"The Paradox of Unanimity"
From OCDLA Library of Defense
< Blog:Main(Difference between revisions)
This wikilog article is a draft, it was not published yet.
by: Ryan • February 9, 2016 • no comments
(Created page with "From [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/02/08/the-paradox-of-unanimity/ Volokh Conspiracy]: :In ancient Jewish law, a unanimous guilty verdict in ...") |
Latest revision as of 13:35, February 10, 2016
From Volokh Conspiracy:
- In ancient Jewish law, a unanimous guilty verdict in a capital case resulted in an acquittal of the defendant.
- The voluminous commentary on Jewish law contains a number of explanations for this paradoxical rule: that the court has an obligation to seek some “merit” in the accused and to seek to preserve his/her life, and unanimity suggests that it failed to fulfill that obligation; or that the sin of someone against whom the evidence was so compelling was so great that forcing the accused to life under its burden was a harsher punishment than death itself. (A good discussion of this issue can be found here.)
- But a fascinating paper about to appear in the Proceedings of the Royal Academy A (Math & Physics) suggests that there may be some additional wisdom behind the rule.
