/ QUOTE ]

Or, viewed from another angle; the appellant court has to consider the possibility that the conception of facts as assessed by the earlier trial judge is just as fallible as their own (or anyone else's, for that matter) and that he (trial judge) may have overlooked something or discounted certain factual bodies or etc, etc, etc... thus speaking to the entire reason we have an appeals process in the first place.

In my opinion, the job of any good appellate court is to presume error in the earlier findings, only certifying them as being accurate in the complete and unarguable absence of any error that might speak to the possibility of innocence. Unfortunately, they rarely apply this standard, instead choosing to act as nothing more than the judicial equivalent of a grammar school English teachers corrective red pencil.

Re: Important Evidence Evaluation Scenario/Question
 

Of the choices I'd choose somewhat correct.

I think it depends on how much weight he gave the footprint in his initial evaluation.

If he looked at each piece of evidence discreetly and assigned a probability of innocence based on each one, then he has to decide that the uniqueness of the shoe size makes it more than 5 times more likely that the guy was guilty to correctly lower his estimation of innocence from 5% to less than 1%.

As a simple example, let's say there were 3 pieces of evidence the judge had to work with. Looking at A by itself he decides there's a 50% chance the guy is innocent. With B it's 20% and with C (the footprint) it's 50%. His overall chance of innocence would then be 0.5 x 0.2 X 0.5 = 5%. So if the new information drops the chance of innocence assigned to C to <10%, his chance of innocence drops to less than 1%.

This seems a little too easy, though. I feel like I'm missing something important here.

Re: Important Evidence Evaluation Scenario/Question
 

He's really of base. Unless the shoe size is so rare that the guy is the only one that has it, it doesn't matter much if there's 10 or 5'000'000'000 people that has the same shoe size. Assuming the shoe print is the ONLY evidence and that there is only one more guy that has that shoe size there would be a 50% chance that he's guilty, so obviously you can't cinvict him. The other evidence in the case makes it 95% that the guy is guilty. With the shoeprint that is so rare that only 2 people has it it makes it 97.5% that his guilty or 2,5% chance that he's innocent which is more than the required 1% chance. With, say, a 1'000 people with that shoe size the evidence is completely useless (certainty of his guilt goes up to 95.005%).

Re: Important Evidence Evaluation Scenario/Question
 

[ QUOTE ]
Of the choices I'd choose somewhat correct.

I think it depends on how much weight he gave the footprint in his initial evaluation.

If he looked at each piece of evidence discreetly and assigned a probability of innocence based on each one, then he has to decide that the uniqueness of the shoe size makes it more than 5 times more likely that the guy was guilty to correctly lower his estimation of innocence from 5% to less than 1%.

As a simple example, let's say there were 3 pieces of evidence the judge had to work with. Looking at A by itself he decides there's a 50% chance the guy is innocent. With B it's 20% and with C (the footprint) it's 50%. His overall chance of innocence would then be 0.5 x 0.2 X 0.5 = 5%. So if the new information drops the chance of innocence assigned to C to <10%, his chance of innocence drops to less than 1%.

This seems a little too easy, though. I feel like I'm missing something important here.

[/ QUOTE ]

You cannot apply any kind of maths to gauge matters of human behavior. A conception of finite probability has no place in the face of abstract matters of 'possibility' that are infinite in nature (aka- "The Human Condition") even though they may fall into an otherwise rigid set of circumstance.

This is why smart artists make better poker players than dour (albeit equally bright) scientists. Viva La Right Brain.