Columnist: Tagowa’s testimony in the

Answer choices

1. A

   Correct64% picked this

   It overlooks that a witness may think that a defendant is guilty even though that witness’s testimony in

   Why this is right

   This allows us to reconcile the jury convicting Pemberton with the possibility that they all did believe Tagowa's testimony. Maybe Tagowa is an expert witness who is simply helping the jury to understand how to analyze DNA evidence. Maybe Tagowa was just a doorman who was brought into testify, simply to establish that the murder victim left his apartment around 930am. It's possible that Tagowa's publicly expressed opinion (Pemberton is guilty) is based on Tagowa's holistic assessment of the case, whereas Tagowa's in-court testimony was limited to small details of the case that don't directly establish Pemberton's guilt.

   Skill tested: Flaw · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   64%
2. B

   Out of Scope: ought to be9% picked this

   It confuses facts about what certain people believe with facts about what ought to

   The author isn't making a move from "this is what X believes" to "this is what should be the case". There's no normative language like should / ought anywhere in the argument.

   9%
3. C

   Too Strong: only if Illegal Opposite2% picked this

   It presumes, without providing warrant, that juries find defendants guilty only if those defendants committed the crimes with

   The author does seem to assume that, "If not found guilty, then jury must have thought the defendant didn't commit the crime", because the author goes from a Premise about "found not guilty" to a causal conclusion that assumes someone on the jury thinks the defendant didn't commit the crime. This answer, though, is an illegal negation of that: "If found guilty, then jury thinks defendant did commit crime"

   2%
4. D

   Out of Scope: dishonesty13% picked this

   It presumes, without providing warrant, that a jury’s finding a defendant not guilty is evidence of dishonesty on the part of someone

   The author isn't accusing any jury member of being dishonest. She's just saying that at least one juror didn't believe Tagowa's testimony. That could be an honest assessment on the part of the juror, even it turned out to be factually wrong.

   13%
5. E

   Opposite13% picked this

   It fails to consider that jury members sometimes disagree with each other about the significance of

   It does not fail to consider that — it is explicitly considering that! The conclusion is specifically allowing for a scenario in which some jury members didn't believe Tagowa's testimony, some did.

   13%