Dynamics of the Judicial Process by Defeater Activation

Abstract

We present a novel activating approach to Argument Theory Change (ATC) for the study of the dynamics of the judicial process. ATC applies belief change concepts to dialectical argumentation for altering trees upon which the semantics for reasoning are defined. The activating approach to ATC considers the incorporation of arguments to define a revision operator for studying how to provoke change to the semantics’ outcome. Our objective is to contribute to the discussion of how to deal with circumstances of the judicial process like hypothetical reasoning for conducting investigations of a legal case, and for handling the dynamics of the judicial process. We finally observe the behavior of our proposal upon the sentences of two different real criminal procedures.