Abstracts: Bayesian Analysis in Law: Papers presented at Conference: The Many Faces of Contemporary Philosophy and Theory of Law

Abstracts have been posted of papers presented at the Conference: The Many Faces of Contemporary Philosophy and Theory of Law, held 23-24 March 2013, at Jagellonian University, Cracow, Poland. The conference included a special working group on Bayesian analysis in law, abstracts of papers of which begin on page 6 of the abstracts volume and are excerpted below:

Dr Jeroen Keppens: Bayesian Perspectives on the Value of Evidence. Abstract:

Given the interdisciplinary audience, I would like to introduce the Bayesian approach to evidential reasoning in Law. Then I plan to move on the Bayesian modeling techniques and the various concerns and difficulties that arise from it.

Paweł Banaś and Krzysztof Kasparek: Some remarks about controversies concerning applying Bayes theorem to criminal policy-making. Abstract:

The following paper aims at summarizing a discussion concerning the exploitation of Baysesian analysis within criminal policy-making, namely problems with the so called postprison civil commitment of sex offenders as sexually violent predators (SVPs) employed currently in some of the US states. During this process it is determined whether a former convict will be “classified” as SVP. Typically, actuarial instruments are used in order to help decide on this issue. Recently, Richard Wollert has pointed out that exploitation of Bayesian theorem may prove useful in this type of cases when addressing at least some of the questions that may arise. However, his ideas were met with much criticism within risk-assessment community. In this paper we want to present main arguments of both sides of the debate and point to some of the possible problems with Bayesian analysis as used in forensic psychology.

Piotr Bystranowski: Czy da się nauczyć prawników statystyki? Sieci bayesowskie a unikanie błędów probabilistycznych w rozumowaniach prawniczych. Abstract:

Od lat siedemdziesiątych i czasów przełomowych eksperymentów Kahnemana i Tversky’ego powszechnym stało się przekonanie, iż ludzkie osądy w warunkach niepewności często dają rezultaty systematycznie i rażąco niezgodne z regułami matematycznego rachunku prawdopodobieństwa, w tym zwłaszcza z tzw. wzorem Bayesa. Od błędów tego rodzaju nie jest wolna sala sądowa. Przeciwnie – wyniki szeregu procesów karnych pokazują, że wymiar sprawiedliwości jest podatny na wiele błędów w rozumowaniach probabilistycznych (z tzw. złudzeniem prokuratora na czele). Ich skutkiem bywa, na przykład, przypisanie zbyt dużej pewności materiałowi dowodowemu, który z formalnego punktu widzenia zdaje się być dalece nierozstrzygający. Pociąga to za sobą pytanie, w jaki sposób rozwiązać ową ewidentną niezgodność mię-dzy intuicyjnymi rozumowaniami w warunkach niepewności a formalnymi metodami probabilistycznymi. [...] Tych mankamentów zdaje się unikać proponowana przez Normana Fentona i Martina Neila wizualizacja przy pomocy sieci bayesowskich. W ten sposób można modelować nawet najbardziej skomplikowany materiał dowodowy w sposób przejrzysty dla laika. Rola stron procesu ograniczałaby się tu do sprecyzowania prawdopodobieństw a priori i zależności między poszczególnymi zmiennymi, zaś zadanie skonstruowania architektury sieci pozostawiano by ekspertom. O prawomocności obliczeń dokonywanych „pod spodem” można by przekonać strony na prostych przykładach, z wykorzystaniem np. drzewek zdarzeniowych. Zatem zastosowanie sieci bayesowskich w procesie miałoby być, zdaniem Fentona i Neila, najprostszym sposobem uniknięcia błędów probabilistycznych bez konieczności podejmowania beznadziejnego zadania, jakim jest nauczenie prawników statystyki.

Bartosz Janik: Some remarks concerning Bayesian rationality in Law. Abstract:

This paper aims at providing some remarks concerning Bayesian decision theory (BDT) and rationality in the legal perspective. As a first point I would like to provide a philosophical account of rationality and I will try to, while focusing on most appropriate meaning of it, to judge it from a legal point of view. It will be clear that the general notion of legal rationality is very complicated and we must set some particular goals to achieve a more global perspective. In my paper, I will focus on legal reasoning and will try to adopt Rescher’s distinction of cognitive/practical/evaluative rationality for the purpose of this analysis. The main point of this part will be the evaluation, to what extent risk aversion is connected with rationality. The thesis will be formulated in the following manner: the mechanisms of risk avoidance could serve as local rationality–triggers (as to oppose skepticism in Rescher’s terminology and deal with imperfection of our cognitive resources). The second point will be the attempt to show the connection between Bayesian decision theory (which focuses on error minimizing and thus, risk avoidance) and rationality. I will introduce basic formalism of BDT and show how, on that basis, we could formulate the local rationality for legal decision making. Again, the central notion will be the risk and I will present formal mechanism of risk avoidance in BDT. The notion of rationality, as a risk optimizer, will be proposed for this local environment. The last point of the analysis will be the answer to the question to what extent we are free from legal–theoretic assumptions in formulations of rationality. It turns out that the choice of an underlying theory of law will always determine our global notion of rationality but in the local perspective we could formulate general tools and concepts.

Izabela Skoczeń: Why should a lawyer calculate the probability of implicature formation? Abstract:

This paper aims at providing examples of possible applications of methods for calculating the probability of implicature formation (with the use of the bayesian method) in legal situations. The basis for the present considerations will be the notion of scalar implicatures, based on the gricean approach to Pragmatics. Scalars are based on conventional meanings attributed to words with the use of lexical scales (Horn). Placing a word in a definite position in a scale enables the speakers to attribute it a definite meaning, that does not have to be consistent with the lexical meaning that would be understood with the use of classical logic. [...] As experiments have proven, in contexts with data deficit the probability of definite implicature formation is rather not intuitive. A quite striking example is the following situation: if while describing three objects, the speakers has information concerning the features of only two of them, the hearer seems more prone to infer, that the third item disposes of the same feature while hearing an utterance with the numeral “two”, rather than “some”. This surprising result seems most vital for lawyers, as it conveys a hidden pattern of linguistic manipulation. The conventional implicature that should be cancelled due to pragmatic reasons is so strong, that it still influences the meaning. Imagine, that we have three suspects A,B,C and we know that A and B were at the crime scene that day. We don’t know, whether C was at the crime scene. If the probability of omitting scalar implicature cancellation is higher when using expressions like some, rather than numerals, C’s defendant should rather say “Some of the suspects were at the crime scene.” rather than “Two were at the crime scene.”. The later formulation, according to Goodman and Stuhlm¨uller calculations, would boost the probability of the court inferring the implicature that C was also at the crime scene that day. This observation opens an entire new range of possibilities of manipulating implicature formation in contexts, where the hearer is aware of the speaker’s data being insufficient. It is often the in judicial environments, when the provided evidence is too scarce.

For full text of the papers, please contact the authors.

HT Bartosz Janik

Haapio & Passera: Visual Law: What Lawyers Need to Learn from Information Designers

Helena Haapio, LL.M., of Lexpert Ltd., and Stefania Passera, M.A., of Aalto University School of Science, have posted Visual Law: What Lawyers Need to Learn from Information Designers, at VoxPopuLII.

The post gives several interesting examples of visualization of legal information, including:

• Candy Chang’s Vendor Power!
• Susanne Hoogwater’s Legal Visuals
• Olivia Zarcate’s Imagidroit
• Dr. Margaret Hagan’s Open Law Lab, and
• Professor Seth Chandler’s Visualizing Legal Rules: Battle of the Forms.

The authors then conclude:

Once the visual turn has begun, we do not think it can be stopped; the benefits are just too many. As lawyers, we have a lot to learn and we could do our job better in so many respects if we indeed started to get into the mode of thinking and acting like a designer and not just like a lawyer. This applies not only to purely legal information, but everything else we produce: contracts, memos, corporate governance materials, policies, manuals, employee handbooks, and guidance.

Legal information tends to be complex, and information design(ers) can help us make it easier to understand and act upon. The goal is accomplishing the writer’s goals by meeting the readers’ needs. [...]

With new tools and services being developed, it will become easier to convey our content and documents in more usable and more engaging ways. As the work progresses and new tools and apps appear, we are likely to see a major change in the legal industry. Meanwhile, let us know your views and ideas and what you are doing or interested in doing with visuals.

For more details, please see the complete post.

Slides: Legal Informatics Research Today: Implications for Legal Prediction, 3D Printing, and eDiscovery

I’ve posted slides of my presentation entitled Legal Informatics Research Today: Implications for Legal Prediction, 3D Printing, and eDiscovery, given 16 May 2013 at CICL 2013: The Fifth Conference on Innovation and Communications Law, 16 May 2013, Glen Arbor, Michigan, sponsored by Michigan State University College of Law.

Here is the abstract:

This presentation describes methodologies and results of recent legal informatics research on eDiscovery and legal prediction, and describes two possible scenarios for the application of legal technology to 3D printing. In addition, the presentation describes a four-level framework that enables comparison of legal informatics research studies in different areas.

I thank Professor Adam Candeub of Michigan State University College of Law for inviting me to give this presentation.

White House publishes Open Data Policy memorandum on GitHub, enabling eParticipation

Among the interesting features of the White House’s new Open Data Policy is that the memorandum that provides policy guidance to agencies in complying with the policy (M-13-13) was published on GitHub, using GitHub’s “Pages” service — see the White House’s Project Open Data GitHub page.

Publishing the memorandum on GitHub allows citizens to propose revisions to the policy, through GitHub’s “commit” and “pull request” functions.

The White House’s publishing choice thus enables citizen participation in the process of crafting the government’s open data policy.

Nick Judd at TechPresident reports that developers have already begun to submit revisions to the policy on GitHub.

GitHub’s Ben Balter comments on this use of GitHub to enable citizen participation in policy making: The Revolution Will Be Forked.

HT Alan deLevie

Kraft and Jaquith: Launch of Maryland Decoded

Seamus Kraft and Waldo Jaquith tell us about the launch of Maryland Decoded, a new free-access-to-law site for the U.S. state of Maryland, built by Seamus and colleagues at the OpenGov Foundation, on Waldo’s State Decoded platform.

Here is a description, from the Maryland Decoded “About” page:

Maryland Decoded is a non-profit, non-governmental, non-partisan implementation of The State Decoded brought to you by the folks at the OpenGov Foundation. The State Decoded is a free, open source project that provides a platform to display state-level legal information in a friendly, accessible, modern fashion. Maryland is the third state to deploy the software, with more coming soon.[...]

For more details, please see Waldo’s post, OpenGov Foundation’s post, or the Maryland Decoded site.

HT @waldojaquith

Mill on Scout, Free Access to Law, and Open Legal Data

Eric Mill of the Sunlight Foundation has posted the text of his presentation on tracking government information and open legal data, given 26 April 2013 at the AzALL Congressional Information Symposium, in Phoenix, Arizona, USA.

Here is the introduction to the presentation:

I recently got a chance to go speak to a group of Arizona law librarians about legal informatics [...]

They found me because of Scout, and asked me to talk about tracking government information. I decided to start with Scout as an example, to zoom out to similar projects [GovTrack and CourtListener] , and then to describe the conditions necessary to make projects like ours possible. Because the audience was law librarians, a sympathetic crowd inside an unsympathetic area of government, I emphasized the necessity of absolutely free access to data as a fundamental requirement and right. [...]

For more details, please see the complete post.

HT @konklone

Washington: Legislative Transparency and the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress

Professor Anne L. Washington of George Mason University has posted an abstract entitled Legislative Transparency and the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress.

Here is the abstract:

What has motivated Congress to build the technical and organizational infrastructure that is necessary for legislative transparency? Congress unlike the executive branch has not faced the institutional pressure to modernize its work practices through technology. The legislative branch has been free to determine at what times and under what circumstances to change internal practices, precedent and technology. The infrequently formed Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress has ushered in sweeping simultaneous change in both chambers. The JCOC was formed in 1946, 1965 and 1993. An examination of the common traits from each reform effort provides some direction as to why Congress embraces technology. This talk covers the history of the reports, laws and funding that have provided access to Congressional information.

Legal informatics presentations at e-Government Konferenz 2013

Several legal informatics presentations are listed in the program for e-Government Konferenz 2013, to be held 11-12 June 2013, in Linz, Austria:

• Mag Michael Fuchs & Mag Markus Poplari: Aktuelles zum Zentralen Personenstandsregister
• Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Michael Glatz: Justiz 3.0
• Dipl.-Ing. Christian Habernig: ePartizipation in Wien
• ADir. Thomas Halwachs & Mag Gerhard Köhle: Durchgängiges e-Government zwischen Verwaltung, Wirtschaft und Bürger/innen am Beispiel des Zentralen Waffenregister (ZWR)
• Gerhard Hartmann: „Wien stellt ‚e‘ zu“ – Die elektronische Zustellung von behördlichen Dokumenten
• Dipl.-Ing. Herbert Hüttenbrenner: Plattformübergreifende Registereinbindung
• Dipl.-Ing. Robert Ortner & Martin Mitter: eFWP elektronischer Flächenwidmungsplan, Abwicklung von Umwidmungsverfahren
• Dr Arne Tauber: Elektronische Signatur – Quo Vadis: ein Rückblick und ein Ausblick
• Prof. Dr. Arthur Winter: Österreichische Registerlandschaft

Jaquith launches Open Virginia data portal, providing access to legal data

Waldo Jaquith today launched Open Virginia, an open data platform for the U.S. state of Virginia.

Open Virginia is built with the CKAN open source data portal software.

Here is a description of Open Virginia:

Open Virginia is an effort to document the open government data published about the Commonwealth of Virginia—APIs, bulk downloads, and links to third-party data sources that provide much-needed information about how our government works.

Open Virginia currently offers access to legal data, including:

• the state’s legislative code
• code sections affected by bills 2006-
• a list of Virginia Court of Appeals decisions that cite a given law
• data on members of the state legislature

HT @shevski

Lagnado, Fenton, and Neil: Legal idioms: A framework for evidential reasoning

Dr. David A. Lagnado of University College London, and Professor Dr. Norman Fenton and Professor Dr. Martin Neil, both of Queen Mary University of London, have published Legal idioms: A framework for evidential reasoning, Argument & Computation 4(1), 46-63 (2013).

Here is the abstract:

How do people make legal judgments based on complex bodies of interrelated evidence? This paper outlines a novel framework for evidential reasoning using causal idioms. These idioms are based on the qualitative graphical component of Bayesian networks, and are tailored to the legal context. They can be combined and reused to model complex bodies of legal evidence. This approach is applied to witness and alibi testimony, and is illustrated with a real legal case. We show how the framework captures critical aspects of witness reliability, and the potential interrelations between witness reliabilities and other hypotheses and evidence. We report a brief empirical study on the interpretation of alibi evidence, and show that people’s intuitive inferences fit well with the qualitative aspects of the idiom-based framework.