Fornaciari and Poesio on Automatic deception detection in Italian court cases

Tommaso Fornaciari of the University of Trento, and Professor Dr. Massimo Poesio of the University of Essex, have published Automatic deception detection in Italian court cases, forthcoming in Artificial Intelligence and Law.

Here is the abstract:

Effective methods for evaluating the reliability of statements issued by witnesses and defendants in hearings would be an extremely valuable support to decision-making in court and other legal settings. In recent years, methods relying on stylometric techniques have proven most successful for this task; but few such methods have been tested with language collected in real-life situations of high-stakes deception, and therefore their usefulness outside lab conditions still has to be properly assessed. In this study we report the results obtained by using stylometric techniques to identify deceptive statements in a corpus of hearings collected in Italian courts. The defendants at these hearings were condemned for calumny or false testimony, so the falsity of (some of) their statements is fairly certain. In our experiments we replicated the methods used in previous studies but never before applied to high-stakes data, and tested new methods. We also considered the effect of a number of variables including in particular the homogeneity of the dataset. Our results suggest that accuracy at deception detection clearly above chance level can be obtained with real-life data as well.

Walton: Argument from analogy in legal rhetoric

Professor Dr. Douglas Walton of the University of Windsor has published Argument from analogy in legal rhetoric, forthcoming in Artificial Intelligence and Law.

Here is the abstract:

This paper applies recent work on scripts and stories developed as tools of evidential reasoning in artificial intelligence to model the use of argument from analogy as a rhetorical device of persuasion. The example studied is Gerry Spence’s closing argument in the case of Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee Corporation, said to be the most persuasive closing argument ever used in an American trial. It is shown using this example how argument from analogy is based on a similarity premise where similarity between two cases is modeled using the device of a story scheme from the hybrid theory of legal evidential reasoning (Bex in Arguments, stories and criminal evidence: a formal hybrid theory. Springer, Dordrecht 2011). It is shown how the rhetorical strategy of Spence’s argumentation in the closing argument interweaves argument from analogy with explanation through three levels.

Griffin on Narrative, Truth and Trial

Professor Lisa Kern Griffin of Duke University Law School has published Narrative, Truth & Trial, 101 Georgetown Law Journal 281 (2012).

Here is that abstract:

This article critically evaluates the relationship between constructing narratives and achieving factual accuracy at trials. The story model of adjudication — according to which jurors process testimony by organizing it into competing narratives — has gained wide acceptance in the descriptive work of social scientists and currency in the courtroom, but it has received little close attention from legal theorists. The article begins with a discussion of the meaning of narrative and its function at trial. It argues that the story model is incomplete, and that “legal truth” emerges from a hybrid of narrative and other means of inquiry. As a result, trials contain opportunities to promote more systematic consideration of evidence. Second, the article asserts that, to the extent the story model is descriptively correct with respect to the structure of juror decision making, it also gives rise to normative concerns about the tension between characteristic features of narrative and the truth-seeking aspirations of trial. Viewing trials through the lens of narrative theory brings sources of bias and error into focus and suggests reasons to increase the influence of analytic processes. The article then appraises improvements in trial mechanics — from prosecutorial discovery obligations through appellate review of evidentiary errors — that might account for the influence of stories. For example, a fuller understanding of narrative exposes the false assumption within limiting instructions that any piece of evidence exists in isolation. And to better inform how adjudicators respond to stories in the courtroom, the article argues for modifying instructions in terms of their candor, explanatory content, and timing.

Legal Informatics and Legal Communication Papers at ICLS 2012

Several papers on legal informatics or legal communication were presented at ICLS 2012: International Conference on Law and Society, held 5-8 June 2012 in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.

Below are the titles, and links to abstracts, of the legal informatics or legal communication papers — that I’ve been able to identify — that were presented at the conference. If you know of others, please feel free to identify them in the comments.

• Philip Adey (University of Sydney): Expert Psychiatric Evidence in Civil Litigation Involving Allegations of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: The Australian Experience
• Afra Afsharipour (University of California, Davis): Deal Technology
• Seantel A. Anais (Carleton University): Commissioning Credibility: Texts, Testimony, and Truth in Commissions of Inquiry
• Maria Ines Bergoglio (Universidad Nacional de Córdoba): Legitimacy of the Judicial System and Lay Participation in Judicial Decision-Making Processes in Córdoba, Argentina
• Susan Berk-Seligson and Mitchell A. Seligson (Vanderbilt University): The Role of the Police in Crime-Prevention in Central America
• Susan L. Brooks (Drexel University) and David M. Boulding (Private Practice): Using Communication Models to Teach Relational Competencies in Law School
• Christopher Brown (University of Arkansas, Monticello): Death by Any Other Name: Definitionalism’s Impact on America’s Response to Genocide
• Iokepa Casumbal-Salazar (University of Hawaii, Manoa): Monumental Science in Hawaiʻi: U.S. Imperialism, Western Astronomy, and Kanaka Maoli Resistance to Telescopes atop Mauna a Wākea
• Marie Comiskey (University of Michigan): Testing the Comprehensibility of Canadian Jury Instructions and the Efficacy of 3 Comprehension Aids
• Shari S. Diamond, Chair (Northwestern U/American Bar Foundation); Participants: Mei-Tong Chen (Judicial Yuan, Taiwan), Edmundo S. Hendler (University of Buenos Aires), Jae-Hyup Lee (Seoul National University), Richard O. Lempert (University of Michigan), Kwangbai Park (Chungbuk National University), Christoph Rennig (Frankfurt High Court of Appeals): Roundtable–The Role of Professionals in Lay Tribunals
• Soren Frederiksen (York University): Has the Supreme Court’s Philosophy of Science Made It to Canada?
• Masahiro Fujita (Kansai University): Informational Justice in Jury Research: Reframing Prior Jury Researches
• Jeremy Gans (University of Melbourne): Verbal Equivalents to Likelihood Ratios: Limited Probative Value, Strong Prejudicial Effect, Inconclusive Admissibility, Immoderate Usage
• Claire M Germain (University of Florida): Recent Developments in the French Criminal Jury
• Toby S Goldbach (Cornell University): Lay Participation in the Criminal Trial: First Nations Sentencing Circles and Law Reform in Canada
• Jasmine B. Gonzales Rose (University of Pittsburgh): Juror Language Accommodation in Theory and Praxis
• Mel Greenlee (California Appellate Project): Faretta, Marsden, and the Pro-Se Motion: Legal Language on the Skids
• Miranda C. Hallett (Otterbein University) and Michael Jones-Correa (Cornell University): Borders of the Public: Framing the Inclusion and Exclusion of Undocumented Migrants
• Paula Hannaford-Agor (National Center for State Courts), Nicole L. Waters (National Center for State Courts): Juror and Jury Use of New Media: A Baseline Exploration
• Valerie P. Hans (Cornell University): The Jury in Russia: Research and Reform
• Emma M. Henderson (La Trobe University): The Empty Gesture: Jury Directions and the Meaning of Consent in Rape Trials in Victoria, Australia
• Livia Holden (Lahore University of Management Sciences): Non-State Law and Governance in South Asia: Changing Discourse
• Ruth Horowitz (New York University): Experts and Deliberative Democracy
• Syugo Hotta (Meiji University): Linguistic Justice: A Linguistic Analysis of Deliberation
• Takayuki Ii (Hirosaki University): A Gap Before and After Saiban-in Service
• John D Jackson (University College, Dublin) and Nikolai Kovalev (Wilfrid Laurier University): Lay Adjudication in Europe: New Developments
• Natália P Junior (IESP / UERJ): Participatory and Deliberative Democracy from Local to Global: The Example of Women’s Conferences as New Spaces for Mobilization and Proposed Public Policies on Gender in Brazil
• Shiro Kashimura (Kobe University): Telling a Code of Law: Interactive Grounds and Contingencies of Giving Legal Advice in Japan
• Zeynep U. Kasli (University of Washington, Seattle): Who Frames the Rights-Talk and how? Immigrant Associations and Undocumented Immigrants
• Richard Kemp and Kristy Martire (University of New South Wales): A Framework for Testing the Validity of Forensic Science Evidence
• Yumiko Kita (University of Sussex): Intentions and the Reality of the Lay Adjudication in Criminal Trials: Indications from the Introduction of the Japanese Citizen Judge System (Saiban-in Seido) in Terms of a Comparative Criminal Justice Study
• Takanori Kitamura (Tokai University): An Interactional Analysis of Legal Consultations between Lawyers and Clients in Japan
• Danfeng S.V. Koon (University of California, Berkeley): Metaphors and Meaning: The Role of Metaphors in Shaping Organizational Responses to Law
• Janny Leung (University of Hong Kong): The Judge as a Godfather, Scholar, Educator, and Scolding Parent: Judicial Discourse in Cantonese Courtrooms in Hong Kong
• Sean Mallin (University of California, Irvine): Finding Blight: Code Enforcement and “Responsible” Ownership in Post-Katrina New Orleans
• Kristy Martire, Richard Kemp, Ben R. Newell, and Ian Watkins (University of New South Wales): The Correspondence between Expert Intentions and Juror Interpretations: A Likely Story?
• Lisa McElroy (Drexel University): Cameras at the Supreme Court: A Rhetorical Analysis
• Giorgi Meladze (Free University of Tbilisi): Georgian Jury System
• Caren Morrison (Georgia State University): Jurors Under Scrutiny: The Rise of Online Intrusion
• Lisa Mortimer (University of Melbourne): Access to Justice in Timor-Leste: The Role of Local and Non-Local Languages in Timor-Leste’s Formal and Informal Justice Systems
• Margaret van Naerssen (Immaculata University): Miranda Rights: Selected Linguistic Correlates of “Knowingly” and “Intelligently”
• Evelyn Nava-Fischer (Cardiff University): The Role of Regulatory Framings in the Setting and Reception of Global Standards: The Discursive Constitution of International Standards Disputes and of Agri-Food Regulatory Models in India
• Takeshi Nishimura (Shimada & Nishimura Law Office): Transparency of Japanese Criminal Justice System after Saiban-in System Was Implemented
• Karen Petroski (Saint Louis University): Texts, Not Testimony: Rethinking the Legal Use of Non-Legal Expertise
• Anastasia Powell, Nicola Henry, Emma M Henderson, Kirsty Duncanson (La Trobe University) and Asher Flynn (Monash University): The Meanings of “Sex” and “Consent”: History, Discourse, and Impact of Rape Law Reform in Victoria (Australia)
• Richard Powell (Nihon University): Motivations For and Implications Of Changing the Language of the Law: Lessons from Malaysia
• Jeanne M. Powers (Arizona State University): Social Science Research and Judicial Decision Making in School Finance Litigation
• Ming Qi (Jilin University): The People’s Jurors in Chinese Judicial System: Mechanisms and Policies
• John N. Robinson (Northwestern University): Disputing Dispersal: Frames, Repertoires, and Support Structures in Anti-HOPE VI Legal Campaigns
• William Rose (Albion College): Occasional Legislators: Law, Politics, and the Discourse of Judging
• Meredith Rossner (University of Western Sydney): Common Narrative and Community Cohesion: Toward a Micro-Level Theory of Deliberative Dynamics
• Jenny Roth (Lakehead University) and Monica Flegel (Lakehead University): It’s Like Rape: Exploring Social Understandings of Copyright in Debates between Fans and Creative Producers
• Jessica Salerno (U of Illinois, Chicago/American Bar Foundation): Emotion and Jury Deliberation: Does Expressing Emotion Make Stereotyped Holdout Jurors More or Less Persuasive?
• Joseph Sanders (University of Houston): Milward v. Acuity Specialty Products Group: Constructing and Deconstructing Science in the Courtroom
• Tatsuya Sato (Ritsumeikan University): 3D Visualization System for Lay Judges to Understand Legal Disputes on Trial
• Michael J. Shapiro (University of Hawaii): War Crimes and the Justice Dispositif
• Brian G. Slocum (University of the Pacific): Linguistics and Authorial Intent
• Ciara Staunton (National University of Ireland, Galway): Ethics, Embryonic Stem Cell Research, and Democratic Deliberation
• David Tait (University of Western Sydney): Racial Coding of Railway Stations: Jury Deliberation about the Meaning of Place in a Mock Terrorism Trial
• Anthea Fay Vogl (University of Technology, Sydney): Telling Stories from Start to Finish: Exploring the Demand for Narrative in Refugee Testimony
• Kosuke Wakabayashi (Ritsumeikan University): The Effects of the Judicial Instruction which Includes Argument for Evidence Law Regarding Pre-Trial Publicity Information
• Natalie Wallace and Valerie P. Hans (Cornell University): Is There a Lawyer in the “House”? The Portrayal of Medical Negligence in “House, M.D.”
• Mark E. Walters (University of California, San Diego): Legal-Cultural Formations from High Literacy to Secondary Orality
• Zhuoyu Wang (Southwest University of Finance and Economics of China): An Empirical Research on China’s Recent Reforms of Its Mixed Tribunal System
• Matthew J. Wilson (University of Wyoming): Japan’s Evolving Lay Judge System: Room for Improvement or Even Expansion?
• Toru Yamada (Cornell University): A Conceptual Administrative Manual: Discursive Formations in Japan’s Heritage Nomination Process

Sato on 3D Visualization System for Lay Judges to Understand Legal Disputes on Trial

Professor Dr. Tatsuya Sato of Ritsumeikan University presented a paper entitled 3D Visualization System for Lay Judges to Understand Legal Disputes on Trial, at ICLS 2012: International Conference on Law and Society, held 5-8 June 2012 in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.

The paper was presented as part of a panel entitled Informational Justice and Criminal Justice: Empirical Approach for Assessing Fair Judgment in the Criminal Justice System.

Here is the abstract of the paper:

In Japan, the mixed jury system, the SAIBAN-IN trial system, was brought in on May 21st, 2009. This is a mixed jury system, which comprises three professional and six lay judges. The Saiban-in trial system employs the participation of the general public in the criminal justice system. In lay judge systems in Japan, citizens are selected at random and so cognitive support for these citizens is needed to facilitate the process. Visualization does not only consist of recording or replaying the raw material, but of presenting meta-coded information along with original data. The KTH cube is a promising tool for managing this visualization. The KACHINA (Knowledge Archiving with the Collaboration of Human and Intelligent Network Agents) cube (KC) has been developed as a method for facilitating the visualization of vast amounts of information using a three-dimensional (3D) viewing template. The simple idea underlying the KC is that of visualizing information using a “cube,” that is, a shape with three dimensions. This system represents a region as a virtual 3D space that consists of a 2D map with a time axis. The KC can be adapted to include not only geographic information but also non-geographic information. To handle non-geographic information, a conceptual map, not a 2D geographical map, should be used. A conceptual map is a figure that expresses the development of a story or event. The KC uses this tool to visualize the aggregation sequence of many statements made during interrogation. The 1st Dimension is used to show the discrepancies between the stories of the prosecution and defense in this case. The 2nd Dimension is used to show the timeline of the events of the crime according to the prosecution’s story. Every story told by prosecutors has a unique time line and events relevant to the crime should fit within this timeline. However, it must be noted that this story is a product of the prosecutors’ inference. The 3rd dimension shows the time when each defendant gives his or her statement. All investigation records from defendants have a unique position of alignment inside the cube as a fragment. Thus each person either “confessed” or did not confess at a unique time. In this presentation, I will illustrate our approach with a case in which multiple defendants had multiple statements. The KTH cube can never tell us which confession is true. It is a tool which provides cognitive assistance, functioning as an instructional scaffold (Bruner, 1978; Applebee and Langer, 1983) for everyone in court.

Gray & Barnett on Sustainable Juries: Thinking Outside Peer Jury Criminal Trials

Professor Dr. Anthony Gray and Eola Barnett, LLB, both of the University of Southern Queensland School of Law, have published Sustainable Juries: Thinking Outside Peer Jury Criminal Trials, 20 Journal of Judicial Administration 18-38 (July 2010) (Issue No. 1). Here is the abstract:

Debate continues about the efficacy of the continued use of juries in courts, and recent years have seen a reduction (in Australia) in the occasions on which a jury is used in criminal trials, as well as the abolition of the requirement for unanimity. On the other hand, the use of juries has a long history dating prior to the Magna Carta, and is of great historical importance in terms of American independence. Significant research indicates that public confidence in and perceptions of the criminal justice system improve when a citizen has contact with the legal system through jury service, and there is something seen as inherently right in having a person in a society being judged by their peers.

This article focuses on weaknesses with the jury system as currently utilised, including evidence that jurors sometimes do not understand fundamental legal principles like beyond reasonable doubt, that contrary to the ideal, jurors may not in fact represent a true cross-section of society and are ‘chosen’ by the process for questionable purposes often unrelated to their ability to understand the evidence, that evidence is sometimes extremely complex, and that sometimes jurors decide cases on surprising grounds. While these findings might suggest possible reform in terms of jury selection, judicial directions to juries, and juror education, the main conclusion drawn in this article is that, at least in some cases, courts should consider the use of ‘specialist juries’, in other words citizens with particular training or expertise in relevant areas, to assist in making sure that the ‘quality’ of jury deliberations is as high as possible.

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

Thanks to the authors for providing the abstract.

Legal Communication Papers at ICA 2010

The following is a list of papers about legal communication presented at ICA 2010: The International Communication Association Annual Conference, held 22-26 June 2010 in Singapore. The papers listed here concern legal communication as defined here; papers about laws governing communication are not listed here. If you know of other ICA 2010 papers about legal communication not listed here, please feel free to identify them in the comments.

• C.W. Anderson, College of Staten Island- CUNY, A Comparative Content Analysis of Newspaper and Weblog Reporting on Attempts to Pass a Media Shield Law;
• Joelle Basque, U de Montréal, The Participation of Christian Religious Publics in the Controversy Over Gay Marriage in Canada: A Rhetorical Approach;
• Maya Khemlani David, U of Malaya, Malaysian Lawyers’ Perceptions of Accommodation Strategies Used in Courtrooms;
• Jeffrey A. Gottfried, U of Pennsylvania, et al., How Judicial Advertising Can Mobilize Voters: An Experimental Study of the 2007 Pennsylvania Judicial Election;
• Bill D. Herman, Hunter College, Taking the Copyfight Online: Comparing the Copyright Debate in Congressional Hearings, in Newspapers, and on the Web;
• Sonia Livingstone, London School of Economics, Regulatory Power? How Evidence Can Help Balance Contrary Pressures on Public Policy in the Case of Junk Food Advertising to Children;
• Richard Powell, Nihon U, Media Debate and Private Discourse on Language Policy in Malaysian Law;
• Dong-Hee Shin, Sungkyunkwan U, & Yeolib Kim, U of Texas, The Convergence Policy Making Process in South Korea.

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

For more information, please see the ICA 2010 Website or the conference program.