Before A Word Has Been Uttered

(Image from info254.com)

In a hypothetical criminal case developed for an experiment, judges went easier on a "remorseful" defendant who was trying to make amends. (Their decisions should have been based on the law and the facts, not the defendant's characteristics.)

While 87% of the judges upheld the conviction of the extremist Serb, no matter what the precedent, only 41% did for the remorseful Croat. In other words, rulings were driven by the defendant’s personal attributes rather than by legal precedent.

Even more interesting were the judges’ explanations for their decisions. Did they write about how legal precedent is one thing, but at the end of the day the most important thing is the individual on trial? No. Most cited the precedent if it supported their decision. Others discussed legal or policy matters.

In other words they made their decision based on emotion or other non-legal factors, then used legal reasoning to support the decision.

There's a strong suspicion that that is how most of us behave: base a decision on whether we like a person (sometimes merely whether he is in or out of our "tribe"), then justify the decision based on "facts", "reason", and "logic." That is why we usually know what a politician, reporter, or judge will say on a subject before a word has been uttered.