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Full-Text Articles in Law
Binding Hercules: A Proposal For Bench Trials, Maggie Wittlin -- Associate Professor
Binding Hercules: A Proposal For Bench Trials, Maggie Wittlin -- Associate Professor
Vanderbilt Law Review
If you were a federal judge presiding over a bench trial, you probably would not want the Federal Rules of Evidence to apply to you. Sure, you might want to be insulated from privileged information. But you are, no doubt, capable of cool-headed, rational reasoning, and you have a realistic understanding of how the world works; if you got evidence that was unreliable or easy to overvalue, you could handle it appropriately. But surely, you would have the same desire if you were a juror--it is not your position as a judge that makes you want all the relevant evidence. …
Surprise Vs. Probability As A Metric For Proof, Edward K. Cheng, Matthew Ginther
Surprise Vs. Probability As A Metric For Proof, Edward K. Cheng, Matthew Ginther
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
In this Symposium issue celebrating his career, Professor Michael Risinger in Leveraging Surprise proposes using "the fundamental emotion of surprise" as a way of measuring belief for purposes of legal proof. More specifically, Professor Risinger argues that we should not conceive of the burden of proof in terms of probabilities such as 51%, 95%, or even "beyond a reasonable doubt." Rather, the legal system should reference the threshold using "words of estimative surprise" -asking jurors how surprised they would be if the fact in question were not true. Toward this goal (and being averse to cardinality), he suggests categories such …