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Majority Opinion (Posted on 2021-05-05) Difficulty: 3 of 5
A defendant is on trial for murder. He will be found guilty if his actions are judged to have been deliberate, and premeditated. The jurors find as follows:

Juror #. 	Deliberate?	Premeditated?
Juror 1:	No      	Yes
Juror 2:	No      	Yes
Juror 3:	Yes     	No
Juror 4:	No      	Yes
Juror 5:	Yes     	Yes
Juror 6:	Yes     	No
Juror 7:	Yes     	Yes
Juror 8:	No      	Yes
Juror 9:	Yes     	No
Juror 10:	Yes     	No
Juror 11:	Yes     	Yes
Juror 12:	Yes     	Yes

A majority believe it was deliberate, and a majority believe it was premeditated, so the man is given the death penalty.

In subsequent interviews, the jurors are asked if they think the man should have received the death penalty and a majority of them say no.

How can this be? Was the man wrongfully convicted?

  Submitted by tomarken    
Rating: 4.5000 (2 votes)
Solution: (Hide)
This puzzle is meant as an example of the "doctrinal paradox" - from Wikipedia:

"This dilemma results because an actual decision-making procedure might be premise-based or conclusion-based. In a premise-based procedure, the judges decide by voting whether the conditions for liability are met. In a conclusion-based procedure, the judges decide directly whether the defendant should be liable. In the above formulation, the paradox is that the two procedures do not necessarily lead to the same result; the two procedures can even lead to opposite results."

See here for more detail:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discursive_dilemma

Comments: ( You must be logged in to post comments.)
  Subject Author Date
amazingtonny ken2024-04-05 03:02:30
Refernoah centineo2021-05-06 04:40:48
Some thoughts/questions and a possibilityKenny M2021-05-05 12:04:51
Some ThoughtsOn the one hand...broll2021-05-05 09:37:27
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