As Sop commented on my weekend edition of SLABBED Daily, there are limits to what you can learn from PACER documents.
For example, you can read the citations in a Judge’s orders and opinions but you don’t know if the frame fit the facts or the facts were adjusted to fit the frame.
If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts, a post I wrote for Sop as Promise when I was testing the water on his insurance blog that became SLABBED, explored the function of a cognitive map governing the processing of new information – denying some and inventing other.
Here, ‘cognition’ can be used to refer to the mental models, or belief systems, that people use to perceive, contextualize, simplify, and make sense of otherwise complex problems. Put more simply, cognitive maps are a method we use to structure and store spatial knowledge, allowing the “mind’s eye” to visualize images in order to reduce cognitive load, and enhance recall and learning of information.
We can guess at the cognitive map a judge follows in reaching a decision; but, short of events such as those reported in Oversight panel calls for ousting Judge Joan Benge from Gretna court, we have no way of knowing:
“It is not clear what her reason for making the award was. What is clear is that the award was not based on Judge Benge’s assessment of the evidence in the case.” Continue reading “SLABBED Daily – July 20 with judges still on my mind”