Off to Vienna for another Negotiation Skills masterclass for international officials involved in highly sensitive weapns inspections processes. Away all next week, so do not expect too much here.

For something unusual to read in the meantime, look at this excellent piece by Mike D’Angelo about the famous jury drama movie 12 Angry Men. It argues that the jury was persuaded to look at a succession of small ambiguities that togther looked strange rather than the evidence taken as a whole:

Only a stone-hearted soul could fail to be moved watching Henry Fonda slowly, methodically sway 11 other jurors, one by one, employing only reason, compassion, and common sense as weapons. Should any of us ever be falsely accused and on trial for our lives, we’d certainly want someone like him advocating on our behalf. It’s a beautifully idealized depiction of how a jury of one’s peers should (theoretically) operate.

So what if they probably let a guilty man go free?

… None of this ultimately matters, however, because determining whether a defendant should be convicted or acquitted isn’t—or at least shouldn’t be—a matter of examining each piece of evidence in a vacuum. “Well, there’s some bit of doubt attached to all of them, so I guess that adds up to reasonable doubt.”

No. What ensures The Kid’s guilt for practical purposes, though neither the prosecutor nor any of the jurors ever mentions it (and Rose apparently never considered it), is the sheer improbability that all the evidence is erroneous. You’d have to be the jurisprudential inverse of a national lottery winner to face so many apparently damning coincidences and misidentifications.

Or you’d have to be framed, which is what Johnnie Cochran was ultimately forced to argue—not just because of the DNA evidence, but because there’s no other plausible explanation for why every single detail points to O.J. Simpson’s guilt. But there’s no reason offered in 12 Angry Men for why, say, the police would be planting switchblades…

Very subtle points raised here about the standards we Common Law systems apply to facts and assumptions to help prove guilt and innocence, and the slippery psychological issues lying not far below the surface.