The part about the judges radically changing their opinions after lunch is terrifying. That's absolutely ridiculous. I am a firm believer that humans are incred

The part about the judges radically changing their opinions after lunch is terrifying. That's absolutely ridiculous. I am a firm believer that humans are incredibly biased and bad at predicting things. And that most human decision making can and should be replaced with statistical algorithms. This is a perfect example. Other factors that are highly predictive of a favorable ruling: how attractive the defendant is. Ugly people get sentences twice as long as attractive people. Court rulings might be nothing more than a function of various human biases. Also see job interviews, elections, loans, etc.