Isn't that order creating a bias for the judge? Should the cases be randomized instead?
The order itself might be injecting a subconscious bias to the judge.
Examples of priming include what was studied in the Priming Intelligence study, which primed groups of participants with the idea of either professors or the idea of hooligans, then tested how they performed on an intelligence test. It purported to discover that those primed with the idea of professors performed better. This is an example of a widely discussed priming study that has failed replication.
I don't think the people sorting the cases (which could be the judges themselves) have any additional information that the judge doesn't readily have available, so I'm not sure there's much room for bias of a substantial nature.
Suppose a taste tester is asked to rank something on a scale of 1-100, but before giving a number they need to presort them into terrible, ok, good, great then go back to each group and give a specific score to each item. My guess is there would be different clustering vs someone doing the same task in one go.
A jaywalking case seems meaningless when sandwiched between just about anything because objectively it’s not serious. However 20 murder cases and you might start benchmarking things to the pedo cannibal not each case on it’s own merits.
If all you see is 20 white collar crimes row with several 10+ million dollar cases someone who ‘only’ stole 100 thousand seems almost meaningless even if objectively it’s a lot of money. And that exact loss of objectivity is a problem.
Bias is a loss of objectivity.
> What you are describing bears no relationship to the study or… any real case that we’re discussing.
Study says before lunch cases are meaningfully different than the after lunch case, thus it’s a like with like grouping.
I referenced a known effect where grouping like with like can create a subconscious bias. Sure it’s best known in other contexts, but there’s little to suggest sentencing is somehow uniquely unbiased.
Like any other set of tasks, the order is a practical matter. Severe cases are more random, sometimes sucking up more time than expected. Put them early in the order and any delay will impact everyone. So judges try to get the easy/predictable stuff done first, minimizing the number of people impacted by the inevitable delays. (Doctors do the same if they can, trying tk see easy patients first.)
Also, as with any other process, you want to start with a few easy wins in order to solve inevitable problems. If there is something wrong with the court tech (recorders, security etc) you can work it out during the easy cases. Save the murders for after everything is sorted.
Thirdly, prisoners are different than normal people. They do not control thier own scheduals. Put thier case early in the docket and they might miss breakfast at the jail. Prisoners are also moved as groups. Put them randomly on the docket and they all have to wait all day. Put them as a group towards the end and the group wont wait as long. So cases involving prisoners, on average the more severe cases, are placed later on the docket.
Yes, this study would absolutely be suspect if the order is not random. I was saying I am not sure if the order being based on severity would bias the judges, since my assumption would be that judges are aware of severity directly and don’t need to rely on ordering to deduce it.
Randomness introduces inefficiency which implies delay
This feels a lot like saying "let's just blow up the tax code and rewrite it!" And we end up generating the same 2 million lines of policy to close all of the loopholes all over again.
But this assumes that the process of time is tending towards the better. Each change that was made was surely made on the basis of experience and created a local improvement, but that doesn't mean that they operate well together.
(Nor, of course, does it mean that they are likely to be so easily fixed that it can be done in a tossed-off HN comment.)
Yes, this I generally believe, at least as far as societal maturity is concerned. We still have our moments, of course.
That's probably too big a discussion for here, but, on the institutional rather than the societal level, is that what you observe? Certainly it seems to me that institutions just accumulate more and more cruft over time, and, though "throw it out and re-write it" is, as well documented, rarely the right answer, neither is "trust that things are as they are because time has optimized them."
Cruft can be good. If you give everyone a chance to speak on any issue, it's extremely slow, but also the most egalitarian. When societies move too fast, large groups of people are invariably marginalized.
"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others" etc.
I do think institutions, while extremely flawed, are currently the best versions of themselves. Very difficult to measure, of course. Rome was the best version of itself until the second it began to collapse.
I'm not a history buff, but believe deeply that it's a predictor of the future. Are there historical examples you can think of where the institutions were better than they are today?
The problems with this question are at least two. First, there is no fixed definition of "better," so that two people might disagree about any example even if they agree on the facts. For example:
> I do think institutions, while extremely flawed, are currently the best versions of themselves. Very difficult to measure, of course. Rome was the best version of itself until the second it began to collapse.
While I wish I shared your optimism, I also disagree with your example! It seems clear to me that a society that is about to collapse is likely not its best self, and that surely there was a local maximum of Roman "goodness," however it's measured, some time after its founding but well before its collapse.
Second, that the examples I know best are likely to be the examples in which I have a personal interest, and so, inevitably, a bias that prevents me from judging them dispassionately.
In that spirit, as a teacher, I think that most, let's say for specificity, US universities were much better in the period immediately following the GI bill than they are today. Their "corporatification" is, to me, a huge step backwards. But then, I am a university teacher, so, though I can speak from a position of knowledge, I can hardly be trusted as an unbiased judge of in what way universities can best serve society.
That's highly dependent on the situation. Ordering can introduce delays or inefficiencies in many situations.
OTOH simple cases are likely the majority of cases. Putting them first lets the majority of, well, users of the judiciary system get served faster.
> SJF can be proven to be the fastest scheduling algorithm
> > SJF can be proven to be the fastest scheduling algorithm
That's not fully analogous, since the OS isn't going to miscompute the last operation because it's in a rush to get done and get home.
What does that even mean in this context? The amount of cases to be processed doesn't change regardless of the order, and the amount of time and attention directed toward each shouldn't either, otherwise you have a much bigger issue.
According to the schedule, Officer A must be present at 8am, 930am, 1005am, 142pm, 315pm for their relevant cases.
Officer B must be present at 803am, 922am, etc through 4pm.
You've now got two officers effectively locked up for a full day.
Vs: Officer A cases, 8-12p Officer B cases, 1-4p
Another might, as a traffic court with pretty much a ton of the same citations, order for the witness’ schedule
But that's not how it's currently done (at least I don't think and nobody in the comments or article is suggesting so), and escalation in severity doesn't have anything to do with officers or with how efficient you are with officer time.
That assumes that the previous arrangement, in the form of sequential escalation, was a pre-existing state of nature that came at no cost of effort. And that randomness has to be introduced after the fact, at a new and extra cost.
But I think if cases were ordered without any specifically intended sequence of any kind, that starting point would be closer to randomness than the currently existing escalation. So randomness would cost less, not more.
US 4th: It prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and sets requirements for issuing warrants: warrants must be issued by a judge or magistrate, justified by probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and must particularly describe the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.
US 15th: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Why is either of these relevant in US jurisprudence?
nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial..."