prior probability

Hello there! Check out these six-word science stories from a recent issue of the journal Science, vol. 153 (1 July 2016), pp. 22-24. Here are six of our favorites:

1. “Try. Fail. Try Harder. Fail again.” (Robert Kumsta, Psychology, Germany)
2. “Frequently right. Never forgotten when wrong.” (Marian Peleski, Meteorolgy, USA)
3. “The experiment failed. Or did I?” (Irina Tiper, Immunology, USA)
4. “P equals 0.051. Repeat? Abandon? Bayes?” (Rosa Li, Psychology & Neuroscience, USA)
5. “Dear incompetent reviewer, we fully agree.” (Mathias V. Schmidt, Neuroscience, Germany)
6. “Epilogue: Changed the world, few knew.” (Greg Maguire, Physiology & Systems Biology, USA)

The first six-word story?

In this post, let’s revisit H.L.A. Hart’s paradigm example of the problem of interpretation in law: a prosaic ordinance prohibiting “vehicles in the park” (a real life example of just such an ordinance is pictured below). Assume the text of this municipal ordinance leaves the term “vehicle” undefined; as a result, whether a miniature scooter is included within the definition of vehicles is an open question, a matter of judicial interpretation. How should a judge decide this delicate question? On the one hand, we have the “plain and ordinary meaning rule.” Courts generally assume that the words of an ordinance or statute are to be read using in their plain and ordinary sense, so if a scooter is a “vehicle” in a literal sense, then it is a vehicle within the plain and ordinary meaning of the ordinance. On the other hand, however, we have the “rule of lenity,” which tells us that ambiguous criminal laws must be read in favor of the defendant and against the government. Or, in the words of William Blackstone, “penal statutes must be construed strictly.” So, which rule of interpretation should apply to this case?

Define vehicle!

You may have heard of “The Living Constitution” (i.e. the idea that the Constitution changes over time to meet our current needs), but have you ever heard of “The Living Magna Carta”? If not, check out this beautiful paper by R.H. Helmholz titled “The Myth of the Magna Carta Revisited,” published in the latest issue of the University of North Carolina Law Review: Vol. 94, No. 5 (2016), pp. 1475-1493. The paper explores how the meaning of the Magna Carta has evolved over time and how some of its substantive provisions were interpreted by the leading English jurists Sir Edward Coke (b.1552-d.1634) and Sir William Blackstone (b.1723-d.1780). Professor Helmholz concludes that Coke and Blackstone gave “expansive readings” to the Magna Carta by looking beyond the specific words used in the text of the Great Charter in order to discern its goals and purposes. More importantly, Professor Helmholz claims that this purposeful approach–i.e. asking, what is the purpose of the statute; what problem was it designed to solve?–was the most commonly used theory of statutory interpretation during the Middle Ages. Fine, but what happens when a statute has multiple purposes or goals? How do we decide which goal takes precedence over the others?

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