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Thursday, October 21, 2010

The Validity of a Judicial Legal Opinion

When an Appellate Court issues a Judicial Opinion, a certain form is used. A valid Judicial Opinion uses the form of : Facts, Legal Issue(s), and Holding or Judgment. Now, you can see below that the form used above parallels and is consistent with Cognitive Psychology and the Scientific Method:

Judicial Opinion**********Cognitional Structure**************Scientific Method

1. Facts of the Case**********Experience ******************** Observed Facts

2. Legal Issues *************Understanding***************** Theory or Hypothesis

3. Holding/Judgment********Judgment/Reflection************ Confirmed
***********************************************************Hypothesis


Thus, you can see that Legal Reasoning, which starts with Facts, and then utilizes both Syllogistic Logic and Analogical Logic, and then Intuitive Judgment, based upon Reasonable Laws, results in a Legal Opinion which is Empircially Valid.

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