4 ms·

The Kalven-Zeisel study indicates that juries and judges agree on verdicts 78% of the time, suggesting they have similar interpretations of the evidence. When t

by lhnz 3y ago

The Kalven-Zeisel study indicates that juries and judges agree on verdicts 78% of the time, suggesting they have similar interpretations of the evidence. When they do disagree, juries are more lenient 19% of the time, indicating they don't 'ignore' the standard of reasonable doubt but may actually err on the side of it. Your supplementary article doesn't prove that juries generally misunderstand 'reasonable doubt' either. So, neither of your sources substantiate your claim that juries 'generally ignore' the standard of reasonable doubt and instead choose to convict when they have "serious doubts".

Retric 3y ago
78% agreement isn’t a sign of one side consistently following the reasonable doubt standard. Juries could beat 50% by picking randomly. 3% of the time a judge disagrees with all 12 members of the jury that someone is innocent. Considering what percentage of defendants are likely guilty that’s a surprisingly high probability.
- lhnz 3y ago
  The 78% agreement rate between judges and juries suggests a shared interpretation of evidence, which indirectly indicates both are following the same 'reasonable doubt' standard. The 3% disagreement where judges would have convicted doesn't prove juries 'ignore' reasonable doubt; it reflects normal variance in human judgment. Legal decisions aren't coin tosses—such a high agreement is unlikely if both parties weren't generally applying the same legal standard.
  - Retric 3y ago
    Again, Juries that don’t know what is meant by this term will use some standard, but reasonable doubt is supposed to have a specific meaning. I am not suggesting legal results are actually a coin toss, just that this level of agreement doesn’t require shared logic let alone using the same standard. If you have two people roll a dice with 90% yes and 10% no then they will agree 0.9 * 0.9 + 0.1 * 0.1 = 82% of the time with absolutely zero logic involved. A much lower standard say ‘the preponderance of the evidence’ is easily enough to hit 78% agreement which is really quite low.
    - lhnz 3y ago
      Nobody other than yourself is arguing that reasonable doubt is being generally ignored by juries. You either misunderstood the Kalven-Zeisel study that you brought to the argument or you failed to read it. The study showed that juries had a higher threshold for conviction than judges, which is a direct repudiation of your point that "reasonable doubt is generally ignored by juries. Interviews of post conviction juries show they often convict people who they have serious doubts actually committed the crime." It also explained that similar results to this had been reproduced many times over. It's not even conclusive that it is purely due to juries having a different interpretation of reasonable doubt as it is explained that "Much more research is needed to map experimentally the differences and similarities between the judgments of judges and juries before concluding that judges are better than juries at specific tasks (e.g., assessing risk) or that deliberations enable juries to outperform judges on other tasks (e.g., assessing conflicting testimony)." To be clear, your claim that juries are more likely to convict was disproven by your own data and your claim that they ignore "reasonable doubt" is unlikely given that they err on the side of reasonable doubt. The later article you posted doesn't really have anything to say about either of these things, but instead presents better ways to articulate the idea of reasonable doubt to a jury. I don't find your latest argument about dice rolling persuasive either as (1) it's not an empirical argument, and (2) this oversimplifies the complex dynamics of legal decision-making and doesn't effectively challenge the implications drawn from the Kalven-Zeisel study -- unlike the randomness of dice, legal decisions are derived from a deliberative process grounded in law, evidence, and rational argumentation.
      - Kim_Bruning 3y ago
        Summarizing the 2 statements (without commenting on their accuracy or veracity): (1) A statistical smell test: A random dice roll (under reasonable[?] assumptions) achieves an agreement rate of 82%. (2) unlike the randomness of dice, legal decisions are derived from a deliberative process grounded in law, evidence, and rational argumentation. Retrics argument appears to be: For (2) to empirically pass (1), the agreement rate between judges and juries must thus be >>82%. The Kalvin-Zeisel study found a rate of 78%.

by lhnz 3y ago

Retric 3y ago

78% agreement isn’t a sign of one side consistently following the reasonable doubt standard. Juries could beat 50% by picking randomly. 3% of the time a judge disagrees with all 12 members of the jury that someone is innocent. Considering what percentage of defendants are likely guilty that’s a surprisingly high probability.

lhnz 3y ago
The 78% agreement rate between judges and juries suggests a shared interpretation of evidence, which indirectly indicates both are following the same 'reasonable doubt' standard. The 3% disagreement where judges would have convicted doesn't prove juries 'ignore' reasonable doubt; it reflects normal variance in human judgment. Legal decisions aren't coin tosses—such a high agreement is unlikely if both parties weren't generally applying the same legal standard.
- Retric 3y ago
  Again, Juries that don’t know what is meant by this term will use some standard, but reasonable doubt is supposed to have a specific meaning. I am not suggesting legal results are actually a coin toss, just that this level of agreement doesn’t require shared logic let alone using the same standard. If you have two people roll a dice with 90% yes and 10% no then they will agree 0.9 * 0.9 + 0.1 * 0.1 = 82% of the time with absolutely zero logic involved. A much lower standard say ‘the preponderance of the evidence’ is easily enough to hit 78% agreement which is really quite low.
  - lhnz 3y ago
    Nobody other than yourself is arguing that reasonable doubt is being generally ignored by juries. You either misunderstood the Kalven-Zeisel study that you brought to the argument or you failed to read it. The study showed that juries had a higher threshold for conviction than judges, which is a direct repudiation of your point that "reasonable doubt is generally ignored by juries. Interviews of post conviction juries show they often convict people who they have serious doubts actually committed the crime." It also explained that similar results to this had been reproduced many times over. It's not even conclusive that it is purely due to juries having a different interpretation of reasonable doubt as it is explained that "Much more research is needed to map experimentally the differences and similarities between the judgments of judges and juries before concluding that judges are better than juries at specific tasks (e.g., assessing risk) or that deliberations enable juries to outperform judges on other tasks (e.g., assessing conflicting testimony)." To be clear, your claim that juries are more likely to convict was disproven by your own data and your claim that they ignore "reasonable doubt" is unlikely given that they err on the side of reasonable doubt. The later article you posted doesn't really have anything to say about either of these things, but instead presents better ways to articulate the idea of reasonable doubt to a jury. I don't find your latest argument about dice rolling persuasive either as (1) it's not an empirical argument, and (2) this oversimplifies the complex dynamics of legal decision-making and doesn't effectively challenge the implications drawn from the Kalven-Zeisel study -- unlike the randomness of dice, legal decisions are derived from a deliberative process grounded in law, evidence, and rational argumentation.
    - Kim_Bruning 3y ago
      Summarizing the 2 statements (without commenting on their accuracy or veracity): (1) A statistical smell test: A random dice roll (under reasonable[?] assumptions) achieves an agreement rate of 82%. (2) unlike the randomness of dice, legal decisions are derived from a deliberative process grounded in law, evidence, and rational argumentation. Retrics argument appears to be: For (2) to empirically pass (1), the agreement rate between judges and juries must thus be >>82%. The Kalvin-Zeisel study found a rate of 78%.