Author Archives: F. E. Guerra-Pujol

In our previous posts (starting with this one), we have proposed an alternative method of voting on multi-member courts. Broadly speaking, we would replace “one-judge, one-vote” with a method of “bayesian voting” in which judges would rate the legal arguments of the parties by … Continue reading →

When the law is contested and a case is appealed to a higher court, the higher court must, at a minimum, make two decisions. First, it must decide whether the lower court committed any legal errors (Decision #1), and if … Continue reading →

We’ve been blogging (on and off) about the possibility of “bayesian voting” on multi-member courts. The idea is to use a sliding scale (from 0 to 1) to allow each judge to express his degree of confidence (or credence) in … Continue reading →

We interrupt our series of blog posts on bayesian voting to share the following link and table with our loyal followers: “There has been a long debate over single-payer versus multi-payer health insurance system. Which of these two systems is … Continue reading →

We continue our discussion of “bayesian voting” in this blog post. Previously, we conceded that bayesian voting is more complicated than simple majority voting (one-judge, one-vote), but we went on to argue that bayesian voting would be easy to operationalize … Continue reading →

We are taking a break from bayesian voting (see our last few blog posts) to share with our loyal followers our review of Nathan Oman’s book The Dignity of Commerce: Markets and the Moral Foundations of Contract Law (University of … Continue reading →

We have been blogging a lot about “bayesian voting” lately. In our previous post, however, we mentioned as an aside Netflix’s decision to replace its five-star cardinal voting system with a more simple binary system: thumbs up or thumbs down. … Continue reading →

In this blog post, I will address the practicality objection to bayesian voting by judges. First, I concede that, in the judicial context, cardinal or utilitarian methods of voting–like my method of bayesian voting–are marginally more costly and cumbersome than … Continue reading →

Thus far, we have identified a voting paradox in law and proposed a system of “bayesian voting” by judges in multi-member panels. There are, however, at least three major objections to my proposed system of bayesian voting: 1. Practicality (operational … Continue reading →

In our 7/17 blog post, we described a voting paradox in law and presented a simple model of bayesian voting, and in our 7/18 blog post, we showed how bayesian voting might work in practice. In that post, however, we assumed … Continue reading →