Model Justice 1.1 – Random Guilt
One of the limitations of the Model Justice 1.0 model is that every defendant has the exact same probability of being found guilty at trial. That’s unrealistic, and it’s unrealistic in a way that will matter: The estimation of the probability of a conviction at trial has got to be one of the most important… Read more
A Chicago-esque Voting Moment in the ‘Burbs
Yesterday morning, for the second time, I voted from my new address in the suburbs, after many years of voting in Chicago. It’s pretty much the same experience out here as it was in the city, except out here they have good parking. I only had to stand in line a minute or two before… Read more
Model Justice — Part 1
A few of days ago, defense lawyer Mark Bennett tweeted an interesting thread about how loss aversion bias could affect a criminal defendant’s decision to take a plea deal: https://twitter.com/NoLongerBennett/status/1057661072579223552 (If you’re interested, read the whole thread.) For as long as I’ve been following criminal defense lawyers on the web, they’ve been discussing the way the criminal… Read more
It Sometimes Begins with Virginia Postrel
Reason magazine is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and a bunch of the staff are sharing their libertarian origin stories. I think I’ll share mine. The first time I remember hearing the word “libertarian” was when I was in high school in 1980 and Ed Clark was running for President on the Libertarian ticket.… Read more
Why I’m Posting About Jack Marshall Here
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been doing a series of posts responding to things that Jack Marshall writes in his Ethics Alarms blog. I’m getting a bunch of mini-rants out of my system, in the hope that it will help me end my obsession with his blog. I’ve been slacking off on the posts… Read more
Classical liberalism, criminal laws, the war on drugs, economics, free speech, technology, photography, sex work, cats, and whatever else comes to mind.