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Comment by lupire | Hacker News Reader

I don't get it.

The lawyer asked "“Is there anything the court would like to review to reconsider?” and the judge said, oh, well "since you have asked if I want to, yeah I guess I do, so I'll just change my ruling for no reason?"

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That article was posted by the original author on Reddit and one of the commentators came up with a plausible explanation (which convinced the author).

In one sentence the idea is that because public defenders know that the overwhelming majority of their clients belong in jail, and the judge knows that public defenders know that too, if a public defender makes an extra plea to the judge that's a signal that the public defender knows something that means this client really shouldn't be in jail and therefore changes the judge's opinion of the client.

https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/w5jyyd/eleven_mag...

But why wouldn't the PD just say why the defendant doesn't belong in jail?

Exactly that. I had to read it twice too. The way I read it is there were so many hearings so quickly in a row that the judge was in some sort of blur. Case, bam, verdict. Case, bam, verdict. One every 10 minutes. And in that situation, just from being asked to think it over a few more seconds, she saw that maybe she had it wrong and changed her mind.

My reading was that the judge had thirty seconds to regard the grieving family and changed her mind and asking her to reconsider gave her an easy opportunity to change the sentence.

"I implore you to reconsider"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fvu5Ephsqyk

lmao I never saw this before and it's TOO perfect

I don't think the author gets it, either. I think that's the point. A small miracle happened.

It's possible that the judge already was considering changing their ruling (or was "on the fence" about it), but the question gave them a way to explain it (rather than saying "I changed my mind").

yes

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