The Troubling New Science of Legal Persuasion: Heuristics and Biases in Judicial Decision-Making 41 Advocates' Quarterly 2013

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41 Advoc. Q. 49 (2013)
The Troubling New Science of Legal Persuasion: Heuristics and Biases in Judicial Decision-Making

handle is hein.journals/aqrty41 and id is 53 raw text is: THE TROUBLING NEW SCIENCE OF LEGAL
PERSUASION: HEURISTICS AND BIASES IN
JUDICIAL DECISION-MAKING
Craig E. Jones, Q.C.
1. Introduction............................... . . . . . . . ..50
2. Heuristics and Biases ...... ............................ 56
(1) What is a Heuristic? . ............................... 56
(2) Cognitive Neuroscience's Model of Judgment and Decisions ..... .57
(a) Different Systems, Imperfectly Communicating........... .57
(b) Self-Deception, Filtered Evidence, and Ex Post Justifications. . 60
3. Evidence of Heuristically Induced Bias in Judicial Decisions ........ 63
(1) Mortality Salience ................................. 63
(2) Anchoring and Adjustment ....... .................... 65
(3) Decision Fatigue ... ............................... 70
4. Other Heuristics and Their Triggers ........................ 72
(1) Three Proposed Categories of Heuristics in the Legal Context . . . . 72
(2) Some Presentation Triggers. .......................... 74
(a) Truthiness.................................... 74
(b) Costly Signalling Theory and Other Heuristic-Triggering
D isplays ........................... ........ . 76
(c) Text and Truth................................ 79
(d) Representativeness and Framing Errors................ 81
(3) Some Substantive Triggers ........................... 83
(a) Social Proof and Affinity Effects .................... 83
(b) Normality and Omission Biases ..................... 86
(c) Associative Triggers....... ...................... 87
(4) Structural Triggers ................................ 88
5. Logic, Experience, But Something Else Too: Heuristics and the Law ... 90
(1) Accommodation of Heuristics in the Development of Legal
Rules ........... 90
(2) We Are All Realists Now ............................ 95
(3) What Does the Study of Heuristics Mean for Jurisprudence? ..... 99
6. Heuristics and Ethics in Advocacy ........................ 100
(1) The Future of Legal Persuasion . ...................... 100
(2) The Ethical Dimension.... ......................... 103
(a) Greek and Roman Approaches to Rhetorical Restraint . . .. 103
(b) Brave New Persuasion .......................... 106
(c) Do Norms of Legal Culture Provide Any Guidance? ...... 107
(d) Is There an Ethical Answer? ...................... 112
7. What Can Judges Do? ................................ 114
8. Conclusion. . ....................................... 121
* LL.B. (U.B.C.), LL.M. (Harv.), of the Bar of British Columbia and
Professor of Law, Thompson Rivers University.

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