Thursday Quickies: Stats, law, college and sexual assault

Eugene Volokh had up an interesting article that touch on the intersection of stats and law.  It was on the topic of campus tribunals that hear sexual assault cases, and I thought it showed a fundamental principle of stats fairly nicely: when in doubt, put it in words.   He does this with 3 legal standards for evidence: beyond a reasonable doubt (95% confidence), clear and convincing evidence (75% to 80% confidence) and a preponderance of evidence (51% or more confidence).  He then says to determine the standard we should convert this in to words:

• Better that 19  students  guilty of sexual assault remain at the university, with no discipline imposed, than one innocent student be expelled or otherwise disciplined
• Better that 4 students guilty of sexual assault remain at the university, with no discipline imposed, than one innocent student be expelled
• These outcomes are about equally bad for both students and the university

There's some other interesting legal discussion in his post, but I thought the conversion of legal standards and probabilities in to clear sentences was a particularly helpful way to frame the discussion.