Osler's Razor

While I was away at my remote island lair, a large amount of mail from prisoners built up on my desk. I tend to get a lot of mail from prisoners; most are asking that I help them with their cases. Sometimes I do, too, as a pro bono matter. The letters really run the gamut, too-- some are eloquent, while others are crude.

There were two intriguing ones in this stack. One of those was from a man in prison in Arkansas who had written me previously about being resentenced in his federal crack case. I thought he might be eligible for re-sentencing, so I wrote back to him to request that he send me his judgment and presentence investigation report. Today I got another letter from him. He reported that the officials would not let him mail me the documents because "they say you are not a lawyer. You are a professor."

Sigh. I'm a lawyer and a law professor!

The second letter was interesting in a different way. It was from a woman convicted of manslaughter and attempted murder who wanted to know about the development of an infallible brain-scan lie detector test.

The sad truth is that I don't know anything about the development of such a lie detector. But... what if there was one? Think about how much that would change our world! It would, among other things, greatly aid in the prevention of the conviction of innocents. If there was such a thing, should we use it?