Page 145 - Courting the Media Contemporary Perspectives on Media and Law

136 Geoffrey Sykes

iv=s[ +5-1/10(sum total of pv‘s of other pf‘s in case)]

where iv =intermediary value

pv =preliminary value
s =number of judges supporting factors in the case
pf =preliminary value of pivotal factors under investigation

The process as explained by Kort occurs thus. First, an intermediary value (iv)
for every factor in every case is calculated. Then, for each case, from the total
of each pv the sum of the pv‘s of all other factors is subtracted, with the result
multiplied by the number of supporting votes by justices for this factor. Next,
the resulting formula is modified to prevent negative outcomes. The square
root, multiplication by 10 and addition of constant 5, ensure pv, usually a
fraction below 1, is increased. The squaring and division of the sum of pv‘s,
usually a digit less than 10, ensures it is decreased. And so on.

MATHEMATICS AS TEXT

Mathematically, we can accept this most simply as a nearest neighbour
routine, as an associative way of comparing sets of figures. Yet however
understood, and in whatever detail, the core of Kort‘s paper remains
algorithmic: any jurisprudential speculation is fragmentary, included as part of
prose commentary on numeric method. Kort‘s notes read like many by Peirce,
as supplements or marginalia to a report of an experimental and scientific
work in progress. Peirce, like Kort, mixed his prose with diagrams, marginal
scribble, hasty jottings and short paragraphs. Both authors had difficulty
establishing an audience for their interdisciplinary inquiry. ―Predicting
Supreme Court Decisions ...‖ turns out to be more an abstract, than a fully
documented account of research, or a pilot project. As we will soon discover,
its major part is algorithmic: it sets out a ―precedent‖ or ―proof‖ for its
method; its case study is prototypical and brief, and short of conceptual and
practical detail. There is no account, for instance, of the actual reading of cases
of petition since 1932, and consequent extraction of the pivotal factors, that are
summarised in a first Table.
To follow such numeric argument as discourse, is to regard it, as Peirce
would say, as a proposition, or in contemporary parlance, as a text, that
includes notational and typographic features within a contemporary semiotic