A system of circumstantial evidence for fact-finding in criminal trial

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-261
Author(s):  
Yong-Sok Ri ◽  
Yong-Min Kwon ◽  
Wi-Song Pang
Keyword(s):  
Logical Structure ◽  
Criminal Trial ◽  
Circumstantial Evidence ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Legal Evidence ◽  
Fact Finding

Abstract One of the most intractable, but significant problems in the theory of legal evidence concerns circumstantial evidence. The diversity and complexity of criminal cases cause some bottlenecks and difficulties in developing reasonable methods to prove the criminal issue by means of circumstantial evidence. The main purpose of this paper is to present more effective methods of fact-finding just by means of a system of circumstantial evidence (SCE). On the basis of analysis of the nature of circumstantial evidence, we find it necessary for the prosecution to construct a SCE in order to make a judge or jury accept the prosecution’s conclusion as the best explanation. We also present a reasonable logical structure of such a system and address some legal and logical problems in introducing it.

Coherence in Legal Evidence

2021 ◽  
pp. 231-248
Author(s):  
Amalia Amaya
Keyword(s):  
Constraint Satisfaction ◽  
Evidential Reasoning ◽  
Narrative Coherence ◽  
Coherent Systems ◽  
Legal Evidence ◽  
Structural Coherence ◽  
Fact Finding ◽  
Legal Proof ◽  
Legal Fact

This chapter discusses the concept of coherence and its role in evidential reasoning in law. It examines three main approaches to coherence, namely, structural coherence, narrative coherence, and coherence as constraint satisfaction, and argues that coherence as constraint satisfaction provides an account of the kind of coherence that is relevant to legal fact-finding that is both descriptively adequate and normatively appealing. Next, it addresses some problems concerning the relation between coherence and inference, coherence and virtue, and coherence and truth in the context of legal factfinding. More specifically, it examines three main objections facing a coherentist account of inference, i.e., conservatism, circularity and unfeasibility, and conceptualizes it as an explanatory kind of inference. Then, it articulates a problem that has not been traditionally discussed in the coherentist literature, to wit, the coherence bias, and argues that virtue coherentism has the resources to effectively counteract it. Last, it defends the coherentist approach to evidence and legal proof against three objections that put into question the truth-conduciveness of coherence, namely, the isolation or input objection, the alternative coherent systems objection, and the truth objection. The chapter concludes by suggesting some avenues for further research on coherence, evidence, and legal proof.

scholarly journals The new Popper's epistemology of the criminal trial. Strong scientific evidence and reduction of clues to procedural conjectures. Legal medicine (in memory of Ferdinando Imposimato)

2018 ◽  
pp. 67-72
Author(s):  
Gennaro Francione
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Criminal Trial ◽  
Circumstantial Evidence ◽  
Legal Medicine ◽  
International Congress ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
University Professor ◽  
A Cell

Report presented to the International Congress “Present and future of criminology in the criminal system”, Rome, April 2018, with a dedication to Professor Ferdinando Imposimato, judge, senator, lawyer and university Professor. The first Renaissance was represented by the Enlightenment movement, which, virtually crushing the inhuman justice of the inquisitors, sowed the seeds for a revolution of themes still waiting to be realized with our second Renaissance. Emblematic is the fact that even today, a process based on circumstantial evidence takes place with the risk to condemn an innocent, subverting Voltaire's quote: "It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one". And, as for the prison, the current hindering lagers - euphemistically defined hotels (8 people in a cell)- betray the code of Beccaria: "The purpose of the punishment is not to torment and afflict a sentient being. The aim is nothing more than to prevent the offender from doing further harm to his compatriots and to keep other people from doing the same. And then: "The safest but most difficult means of preventing crimes is to improve education".

Special Subjects in Criminal Trial of Russia: Order of Criminal Proceeding

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 0-0 ◽  
Author(s):  
Александр Шаталов ◽  
Aleksandr Shatalov
Keyword(s):  
Russian Federation ◽  
Complex Analysis ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
Criminal Trial ◽  
Public Prosecutor ◽  
Component Part ◽  
Theoretical Ground ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Criminal Proceeding ◽  
The Russian Federation

Procedural mechanism of realization of the criminal proceeding in regard to persons falling under the particular order of production on criminal cases, provides for as component part and simultaneously method of providing of their inviolability the order of laying an action and bringing in of these persons complicated as compared to ordinary, as defendants on criminal cases. On this basis, the attempt of complex analysis of the most difficult and litigions questions, touching the criminal proceeding of persons for that he is initially intended, is undertaken in a publication. Authorial vision of possibilities of their decision is expounded in her, on a background a corresponding legal and theoretical ground. Complicating the general order of criminal trial, through introduction of additional duties and prohibitions for persons accountable for motion and end of production in criminal business, positions of the Russian Federation come forward, in opinion of author, as the extended judicial guarantees of inviolability of certain circle of the special subjects executing socially-meaningful functions. Not increasing the volume of their inviolability, they diminish possibility of her limitation, reducing, thus, the danger of realization of the groundless criminal proceeding. In spite of the fact that the list of the special subjects to the law is driven by exhaustive character, in part touching denotation of limits of their judicial immunity, the norms of chapter 52 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation (CPC) carry blanket character, as his actual maintenance is different. An author considers on this basis, that accomplishing judicial actions and accepting statutory decisions a court, public prosecutor, leader of investigative agency, investigator, must take into account not only envisaged by CPC feature of production on criminal cases in regard to the separate categories of persons but also position of normative legal acts exposing their legal status, volume of plenary powers and limits of action of judicial immunity in a that kind, as they are envisaged in a branch legislation. Self legislation on that score, must consistently change in the river-bed of recommendations of International organization of the Council of Europe “Group of States Against Corruption” (GRECO) speaking out in the report for reduction in him categories of persons to that the special procedure of bringing of them spreads to criminal responsibility, and also for simplification of such procedure.

scholarly journals The Right to Interpretation and Translation in Criminal Proceedings – Challenges and Difficulties Stemming from the Implementation of the Directive 2010/64/EU

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-186
Author(s):  
Maciej Fingas
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Trial ◽  
Practical Implementation ◽  
Legal Counsel ◽  
Criminal Proceedings ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Member States ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
The Right

In modern Europe issues related to the obligation to ensure the right to fair criminal trial for persons who do not speak or understand the language of the criminal proceedings are still pressing. The article discusses main problems stemming from the implementation of Directive 2010/64/EU, especially issues connected with: the scope of and exceptions to the right to written translation of essential documents, the problem of translation of all procedural applications submitted by the accused himself in a language other than the language of the court, the obligation to make available interpretation during communication between the accused and his legal counsel under confidentiality conditions, and - last but not least - professional qualifications of interpreters and translators providing assistance in criminal cases. The article points out that the glaring discrepancies among Member States in the legal and practical implementation of the right to interpretation and translation may result in divergent procedural standard in individual cases, depending on the location of the criminal proceedings.

scholarly journals Reforming Scottish Criminal Procedure: In Search of Process Values

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 167
Author(s):  
Pamela R. Ferguson
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Criminal Procedure ◽  
Moral Authority ◽  
The State ◽  
Criminal Trial ◽  
Wrongful Conviction ◽  
Wrongful Convictions ◽  
Illegal Migrant ◽  
Fact Finding ◽  
Normative Account

Recent proposals to reform Scottish criminal procedure are motivated by considerations of efficiency and accurate fact-finding, and there is little attempt to offer a normative account. This paper describes these proposals and contends that their emphasis on finding ‘the truth’ is misplaced on two distinct bases: (1) it equates erroneous acquittals to wrongful convictions, thus fails to uphold a fundamental tenet of criminal procedure, namely the particular importance of protecting the innocent against wrongful conviction; and (2) it fails to recognise the importance of non-instrumental process values which are at the heart of the adversarial criminal trial.  The paper suggests that it is only by adhering to these process values that the state maintains – and demonstrates that it maintains – its moral authority to condemn and punish offenders.Key notes: Return Directive, entry ban, illegal migrant, criminal law sanctions, crimmigration, expulsion.

Common Law Principles and the Expression and Use of Forensic Evidence in Criminal Cases

2020 ◽  
pp. 43-58
Author(s):  
Andrew Ligertwood
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Statistical Evidence ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Forensic Evidence ◽  
Standard Of Proof ◽  
Reasonable Possibility ◽  
The Common ◽  
Forensic Scientists ◽  
Fact Finding ◽  
Science Evidence

The presentation of expert forensic science evidence in rigorous statistical terms raises the question of how lay fact-finders (judges and jurors) might employ such evidence to prove events in issue. Can this simply be left to the common sense of fact-finders or should the law provide further guidance about how they should reason in applying the criminal standard of proof? Should courts demand that witnesses who give statistical evidence express that evidence in a particular form? This article examines the non-mathematical nature of common law fact-finding and its embodiment in the presumption of innocence principle underlying the criminal standard of proof. It argues that forensic scientists present evidence in a form that makes transparent the risks of error so that, in determining satisfaction of the accused’s guilt having regard to all the evidence before it, the fact-finder considers the reasonable possibility of doubts necessarily left open by statistical evidence.

The Case for Reasoned Criminal Trial Verdicts

2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 313-330
Author(s):  
Richard L. Lippke
Keyword(s):  
Political Power ◽  
Criminal Trial ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
The Right ◽  
Procedural Rights ◽  
Equal Concern ◽  
The Way

Discussion in the paper focuses on instituting a requirement that juries in criminal cases make public the reasons for their verdicts. The nature of such a requirement is elaborated, as is the way in which defects in the reasons provided might serve as a basis for appealing convictions. Various arguments for adopting such a requirement are considered, as are objections to doing so. In support of the requirement, I contend that it would enable defendants in criminal cases to ensure that their procedural rights have been respected. Such a requirement can also be construed as a condition of the legitimacy of exercises of political power and as an implication of the right of each person to be treated with equal concern and respect. The main objections to such a requirement concern its possible interference with jury independence and the complications and inefficiencies appeals of reasoned verdicts would produce.

Similar Facts and Actus Reus

1959 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-232
Author(s):  
R. N. Gooderson
Keyword(s):  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
Criminal Trial ◽  
The Other ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Similar Fact ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Rules Of Evidence ◽  
Actus Reus

Some of the complexity of the English rules of evidence in criminal cases springs from a clash, probably dating back to the formative period of those rules, between two objects, laudable in themselves but antagonistic. One most fundamental principle, of which English lawyers are justly proud, stemming from a desire that a criminal trial should be conducted in a manner as fair to the accused as possible, was that evidence of his misdoings on other occasions should be prima facie inadmissible. On the other hand, courts of justice naturally desire that cogent and weighty evidence that the accused committed the crime with which he is charged should not be excluded from consideration by judge and jury, and consequently evidence, often called similar fact evidence, of other misconduct of the accused is sometimes receivable not because it shows his bad character but in spite of that fact.

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