prior probability

That is the title of the shortest scholarly paper in the annals of academia. The entire paper, which was “published” in 1972, is pictured in the blank space below! (More details here; hat tip: @pickover.)

Say what?

Check out this blog devoted to control panels. (Hat tip: kottke.)

The phrase ipse dixit is Latin for “he said it himself” and refers to an assertion without proof or a dogmatic expression of mere opinion. (Here is the Wikipedia entry for ipse dixit.) This phrase now also refers to a new podcast series hosted by one of our favorite legal scholars Brian O. Frye, who teaches at the University of Kentucky. (FYI: the graceful logo of the podcast is pictured below. We have previously blogged about Professor Frye’s fascinating work on the Zapruder film (see here) and his revisionist history of the facts in Erie v. Tompkins (see here); in addition, here is a master link to his scholarship.) In his podcast Professor Frye interviews sundry legal scholars on a wide variety of topics, so check out the podcast at your leisure. By way of example, Professor Frye has already interviewed Eric Segall on “Originalism as Faith,” which explores the various shades of originalist constitutional interpretation; Valena Beety on “The Overdose/Homicide Epidemic,” which explores the role of coroners in classifying overdoses as homicides; and Ramsi Woodcock on “Efficient Queues,” which explores the theoretical relationship between queues and prices.

Reddit has an entire thread devoted to “desire paths,” like the one pictured below. (hat tip: @pickover)

Credit: u/Phoenixed

What if national borders were redrawn along latitude and longitude lines?

Source: u/Luciantang, via Reddit

A large group of my law professor colleagues (now over 2,400 of them!!!) have signed an “Open Letter” addressed to the U.S. Senate stating their opposition to Judge Brett Kavanaugh (BK). The crux of their sanctimonious argument is that BK lacks the judicial temperament to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court:

… [BK] exhibited a lack of commitment to judicious inquiry. Instead of being open to the necessary search for accuracy, [BK] was repeatedly aggressive with questioners. Even in his prepared remarks, [BK] located the hearing as a partisan question, referring to it as “a calculated and orchestrated political hit,” rather than acknowledging the need for the Senate, faced with new information, to try to understand what had transpired. Instead of trying to sort out with reason and care the allegations that were raised, [BK] responded in an intemperate, inflammatory, and partial manner, as he interrupted and, at times, was discourteous to questioners.

Is this letter right? Does BK lack judicial temperament? This law professor letter is misguided on multiple levels. Specifically, in addition to the counter-arguments made here, I dissent from this letter for the following three reasons:

1. Double standards. The letter states that BK was “aggressive” as well as “intemperate, inflammatory, and … discourteous” during his 9/27 hearing in the U.S. Senate. The irony, however, is that these very same adjectives can be used to describe the behavior of many judges who are already on the bench, especially appellate judges and supreme court justices. Yes, judges are supposed to be impartial umpires, but even umpires get angry from time to time!
2. Logical incoherence. The letter claims that BK is not open to the search for accuracy, but this claim is logically incoherent in a domain like law. Why? Because in most appellate and supreme court cases the laws in issue are open to competing and multiple interpretations, and there is no real way of “testing” which of these interpretations is truly the correct one. In short, judges are not Popperian falsifiers. In any case, BK was not presiding over a courtroom. He was at a hearing, accused of heinous behavior and being treated as a “hostile witness” by a group of sanctimonious senators.
3. Void for vagueness. “Judicial temperament” is a vague and ambiguous standard to begin with. Worse yet, the professors who signed the above letter appear to be applying this standard in an unfair and selective manner. By way of example, let’s recall the words of my favorite justice Sonya Sotomayor, who once said, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” Is this statement consistent with the open-ended “judicial temperament” standard referred to in the above letter?

Or: Why are Article III judges above the law? According to Stacy N. Cammarano (via the Washington Post): “Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits workplace discrimination on the basis of sex, but it does not apply to the 30,000 employees who work for the federal court system. Though Congress, which originally exempted itself from the law, passed legislation in 1995 that covers congressional employees, it has not done so for the judiciary.”

Disclaimer: does not apply to federal judges