Justice is what the judge had for breakfast.

NorthCascades

I heard about this on a Radiolab podcast about free will, and thought it might be of interest here.


AROUND the world, courthouses are adorned with a statue of a blindfolded woman holding a set of scales and a sword: Justice personified. Her sword stands for the power of the court, her scales for the competing claims of the petitioners. The blindfold (a 15th-century innovation) represents the principle that justice should be blind. The law should be applied without fear or favour, with only cold reason and the facts of the case determining what happens to the accused. Lawyers, though, have long suspected that such lofty ideals are not always achieved in practice, even in well run judicial systems free from political meddling. Justice, say the cynics, is what the judge had for breakfast. Now they have proof.

http://www.economist.com/node/18557594

NorthCascades

Sorry, I meant to hit preview. I wanted to summarize this briefly.

The study finds that the amount of time since a judge last ate is a strong predictor of how favorable that judge's next ruling will be. Prisoners looking for parole stand about a 2/3 chance of it being granted shortly after the judge ate, but this falls to nearly zero after time goes by, until another meal replenishes the judge's supply of good will.

jgnatca

I remember reading conspiracy plots to lace the water supply with THC and end all war.

It looks like all we have to do is keep everyone well-fed.

VintageFeline

This would be hilarious if it wasn't people's lives being affected. Hanger gets to all of us.

luckywizard

Not surprising, and also horrifying. Someone keep these judges in snacks!

emailmehere1122

If I ever have to go to court I'll remember to bake a cake

CSARdiver

Proof of hangry?

Good practice to keep a snickers in your pocket to hand to the judge at the trial.

Packerjohn

Or since judges don't eat while sitting on the bench, a long time since their last meal also means they've been listing to people's stories without a break and probably getting sick of it.

NorthCascades

Notice that the graph isn't time since last meal, but number of cases since last meal. The authors point out that the judges write an opinion backing their decision, and these are almost twice as long in the case of parole. They suggest that decision making is mentally taxing and people begin to look for shortcuts. They like mental acuity to any other resource, it gets depleted and replenished.

I don't suppose this only happens in parole hearings.

Motorsheen

emailmehere1122 wrote: »

If I ever have to go to court I'll remember to bake a cake

place a metal file inside of it first..... ya never know when it might come in handy.

ninerbuff

So the moral of the story is...............................is to make sure you offer a donut to the judge before your hearing.

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Alatariel75

Heh, I sent this to my boss, who has sent it on to a Judge.

emailmehere1122

Motorsheen wrote: »

emailmehere1122 wrote: »

If I ever have to go to court I'll remember to bake a cake

place a metal file inside of it first..... ya never know when it might come in handy.

Didn't think of that...the plan was to feed the judge the cake for a better sentence or to hit him in the face with it if things didn't go my way

CSARdiver

Stands to reason - I've never tracked this, but have witnessed regulatory panel meetings and audits go much better after a meal. Conversations and debates typically get worse the further away from meal times - with a notable immediate improvement once bellies are full.

There's a reason salesmen bring donuts.

NorthCascades

ninerbuff wrote: »

So the moral of the story is...............................is to make sure you offer a donut to the judge before your hearing.

I think the real moral of the story is what @CSARdiver said in the post above mine. There's probably nothing special about judges, you see the same thing in other settings. If you schedule meetings, keep this in mind...