Legal systems require public belief that verdicts reflect actual truth.
Evidence
Each trial is a drama in its own right, wrote Nesson, a morality play watched by a public audience. “Through trials, society seeks not only to discover the truth about a past event, but also to forge a link between crime and punishment, between wrong and liability.” The judgments of the courts are meant to reinforce social rules and values and, at the same time, to deter behavior contrary to those rules and values. To achieve this end, the public has to believe that jury verdicts are statements about the truth of actual events, not mere probabilities. If that belief is ever lost, a society based on the rule of law would ultimately collapse into anarchy. To find for the plaintiff against the Blue Bus Company would be, in this sense, to find for anarchy. — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action, 1303
Categorization
- DEEPTHINKING: Frames trials as social rituals whose function is forging the link between wrong and liability; if the public stops believing verdicts track truth, the rule of law dissolves.
- XREF: Echoes the theme that credibility and trust — not raw enforcement — sustain institutions (cf. trust regimes in markets and trade). — connects to: Directed verdicts require courts to decide if facts permit reasonable inferences — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 221; Judicial decisions are governed by beliefs about facts and rules — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 160; Common law legitimacy derives from published judicial opinions and public reasoning. — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 115 (+17 more)
Broader Connections
- Judges decide law while juries decide facts and apply it
#expands(1.00) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1409 - Legal legitimacy is structural contingency, not shared conviction
#contradicts(1.00) - Judicial decisions are governed by beliefs about facts and rules
#expands(0.95) — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 160 - Each society has a regime of truth that determines what counts as true
#complicates(0.95) - Common law legitimacy derives from published judicial opinions and public reasoning.
#expands(0.90) — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 115 - Justice systems can perpetuate faked-evidence verdicts through institutional willful blindness
#complicates(0.90) - Knowledge of logical canons enables the detection of misleading legal arguments
#complicates(0.90) — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 97 - Deductive legal reasoning requires identifying the controlling major premise.
#complicates(0.90) — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 751 - Directed verdicts require courts to decide if facts permit reasonable inferences
#complicates(0.85) — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 221 - Minority distrust of the legal system may shape their verdicts
#complicates(0.85) — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 914 - Sound legal arguments require both valid reasoning and true premises
#complicates(0.85) — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 250 - Identifying valid legal criteria in any system is an empirical question of fact
#complicates(0.85) — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 682 - Permissible jury inferences require a logical probability connecting basic facts to ultimate facts
#complicates(0.85) — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 217 - Judicial opinions mask value judgments behind a surface of logical form.
#complicates(0.85) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1290 - Law should presume universal knavery while judges presume individual honesty
#complicates(0.85) — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 201