Significant Statistics: The Unwitting Policy Making of Mathematically Ignorant Judges

This article will explore several areas in which judges, hampered by their mathematical ignorance, have permitted numerical analysis to subvert the goals of our legal system. In Part II, I will examine the perversion of the presumption of innocence in paternity cases, where courts make the counter-factual assumption that regardless of the evidence, prior to DNA testing, a suspect has a 50/50 chance of being the father. In Part III, I will explore the unnecessary injection of race into trials involving the statistics of DNA matching, even when race is entirely irrelevant to the particular case. Next, in Part IV, I will discuss how courts use race- and gender-based statistics to reduce damages in tort cases for women and racial minorities, and silently assert that past racism and sexism will continue. In the final section, I will examine how judges have improperly allocated the risk of error in cases such as securities fraud, so as to reward those who have attempted to manipulate stock prices illegally

Significant Statistics: The Unwitting policy Making of Mathematically Ignorant Judges

This article will explore several areas in which judges, hampered by their mathematical ignorance, have permitted numerical analysis to subvert the goals of our legal system. In Part II, I will examine the perversion of the presumption of innocence in paternity cases, where courts make the counter-factual assumption that regardless of the evidence, prior to DNA testing, a suspect has a 50/50 chance of being the father. In Part III, I will explore the unnecessary injection of race into trials involving the statistics of DNA matching, even when race is entirely irrelevant to the particular case. Next, in Part IV, I will discuss how courts use race- and gender-based statistics to reduce damages in tort cases for women and racial minorities, and silently assert that past racism and sexism will continue. In the final section, I will examine how judges have improperly allocated the risk of error in cases such as securities fraud, so as to reward those who have attempted to manipulate stock prices illegally

The First Amendment and the Cable Television Operator: An Unprotective Shield against Public Access Requirements

This article focuses on the question of whether state-imposed public access requirements violate the First Amendment rights of the cable television operator. The author suggests that the appropriate analysis asks whether the law abridges expression the First Amendment was meant to protect. In other words, do cable access requirements abridge speech safeguarded by the First Amendment? The article demonstrates that such requirements do not hinder, but in fact further, fundamental First Amendment interests. Finally, the article shows that access requirements fulfill the standards of the constitutional tests for each classification into which they could be placed

The Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984: A Balancing Act on the Coaxial Wires

After three decades of what Chief Justice Burger termed ‘the almost explosive development’ of cable television, Congress updated the Communications Act of 1934 with the Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984. The Act represents the culmination of a ‘decade long effort to update the Communications Act of 1934 . . . and bring our outdated communications laws into the information age.’ The 1984 Cable Act was a complicated piece of legislation, the result of countless compromises and political deals. This Article explains how Congress attempted to balance the competing, and sometimes mutually exclusive, interests of the cable operators, cities, video programmers, and the viewing public

The Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984: A Balancing Act on the Coaxial Wires

After three decades of what Chief Justice Burger termed ‘the almost explosive development’ of cable television, Congress updated the Communications Act of 1934 with the Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984. The Act represents the culmination of a ‘decade long effort to update the Communications Act of 1934 . . . and bring our outdated communications laws into the information age.’ The 1984 Cable Act was a complicated piece of legislation, the result of countless compromises and political deals. This Article explains how Congress attempted to balance the competing, and sometimes mutually exclusive, interests of the cable operators, cities, video programmers, and the viewing public