prior probability

“Consent” is an indispensable legal and moral concept, but why? Check out Larry Solum’s excellent legal theory blog post on the legal and moral significance of consent. (Professor Solum’s post popped up recently on my Twitter feed. For periodic legal theory updates, follow @lsolum on Twitter.) Without further ado, here is an excerpt from Professor Solum’s helpful overview of consent theory: “In general, there are two families of theories about the nature of consent. One theory is that consent is a mental state—either an affective state such as desire or a volitional state such as choice. The second theory is that consent is a performative—a speech act in which one person agrees to something by communicating with another person (or persons). Each of these two approaches to consent requires some additional explanation.” Read more here.

My copy of Volume 9 of The Journal of Law just arrived in the mail! Among other things, this eclectic volume contains my paper on “The Case for Bayesian Judges,” which is also available here, via SSRN.

A Penrose triangle is an “impossible object” or optical illusion. Although this type of triangle can be depicted in a drawing, it cannot exist as an actual solid object. (Hat tip: @pickover.)

My fellow constitutional law scholars have offered a wide variety of comments about the impeachment of President Donald J. Trump, but none have asked or attempted to answer the following fundamental question: what level of proof must the managers of the House of Representative meet during Trump’s trial in the Senate? In brief, a simple majority of the U.S. House of Representatives has charged President Donald J. Trump with two high political crimes: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that these forms of political misconduct are impeachable offenses. (Are they?) If so, what burden of proof must the House managers meet during the Senate show trial in order to prove that President Trump committed either of these political crimes? Should it be “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” (i.e. the highest burden of proof in our common law system of justice), or should it be “preponderance of the evidence” (or “more likely than not,” a much less demanding evidentiary standard), or should it be an intermediate standard like “clear and convincing evidence”? Also, who decides what the burden of proof for impeachment trials should be? The Senate or the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?

What lessons does the ill-fated 1970 guaranteed income bill teach us today? What timely takeaways, if any, can we obtain from this legislative debacle? After all, this political theater took place several generations ago; the leading players are all dead. Below are excerpts from the epilogue of my latest work-in-progress “Guaranteed Income: Chronicle of a Political Death Foretold”: Continue reading →

I have been posting excerpts from my latest draft “Guaranteed Income: Chronicle of a Political Death Foretold.” Here is an excerpt from Act III, the concluding act of my political morality tale, which also introduces the villain of my story–another Southern Democrat, Senator Russell B. Long (pictured below below the fold): Continue reading →