Reasonable Doubt

A review of Dan Barker's tome, godless, how an evangelical pastor abandoned fundamentalist faith and embraced so-called New Atheism. Mr. Barker is now codirector of Freedom From Religion Foundation. Barker's justifiable excoriation of his evangelical easy believism seems trite on the surface, but for him it was critical, life changing. How religious experience is not reliable and there is even in the most sincere theist experience a vacuum for something bigger than a movement, a belief, a faith even in the resurrected Christ. I read and reviewed this during my own period of agnostic experience, weary from the divisions in Christianity. From whence I rose, returned, and re-embraced "the Church of the firstborn... the pillar and foundation of the truth." I found my doubts embraced by love. In my own experience, as many Evangelicals who have not experienced Christian orthodoxy in its historic expression, we have only our experience from which to judge something entirely mysterious as the Church revealed from God who gives the Bible its authority. Bible fundamentalism was not enough to keep Barker and it almost lost me to skeptical agnosticism. Individual liberty from religion may be the epitome of Barker's New Atheism, while for me Orthodox Christianity is the epitome of life in Christ.

The standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt is commonly thought to be an important benefit to the accused. The history of the standard is much more complex and demonstrates lesser commitments to the truth and to the defendant.
This article develops the history of the reasonable doubt instruction in the United States and its English antecedents. Examining the development of the instruction in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and its evolution through the nineteenth and twentieth, this history reveals the dual nature of the instruction. It both encapsulated a theory of knowledge and articulated a level of confidence in the evidence. Further, the history describes twentieth-century changes in the meaning of the legal standard, particularly the divorce of the jury instruction from a broader theory of knowledge and the failure of the legal language to reflect changing definitions of reason in public discourse. The most significant of these changes in the jury instruction is to define reasonableness as the assignment of reasons. The result of these changes has been both to lower standards of criminal proof and to diminish the autonomy of the juror as the finder of fact. This outcome is the opposite of that believed by the majority of the Supreme Court that made proof beyond a reasonable doubt a constitutional requirement in In re Winship. In particular, these changes in the standard may have altered the operation of the presumption of innocence, so that the defense now has the burden of proving the reasons for innocence. This result has all but escaped scholarly notice, although it is felt keenly by some judges, and it is worthy of both further study and reform.

The standard of proof plays an important role in the adjudication task, because only if the standard is exceeded we can say that a statement of fact has been proven. Only then, we can determine if the presumption of innocence is defeated. This intellectual operation must be expressed by the judge in the sentence. The consequence of this duty is that the standard of proof has the utility to prevent a judge´s subjective decision at the time of the adjudication. And so, prevent a conviction based only in an arbitrary decision. Therefore in criminal law, a standard of proof, in a constitutional level, is a mechanism of protection of the presumption of innocence. Yet, in our legal system, this standard doesn’t fulfill that task.

Doxastic voluntarism maintains that we have voluntary control over our beliefs. It is generally denied by contemporary philosophers. I argue that doxastic voluntarism is true: normally, and insofar as we are rational, we are able to suspend belief and, provided we have a natural inclination to believe, we are able to rescind that suspension, and thus to choose to believe. I show that the arguments that have been offered against doxastic voluntarism fail; and that, if the denial of doxastic voluntarism is part of a strategy to defeat scepticism, it is inept, because knowledge presupposes doubt.

Ambivalence (as in practical conflicts, moral dilemmas, conflicting beliefs, and mixed feelings) is a central phenomenon of human life. Yet ambivalence is incompatible with entrenched philosophical conceptions of personhood, judgement, and action, and is denied or marginalised by thinkers of diverse concerns. This book takes a radical new stance, bringing the study of core philosophical issues together with that of ambivalence. The book proposes new accounts in several areas – including subjectivity, consciousness, rationality, and value – while elucidating a wide range of phenomena expressive of ambivalence, from emotional ambivalence to self-deception. The book rejects the view that ambivalence makes a person divided, showing that our tension-fraught attitudes are profoundly unitary. Ambivalence is not tantamount to confusion or to paralysis: it is always basically rational, and often creative, active, and perceptive as well. The book develops themes from Wittgenstein, Davidson, Sartre, and Freud. It engages with contemporary debates in Analytic Philosophy in addition to work ranging from Aristotle to Cultural Studies and Empirical Psychology, and considers a rich set of examples from daily life and literature.

A good account of the agnostic attitude of Suspending Judgement should explain how it can be rendered more or less rational/justified according to the state of one's evidence-and one's relation to that evidence. I argue that the attitude of suspending judgement whether p constitutively involves having a belief; roughly, a belief that one cannot yet tell whether or not p. I show that a theory of suspending that treats it as a sui generis attitude, wholly distinct from belief, struggles to account for how suspension of judgement can be rendered more or less rational (or irrational) by one's evidence. I also criticise the related idea that suspension essentially requires an 'Inquiring Attitude'. I show how a belief-based theory, in contrast, neatly accounts for the rational and epistemic features of suspending and so neatly accounts for why an agnostic has a genuine neutral opinion concerning the question whether p, as opposed to simply having no opinion.

In oktober 1985 werd Marijke Medens met messteken om het leven gebracht bij het benzinestation in Warnsveld. Destijds liep het onderzoek dood, maar in 2001 kwam er nieuwe informatie binnen bij de geheime politie. Daaruit moest blijken dat Mick van Bezemer de moord pleegde, samen met een aantal anderen. Hun namen zouden vermeld staan in een mysterieus document uit 1988. De politie heropende het onderzoek, met als gevolg dat de Vier van Warnsveld alsnog werden veroordeeld. Maar is er voldoende bewijs? Hebben zij die moord wel gepleegd?

This paper argues that there is a conflict between two theses held by John McDowell, namely i) the claim that we are under a standing obligation to revise our beliefs if reflection demands it; and ii) the view that veridical experience is a mode of direct access to the world. Since (i) puts no bounds on what would constitute reasonable doubt, it invites skeptical concerns which overthrow (ii). Conversely, since (ii) says that there are some experiences which we are entitled to trust, it undermines the prescriptive scope of (i). Drawing on C. S. Peirce’s distinction between genuine and contrived doubt, I maintain that critical revisions of beliefs should be triggered only by unwanted disruptions of habits, thereby restoring unity between McDowell’s two theses.

The standard of proof plays an important role in the adjudication task, because only if the standard is exceeded we can say that a statement of fact has been proven. Only then, we can determine if the presumption of innocence is defeated. This intellectual operation must be expressed by the judge in the sentence. The consequence of this duty is that the standard of proof has the utility to prevent a judge´s subjective decision at the time of the adjudication. And so, prevent a conviction based only in an arbitrary decision. Therefore in criminal law, a standard of proof, in a constitutional level, is a mechanism of protection of the presumption of innocence. Yet, in our legal system, this standard doesn’t fulfill that task.

The standard of proof plays an important role in the adjudication task, because only if the standard is exceeded we can say that a statement of fact has been proven. Only then, we can determine if the presumption of innocence is defeated. This intellectual operation must be expressed by the judge in the sentence. The consequence of this duty is that the standard of proof has the utility to prevent a judge´s subjective decision at the time of the adjudication. And so, prevent a conviction based only in an arbitrary decision. Therefore in criminal law, a standard of proof, in a constitutional level, is a mechanism of protection of the presumption of innocence. Yet, in our legal system, this standard doesn’t fulfill that task.

Apart from radical skeptics, persons suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) probably manifest one of the most extreme forms of unreasonable doubting. What are the cognitive and affective mechanisms responsible for generating the need and motivation to suspend our judgment, reassess our beliefs, and gather further evidence to support or reject them? Given that OCD’s disabling symptoms are thought to result from a dysfunctional tendency towards doubt, uncertainty, and indecision, this disorder certainly holds some answers to these questions.

For those who have refused to link their greatness and achievement to God, have always experienced the emptiness of heart, being there is a sacred space in man that nothing else, but God is meant to fill. Science has made every effort to defy nature, to delineate the name and reality of the Triune God, but in the end, they are indirectly seeking for Him, whom they do not want to see; here is love beyond all telling.

A longstanding question is the extent to which ‘reasonable doubt’ may be
expressed simply in terms of a threshold degree of belief. In this context, we
examine the extent to which learning about possible alternatives may alter
one’s beliefs about a target hypothesis, even when no new ‘evidence’ linking
them to the hypothesis is acquired. Imagine the following scenario: a crime
has been committed and Alice, the police’s main suspect has been brought
to trial. There are several pieces of evidence that raise the probability
that Alice committed the crime. Her attorney’s defense strategy is not to
challenge this evidence, but instead to provide personal details about Alice’s
neighbour, Jane. While Jane is one of many people the police spoke to, they
saw no reason to investigate her further. You now learn that Jane, too, had
access to the shed where the murder weapon was stored, just like Alice. To
what extent should this alter your beliefs about Alice’s guilt? In this paper,
we provide a formal description of the problem and a solution indicating
circumstances under which learning about Jane will more or less impact
beliefs about Alice

Guilt beyond a reasonable doubt (BARD) has generated much criticism, especially that BARD does not lend itself easily to mathematical precision; it is notoriously difficult to specify the probability
threshold, if any, that constitutes BARD-proof. We reconstruct BARD-proof such that it admits of the desired mathematical precision, but we do not explicate BARD-proof as mere shorthand for some sufficient threshold probability (or credence). Two major insights are offered to cash this out. The first tells us when a belief state (whether a credence or full belief) is reasonable. The second describes the reasonable dynamic evolution of belief states during a trial. For convenience, we speak as Bayesians (while remaining agnostic between its subjective and objective varieties.)

On the first, ruling out relevant alternatives as unreasonable requires attention to higher-order evidence about the belief-formation process that the trier-of-fact used to arrive at a guilty verdict. The probability of guilt is sufficient only if (i) the trier-of-facts have higher-order evidence with respect to first-order evidence adduced at trial such that their beliefs caused by that first-order evidence are not themselves believed to be caused by flawed or otherwise unreasonable cognitive processes; and (ii) that belief-formation process is safe, in the sense that the agent could not have easily been wrong in similar situations (Williamson 2000: 147).

The second key insight is predicated on an understanding that a simple model of conditionalization starting from a prior probability function is insufficient to capture reasonable doubt, since absent cases of deductive certainty, there will always be a set of priors, starting from which, and conditional upon evidence adduced at trial, doubt regarding guilt would be warranted and, therefore, prima facie reasonable. Accordingly, the BARD test should trace back to all possible priors and ask: of all the possible starting points (priors) that lead to doubt, is there at least one of them that is reasonable?

What is reasonable is captured by the first insight we offer. Unreasonable doubt is doubt that even if it is fully rational (such that it obeys Kolmogorov’s axioms and updates without error on the evidence
via conditionalization) is nonetheless unreasonable because its initial credence assignment was unreasonable.

We take it as plain beyond peradventure that a probability threshold for BARD-guilt is at most a necessary, not sufficient, condition for conviction. One could discover what it is and still not know whether to acquit or convict in a trial. By contrast, our two insights offer a sufficient condition for BARD-proof.

When Corcoran realized that his department was going to announce his retirement, he could not resist the temptation to give his students, past, present, and future, a final farewell lesson--and slip in a little wit, a little wisdom, and a little advice.
The retirement announcement comes first, then the farewell letter.
Enjoy your second reading more than your first!

This essay considers the doubt and its relation to desire as explored in William Godwin’s Caleb Williams (1794). It argues that the novel’s interest in doubt, and particularly its interest in how doubt organizes legal inquiry, should be read in dialogue with a form of legal doubt adopted within eighteenth-century legal epistemology as a response to problem of legal judgment under uncertainty and now crystallized in the “beyond reasonable doubt” evidentiary standard that continues to organize legal proof in Anglophone law. The essay considers how the novel’s insistence on the ways desire conditions doubt subverts the claims to “disinterestedness” and “reasonableness” that recommend “reasonable doubt” as legitimate and adequate response to the risks posed by judgment under uncertainty. The novel’s ironic treatment of “reasonable doubt” exposes how reasonable doubt is itself conditioned by an “unreasonable” desire to preserve the possibility of legal judgment despite these risks and how this unreasonable, conservative desire ultimately compromises its ability to assess and respond to uncertainty. Through Caleb’s “unreasonable doubt” and the reader’s “doubt-as-suspense,” the novel pursues doubt as raw, affective excess -- doubt as it exists “before” it is disciplined or conditioned by skepticism -- in an attempt to expose the basis of doubt in unreasonable, inaccessible desire and, thus, to call into question its legitimacy as a ground for legal judgment. The essay’s coda considers how the doubt “before skepticism” pursued by Caleb Williams might be generalized as a form of “Romantic doubt” and, further, how this “Romantic doubt” allows us to reimagine the relation of Romanticism and skepticism.

ABD HUKUKUNDA İSTİSNAİ HUSUSLAR
MAHREMİYET BEKLENTİSİ ve DARALTILMIŞ GİZLİLİK  PERSPEKTİFİ (1)
By Çiğdem Yorgancıoğlu
http://www.cigdemyorgancioglu.org/  @ LaPaloma68


How to write a legal memorandum American Style , Fourth Amendment , Fifth Amendment , Sixth  Amendment , 10 Commandment of Cross Examination hepsi 24-28 Temmuz 2017 tarihleri arasında her akşam 18.00-20.00 saatleri arasında Bahçeşehir Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi organizasyonuyla ve Prof Dr Feridun Yenisey’in de katkılarıyla , Fakülte binasında  gerçekleşen “Introduction to American Law” dersleri esnasında Prof. Leslie Burton’ın işlediği ve naklettiği konulardı.

Günde ortalama  iki saatini, içinde mahkeme, hukuk uygulamaları, kriminal vaka analizi vb geçen film, belgesel ve Amerikan hukukundaki uygulamaları dramatize eden dizileri  izleyen ve aktarılan konulara özel ilgisi olan biri olarak; bahsi geçen konulara dair katkıların olumlu, verimli, fikir ve zihin açıcı  olduğunu düşünmekteyim. Bu bağlamda öncelikle  başta Prof. Leslie Burton ve  Prof Dr Feridun Yenisey olmak üzere bu organizasyonda emeği geçen herkese ve bizlerle iletişimi organize eden Ayşegül Atalay’a  teşekkür etmek isteri
It was my pleasure to get introduced to Prof.Leslie Burton during Introduction to American Law courses between 24th-28 th July 2017 organized by Bahcesehir Univesity Law Department and witnessed how she genuinely cared the audiences with a professional manner during the session. Me as a Court Cases - criminal movie and thrillers addicted person, she conjured up the images of the scenery of the several movies in my mind from OJ Simpson cases to Good Wife serials, from 12 Angry Man to Rainmaker, L’Amistad to Fugitive ,from Fried Green tomatoes to Jane Doe Case(The Many of Jane Doe Trial). Homeland to Prison Break ,From Jagged Edge to Atonmente, from Accused to Kidnapping Mr Heineken…. And more… . Thanks for all the contributors who put their valuable labor for the organization especially  to Prof.Leslie Burton, Prof Dr Feridun Yenisey and Miss Ayse Özge  Atalay. .        ******.Çiğdem Yorgancıoğlu-28 Jul2017İstanbul--