[FRIAM] Trumps motives not judiciable because they are "in his head"

[Marcus Daniels]

But he impulsively blabs his motives in front of the camera every day?

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of "thompnickson2 at gmail.com" <thompnickson2 at gmail.com>
Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Date: Thursday, January 30, 2020 at 11:37 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: [FRIAM] Trumps motives not judiciable because they are "in his head"

Hi everybody,

I am often been hard pressed by members of the “home church” to supply examples of how locating motives “in the head” is not only a misdirection but actually a dangerous illusion.  I give you https://shows.acast.com/the-report/episodes/the-impeachment-day-7 which, at minute 7:40, contains an argument that Trump’s motives cannot be inferred from his behavior because motives are inherently subjective, “in the head” of the motivated person.   This, of course, contradicts long standing legal practice, where demonstrating motive from higher-order patterns in behavior (i.e., patterns distributed more broadly in time and space than in the moments surrounding the motivated act) is a necessary element in most criminal cases.  It is, for instance, the main element that distinguishes manslaughter from murder.   In fact, the whole range of offences resulting in death are distinguished by the degree to which the jury thinks the lethal act was “voluntary”.

By the way, that link will serve to introduce you to the lawfare “reports<https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-report/id1472798169>” which attempt to provide a neutral precis of the proceedings, day by day.

Nick

PS:  I just did a dive into the legal dictionary.  Interesting.  Apparently, the law makes a big distinction between motive<https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/motivation> and intent<https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/motivation>, the former being more like having a reason to commit a crime, the latter being more like setting about to commit the crime.  Interesting stuff, this law business  No wonder Oliver Wendell Holmes was a pragmatist.!

N
Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com<mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/







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