People v. Collins

People v. Collins
Seal of the Supreme Court of California
Supreme Court of California
Decided March 11, 1968
Full case nameThe People, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Malcolm Ricardo Collins, Defendant and Appellant.
Citation(s)68 Cal. 2d 319
Holding
A defendant's guilt must be determined by facts of the case; they cannot be determined by mathematical means, such as statistical probability. Judgement reversed.
Court membership
Chief JusticeRoger J. Traynor
Associate JusticesMarshall F. McComb, Raymond E. Peters, Mathew Tobriner, Stanley Mosk, Louis H. Burke, Raymond L. Sullivan
Case opinions
MajoritySullivan, joined by Traynor, Peters, Tobriner, Mosk, Burke
DissentMcComb

People v. Collins[1] was a 1968 American robbery trial in California noted for its misuse of probability[2] and as an example of the prosecutor's fallacy.[3][4][5]

  1. ^ People v. Collins, 68 Cal.2d 319 (California Supreme Court March 11th, 1968) ("Mathematics, a veritable sorcerer in our computerized society, while assisting the trier of fact in the search for truth, must not cast a spell over him.").
  2. ^ Tribe, Laurence H. (April 1971). "Trial by Mathematics: Precision and Ritual in the Legal Process". Harvard Law Review. 84 (6): 1329–1393. doi:10.2307/1339610. hdl:10822/763743. JSTOR 1339610.
  3. ^ Finkelstein, Michael O.; Fairley, William B. (January 1970). "A Bayesian Approach to Identification Evidence". Harvard Law Review. 83 (3): 489–517. doi:10.2307/1339656. JSTOR 1339656.
  4. ^ Kreith, Kurt (August 1976). "Mathematics, social decisions and the Law". International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology. 7 (3): 315–330. doi:10.1080/0020739760070308. ISSN 0020-739X – via Taylor & Francis.
  5. ^ Suss, Richard A. (October 4, 2023). "The Prosecutor's Fallacy Framed as a Sample Space Substitution". OSF Preprints. doi:10.31219/osf.io/cs248.