#10- Must be true, Author's Perspective

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation
(See the complete passage discussion here: lsat/viewtopic.php?t=14300)

The correct answer choice is (A)

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice, as prephrased above: the author of passage
A is a judge presiding over an appeal of a criminal conviction.

Answer choice (B): A defense attorney arguing an appeal of a client’s criminal conviction would
seek a reversal of the lower court’s decision. The author of passage A, however, concurs with that
decision (lines 33-35).

Answer choice (C): Just because the first passage affirms the guilty verdict of the trial court does
not mean that its author is a prosecutor arguing the case. Pay careful attention to the language of the
main point: “this court sees no reason to reject…” (lines 21-22, italics mine). A prosecutor would
urge the court to affirm the guilty verdict, not issue a declarative statement affirming the lower
court’s decision.

Answer choice (D): This answer choice is clearly incorrect, because a professor of law cannot rule
on a legal issue.

Answer choice (E): Like incorrect answer choice (D) above, an academic can only describe a judicial
ruling, not declare the ruling as a matter of law.

[Need2get180]

10. It can be inferred that the author of passage A is...

[admin note- text of question removed due to LSAC copyright restrictions]

I narrowed the answer choices down to A and C. I ended up guessing C, which was wrong. One sentence that might be useful is "The trial court below...." (33-35, passage A).

How was I supposed to know that this was a judge speaking and not a prosecutor arguing for the affirmation of a guilty verdict? I would imagine that if a prosecutor was in fact arguing that the defendant was guilty, a conclusion of his argument could very well be that the court acted appropriately by crediting the testimony that stated that fingerprint identification has an exceedingly low error rate.

[Adam Tyson]

Good question, Need2, and if it makes you feel any better I will tell you that I think this is an unfair question to ask of people who have not yet attended law school. How are you to know of the conventions of legal writing that are employed herein?

That said, the key sentence here is not the one you cited, but rather the sentence that begins in Line 19 and includes the phrase "this court sees no reason to reject..." The use of "this court" indicates that someone representing the court is writing, not someone making an argument to the court. The judge in an appeals case will typically write about the decision being made not in the first person, "I" or "We", or in the third person singular, "this Judge", but by reference to the institution, be it a panel of judges or a single judge - "this court".

How are you supposed to know that? Maybe that's considered common knowledge, but I thought it was esoteric enough that it was unfair, and could be worth a dispute with LSAC.

Don't sweat this one - this type of situation is unlikely to rear its ugly head again. Sounds like you have a good handle on things otherwise. Go get that 180!