The psychiatric expert in court

1984 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Kenny
Keyword(s):  
Expert Witnesses ◽  
Expert Evidence ◽  
Impossible Task ◽  
The Law

SynopsisThe law about expert evidence is unsatisfactory: it gives scope for the expert to usurp the role of judge, jury and parliament; it brings the professions of the experts into disrepute; and it sets juries the impossible task of sorting pseudo sciences from genuine ones. The law should be reformed by changing statutes which force expert witnesses to testify beyond their science, by taking the provision of expert evidence out of the adversarial context, and by removing from the courts the decision whether a nascent discipline is or is not a science.

The Basis of the ‘Basis Rule’: The Role of the Basis Rule in the Admissibility of Expert Opinion

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 313-337
Author(s):  
Trang Phan ◽  
David Caruso
Keyword(s):  
Expert Opinion ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Court Decision ◽  
Expert Witnesses ◽  
Expert Evidence ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
High Court ◽  
General Terms ◽  
Admissible Evidence

The ‘basis rule’ is, in general terms, a rule which restricts expert witnesses to giving opinion evidence in respect of which there is or will be proof, by other admissible evidence, of the facts and assumptions upon which the opinion is based. There has been no clear consensus as to whether the basis rule exists either at common law or under the Uniform Evidence Legislation, or whether the rule goes to admissibility or weight. This article examines the jurisprudence, with a particular focus on the recent High Court decision of Dasreef Pty Ltd v Hawchar. The authors argue that the controversy surrounding the basis rule has been the result of a misunderstanding and misconstruction of the rule. They argue that the conflict may be resolved by understanding the basis rule as simply a rearticulation, in the specific context of expert evidence, of the requirement that evidence must be relevant to be admissible. The weight of that expert evidence remains to be determined in accordance with ordinary principles.

Part II Preliminary Topics, 7 The Proof of Foreign Law

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torremans Paul
Keyword(s):  
Civil Procedure ◽  
Expert Witnesses ◽  
Expert Evidence ◽  
Applicable Law ◽  
Foreign Law ◽  
English Law

This chapter examines the question of proof of foreign law and particularly the onus of proving that the foreign law is different from English law. Foreign law is treated as a question of fact, but it is ‘a question of fact of a peculiar kind’. To describe foreign law as one of fact is apposite, in the sense that the applicable law must be ascertained according to the evidence of witnesses, yet there can be no doubt that what is involved is at bottom a question of law. The courts have concluded that a mistake as to foreign law is to be regarded as a mistake of fact. This chapter first explains how foreign law is proved, including the use of expert witnesses, before turning to witnesses who can prove foreign law. It also considers the role of the English courts under the Civil Procedure Rules in dealing with expert evidence.

scholarly journals Psychiatric expert evidence and the new partial defences of diminished responsibility and loss of control

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 277-284
Author(s):  
Rajan Nathan ◽  
Simon Medland
Keyword(s):  
Expert Witnesses ◽  
Loss Of Control ◽  
Expert Evidence ◽  
Psychiatric Assessment ◽  
The Law ◽  
Partial Defences ◽  
Diminished Responsibility

SummaryPsychiatric expert witnesses instructed to undertake assessments of defendants charged with murder should be familiar with the partial defences of diminished responsibility and loss of control. The Coroners and Justice Act 2009 enacted major amendments to the partial defence of diminished responsibility and introduced a new defence of loss of control to replace the provocation partial defence. In this article, the changes to the law are described with particular focus on the implications for the psychiatric assessment.

The Galbraith Judgment and the Defence of Diminished Responsibility in Scotland

2005 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 297-302
Author(s):  
Nicola Hodelet ◽  
Rajan Darjee
Keyword(s):  
Case Law ◽  
Expert Witnesses ◽  
Expert Evidence ◽  
Diminished Responsibility

New case law on diminished responsibility in Scotland ( Galbraith v. HM Advocate 2001) re-defined the defence and clarified the role of expert witnesses. We examined how this judgment affected the use of the defence, provision of expert evidence and the outcome of trials. We studied homicide cases in one area of Scotland in the year before and the year after the new judgment. Results indicated little change in the number of cases where the defence was used, but a difference in how psychiatrists set out their opinions.

scholarly journals Improving expert evidence: the role of open science and transparency

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Chin ◽  
Bethany Growns ◽  
David Thomas Mellor
Keyword(s):  
Open Science ◽  
Expert Witnesses ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Expert Evidence ◽  
Wrongful Convictions ◽  
Disclosure Requirements ◽  
Trial Judges ◽  
Evidence Law ◽  
Science Movement

Both science and expert evidence law are undergoing significant changes. In this article, the authors compare these two movements – the open science movement and the evidence-based evidence movement. The open science movement encompasses the recent discovery of many irreproducible findings in science and the subsequent move towards more transparent methods. The evidence-based evidence movement is the discovery that many forms of expert evidence are unreliable, and that they have contributed to wrongful convictions. The authors identify similarities between these movements, which suggest how courts and legal actors may learn from the open science movement to produce more accurate results. Expert witnesses should comport themselves as rigorous open scientists to produce evidence that is more susceptible to evaluation. Parties should be subjected to more specific and rigorous disclosure requirements because research has shown that even leading scientists find it easy to discount and suppress findings that do not support their hypotheses. And trial judges, as gatekeepers, should not defer to the generally accepted practices that have proven insufficient in the mainstream sciences.

Pengatuan Hukum Terhadap Narkotika Jenis-Jenis Baru yang Belum Terdaftar

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rizky Maulana Hakim
Keyword(s):  
Hazardous Materials ◽  
Legal Certainty ◽  
Next Generation ◽  
The Law

We realize that in the community, it is still close to the night world which can plunge the nation's next generation, through drinking, gambling, and especially Narcotics. There are many rules related to this problem, it is still possible that the minimum knowledge of the community is what causes users to become victims of the rigors of using drugs.In discussing this paper, we will take and discuss the theme of "Legal Certainty and Role of Laws on Narcotics (Narcotics and Drugs / Hazardous Materials) by Users and Distributors." The purpose of accepting this paper is, first, to be agreed by the reader which can be understood about the dangers that need to be discussed regarding the subjectivity of the drug itself; secondly, asking the reader to get a clue about actually addressing the urgency about the distribution of drugs; round, which is about knowing what the rules of the law and also the awareness in the surrounding community.Keywords: Narcotics, Role of Laws, Problem, Minimum Knowledge, awareness

The Role of Women in Pursuing Scottish Criminal Actions, 1580–1650

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 232-250
Author(s):  
Stephanie Dropuljic
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Current Understanding ◽  
The Law ◽  
Role Of Women

This article examines the role of women in raising criminal actions of homicide before the central criminal court, in early modern Scotland. In doing so, it highlights the two main forms of standing women held; pursing an action for homicide alone and as part of a wider group of kin and family. The evidence presented therein challenges our current understanding of the role of women in the pursuit of crime and contributes to an under-researched area of Scots criminal legal history, gender and the law.

Neoliberalism, Law and its Discontents: Three Recent Interventions

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ravi Malhotra
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Princeton University ◽  
The Law

Honor Brabazon, ed. Neoliberal Legality: Understanding the Role of law in the neoliberal project (New York: Routledge, 2017). 214pp. Paperback.$49.95 Katharina Pistor. The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019). 297 pp. Hardcover.$29.95 Astra Taylor. Democracy May Not Exist, but We'll Miss It When It's Gone (New York: Metropolitan Books--Macmillan, 2019). Hardcover$27.00

Prawne aspekty eutanazji w Holandii

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-253
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Stefanowicz
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Public Authority ◽  
Dutch Society ◽  
On Demand ◽  
Limited Length ◽  
The Law ◽  
Death On Demand ◽  
The Way

This article undertakes to show the way that has led to the statutory decriminalization of euthanasia-related murder and assisted suicide in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It presents the evolution of the views held by Dutch society on the euthanasia related practice, in the consequence of which death on demand has become legal after less than thirty years. Due attention is paid to the role of organs of public authority in these changes, with a particular emphasis put on the role of the Dutch Parliament – the States General. Because of scarcity of space and limited length of the article, the change in the attitudes toward euthanasia, which has taken place in the Netherlands, is presented in a synthetic way – from the first discussions on admissibility of a euthanasia-related murder carried out in the 1970s, through the practice of killing patients at their request, which was against the law at that time, but with years began more and more acceptable, up to the statutory decriminalization of euthanasia by the Dutch Parliament, made with the support of the majority of society.

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