The stances of the authors of passage A and passage B, respectively, toward independent research on the part of trial...

Emil-Kunkin on July 25 at 02:03AM

Hi, both A and D offer directionally similar approaches to passage A, although I don't know if we could describe the author as resigned to their position in A, which makes me wary of A. However, their approach to B is radically different.

Passage B tells us pretty much nothing about trial judges, barring an aside in the first line of the passage. The passage is exclusively about appellate judges. So, the author is explicitly not talking about trial judges, a good match for D, while the author is certainly not implicitly disapproving of something they don't even talk about.