*Motivation*: Loius Pojman mentions in *What Can We Know?* (2001) of a certain Carneades (ca. 214-129 B.C>) who must have been a "remarkable dialectician"because " in 155BC he was sent on a diplomatic mission to Rome and in his spare time he gave two lectures. On first day he eulogized justice, making a profound impression on his audience. To their amazement on the second day he gave a diatribe against justice, arguing that there were equally good reasons for not adopting it".


Research yielded the [Carneades argumentation framework](https://www.google.com/search?q=carneades+arugmenttation+framekwrok.&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla%3aen-US%3aofficial&client=firefox-a#hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=m13&rls=org.mozilla%3aen-US%3Aofficial&sclient=psy-ab&q=the+carneades+argumentation+framework+filetype+pdf&oq=carneades+arugmentation+framework&gs_l=serp.1.0.0i13i30.4465.8977.2.11395.4.4.0.0.0.0.202.613.0j3j1.4.0...0.0.ABva4QdLgMU&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=15f4f2ff325d4b5a&biw=1280&bih=885). 
However I am interested in the *more recent* ones. Here's one:



> 
> **The Mathematical Proof that got a Physicist out of a Traffic Ticket**
> 
> 
> Dmitri Krioukov, a UC San Diego
>  physicist, was recently given a ticket
>  for running a stop sign. He went to
>  court to argue the ticket, armed with
>  a scientific paper that mathematically
>  demonstrated that he really had
>  stopped. He won.
> 
> 
> Krioukov has since posted the entire
>  paper, rather immodestly called "The
>  Proof of Innocence", on the arXiv
>  server. It's probably debatable how
>  much his ironclad mathematical
>  reasoning really helped determine his
>  innocence - it's just as likely the
>  judge threw out the ticket when it was
>  demonstrated another car had
>  obstructed the ticketing police
>  officer's view. Still, let's take a
>  look at...
> 
> 
> 


[Full ezine article](http://io9.com/5902182/the-mathematical-proof-that-got-a-physicist-out-of-a-traffic-ticket)


[Here is the arXiv paper](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1204.0162v2.pdf). 


Are there any similar cases?


**EDIT**: [Peter Suber has a description of the case on the famous Paradox of Court here](http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/psa/sec20.htm#A).



Incidences of rigorous proofs used in legal proceedings
This is perhaps a borderline example. I heard this story from BCnrd a few years ago, so I hope it hasn't been too mangled in my head since then.


One day, Ken Ribet got a phone call in his office:


* "Is this Professor Ribet?"
* "Yeah."
* "Could you tell me what one tenth of one percent means?"
* "One part in a thousand."
* "Are you willing to give that answer under oath?"


It turns out that someone around Berkeley had rented some property, and the rental contract specified that the landlord could not increase the rent by more than one tenth of one percent each year. When the landlord tried to raise it by more, the tenant sued.


At the trial, the tenant's lawyer called in the expert witness. They swore him in, asked him about his job and his qualifications, then came the key question:


* "Professor Ribet, what, in your expert view, is one tenth of one percent?"
* "It's one part in a thousand."


Before he could give a rigorous proof, the landlord's lawyer said, "Objection! Anyone reading the contract can tell that it *obviously* meant one part in 10." The judge agreed, and threw out the case.


