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Also, just to answer your actual hypothetical of "testing" the criminal justice system: I'm not sure how you would test it. You can run a "mock" trial, althoug

by edanm 9y ago

Also, just to answer your actual hypothetical of "testing" the criminal justice system: I'm not sure how you would test it. You can run a "mock" trial, although I'm not sure it's so easy - to be realistic, I think you need to create a scenario which can plausibly go in either direction (innocent or guilty). But what would that tell you? I mean, "beyond a reasonable doubt" is a pretty high standard and all, but if you make it seem pretty clear that someone is guilty when they're "really" innocent, that doesn't mean much, because this is fiction - you made up a tricky case, and people got it wrong. So what? The question is how often does real life cause a tricky scenario to manifest. You can go the other way and set up a situation that's pretty clear, but I'm not sure that will be very insightful. That's not to say we can't think of some way to test the system which does work - I'm sure smarter and more knowledgeable people than me can think of something. But that brings us to problem number 2 - now what? Let's say people got it wrong. What do you do? It's not like you can just change the way trials work - you need laws for that. The most you can reasonably do is use trial tests as a basis for potentially changing the law, but that's before any politics gets involved. Realistically, I'm not sure you can do much more than gets done now - once in a while an article gets written about a specific bad practice, it causes a public stir, and the law maybe gets changed. I'm not sure systematizing any of the testing steps really changes anything else in this picture. And we might as well ask about easier things, why don't we test them. I.e. why not test economic policies by building "test cities" which have different economic policies, and seeing which ones work? The States kind-of does this with different laws in different States. So there is kind of a natural experiment of the effect of different laws on economics, on justice, etc. This does affect some things, but I'm not sure the effect is very large (but then again, I'm not an American, so I'm not that up to date on the politics there. It's certainly an idea that a lot of lip-service is paid to, but maybe it's more than that).

frobozz 9y ago
Part of the point of a jury is to have multiple disinterested individuals ruling on the defendant's guilt. That in itself forms a partial test of the process. You could run a trial with multiple independent juries, or record a trial and play it back to a set of juries and judges to see if they come up with the same verdict and sentence. This would help determine whether a given jury has a particularly forceful and prejudiced member, or if a hanging judge is handing out unfair sentences. I'd be surprised if that sort of thing doesn't already happen occasionally. However, all this does is indicate where a problem might be, rather than validate a potential solution. A/B testing of potential enhancements would be very difficult and limited. There are too many confounding factors. Judge and jury would have to be different each time. Witness testimony may seem unconvincingly rehearsed, or more convincingly thorough, the nth time they give it. Defendants will be able to avoid incriminating traps the prosecuting barrister set in previous iterations of the trial.
- sorokod 9y ago
  Given the intese scrutiny the litigating side give to jury selection, I'd say that it is well understood that trials may go this way or that based on a particular jury and regardless of the facts
pmarreck 9y ago
> I.e. why not test economic policies by building "test cities" which have different economic policies, and seeing which ones work? I would be exactly behind this. See: the old definition of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy

by edanm 9y ago

frobozz 9y ago

Part of the point of a jury is to have multiple disinterested individuals ruling on the defendant's guilt. That in itself forms a partial test of the process. You could run a trial with multiple independent juries, or record a trial and play it back to a set of juries and judges to see if they come up with the same verdict and sentence. This would help determine whether a given jury has a particularly forceful and prejudiced member, or if a hanging judge is handing out unfair sentences. I'd be surprised if that sort of thing doesn't already happen occasionally. However, all this does is indicate where a problem might be, rather than validate a potential solution. A/B testing of potential enhancements would be very difficult and limited. There are too many confounding factors. Judge and jury would have to be different each time. Witness testimony may seem unconvincingly rehearsed, or more convincingly thorough, the nth time they give it. Defendants will be able to avoid incriminating traps the prosecuting barrister set in previous iterations of the trial.

sorokod 9y ago
Given the intese scrutiny the litigating side give to jury selection, I'd say that it is well understood that trials may go this way or that based on a particular jury and regardless of the facts

pmarreck 9y ago

> I.e. why not test economic policies by building "test cities" which have different economic policies, and seeing which ones work? I would be exactly behind this. See: the old definition of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy