They real story here is that a just system would have no relationship between judge hunger and acquittal rate, and both studies show human judges fall far short of that mark.
> The original also found a marked impact of hunger on acquittal rates.
Yes, but the opposite one, and it's been completely discredited. What this article calls out as a clever gotcha is in fact obvious to any subject matter expert: case assignment isn't random. People without lawyers were scheduled for right before lunch, and that's what correlated with worse outcomes.
This is a human system, so it will never be perfect. “just” needs to be relative. This isn’t a framework for wholesale ignoring of problems. Rather, an appeal for a degree of grace in our judgments.