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Probabilities in the Courtroom: An Evaluation of the Objections and Policies

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Handbook of Psychology and Law

Abstract

This quotation is notable both for its wisdom and its issuance from a dissenting opinion. We live in a probabilistic world. There are few guarantees, and only rarely does the search for truth end with a certain answer. More often, the truths we discover are generalizations, statements that predict outcomes in an implicitly probabilistic fashion.

Most knowledge, and almost all legal evidence, is probabilistic.

DePass v. U.S. (1983, dissenting opinion)

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Koehler, J.J. (1992). Probabilities in the Courtroom: An Evaluation of the Objections and Policies. In: Kagehiro, D.K., Laufer, W.S. (eds) Handbook of Psychology and Law. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-4038-7_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-4038-7_9

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