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by tomq 1165 days ago
This new paper finds 10% higher likelihood to acquit per hour of fasting. That’s huge. Imagine you’re in the criminal’s shoes. The original also found a marked impact of hunger on acquittal rates.

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.

2 comments

The new paper found that practicing muslim judges were more lenient on a major religious holiday involving fasting. I wish the study looked at whether the results generalized to other religious holidays without fasting.

> 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.

If “just” is absolute, you’re right.

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.