[1] The case challenged the State of Wisconsin's use of closed-source risk assessment software in the sentencing of Eric Loomis to six years in prison.
[3] The case also alleged that the system in question (COMPAS) violates due process rights by taking gender and race into account.
[4] Hearing this case would have given the court "the opportunity to rule on whether it violates due process to sentence someone based on a risk-assessment instrument whose workings are protected as a trade secret.
Developed by a private company called Equivant (formerly Northpointe), COMPAS has been used by the U.S. states of New York, Wisconsin, California, Florida's Broward County, and other jurisdictions.
[8] He appealed the ruling on the grounds that the judge, in considering the outcome of an algorithm whose inner workings were secretive and could not be examined, violated due process.