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The standards we use to make judgments are often ambiguous. For example, in judging someone’s character, we might consider whether that person is fair, honest, and reasonable. To the extent that standards such as “fair” and “honest” and “reasonable” do not have universal meanings, they are ambiguous. As you are well aware by this time, courts are not exempt from this tendency to use ambiguous standards in judging. The facts of a case are important in determining how ambiguous standards will be applied. An important critical thinking skill is the ability to recognize ambiguous language in a court’s opinion, for without this recognition, you are not prepared to make an informed decision about whether the court’s application of standards was merited by the facts of the case. The questions that follow are intended to help you improve this critical thinking skill.

1. To demonstrate your ability to recognize ambiguous language, identify at least two examples of such language in the court’s opinion in Case 18-2. Clue: Remember that adjectives are often ambiguous.

2. The court applies this ambiguous language in a manner unfavorable to the defendant. What reasons does the court provide for doing so? Clue: If the defendant had met the standards by which he was being judged, the decision would have been favorable to him.Another way of phrasing this question is:Why didn’t the court find that he met these standards?