3. Witnesses: Competence and compellability; Special Measures Directions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maureen Spencer ◽  
John Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Relevant Information ◽  
Marital Discord ◽  
Principal Source ◽  
Questions And Answers ◽  
Flow Charts

The Concentrate Questions and Answers series offers the best preparation for tackling exam questions. Each book includes typical questions, bullet-pointed answer plans and suggested answers, author commentary and illustrative diagrams and flow charts. This chapter covers witnesses, who are a principal source of evidence, and the rules relating to their attendance. All witnesses with relevant information are assumed to be competent to give evidence and usually compellable to give evidence, as the court may summon them to attend. Interests of the witness are secondary to the need of the court to have all necessary information. Some witnesses who are competent may claim a privilege not to give evidence, including defendants on their own behalf. Other exceptions comprise spouses or civil partners testifying for the prosecution. This is based on the concept that compulsion may lead to marital discord. The chapter also includes a review of Special Measures Directions for vulnerable witnesses.

3. Witnesses: competence and compellability; special measures for vulnerable witnesses

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maureen Spencer ◽  
John Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Relevant Information ◽  
Marital Discord ◽  
Principal Source ◽  
Questions And Answers ◽  
Flow Charts

The Concentrate Questions and Answers series offers the best preparation for tackling exam questions. Each book includes typical questions, bullet-pointed answer plans and suggested answers, author commentary and illustrative diagrams and flow charts. This chapter covers witnesses, who are a principal source of evidence, and the rules relating to their attendance. All witnesses with relevant information are assumed to be competent to give evidence and usually compellable to give evidence, as the court may summon them to attend. Interests of the witness are secondary to the need of the court to have all necessary information. Some witnesses who are competent may claim a privilege not to give evidence, including defendants on their own behalf. Other exceptions comprise spouses or civil partners testifying for the prosecution. This is based on the concept that compulsion may lead to marital discord. The chapter also includes a review of Special Measures Directions for vulnerable witnesses.

11. Mixed topic questions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maureen Spencer ◽  
John Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Case Law ◽  
Legal Issues ◽  
Redundant Information ◽  
Single Issue ◽  
Questions And Answers ◽  
Flow Charts ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Given

The Concentrate Questions and Answers series offers the best preparation for tackling exam questions. Each book includes typical questions, bullet-pointed answer plans and suggested answers, author commentary and diagrams and flow charts. This chapter describes how examination questions frequently cover several issues. It is impossible to cover each area in the same depth as single-issue questions so it is important to take time listing matters that raise points of law, then specifying the appropriate statute or case law, and finally applying the law to the given facts. A well-crafted question will not contain redundant information, so be prepared to comment on all parts of it. These questions do not ask for an evaluation or criticism of the law as it is, but for identification of legal issues in the narrative given and application of the law to each. It may be appropriate to refer to academic commentary, particularly in new areas of law.

9. Examination and cross-examination

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maureen Spencer ◽  
John Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Procedure ◽  
Sexual Offence ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
Questions And Answers ◽  
Flow Charts ◽  
Special Rule

The Concentrate Questions and Answers series offers the best preparation for tackling exam questions. Each book includes typical questions, bullet-pointed answer plans and suggested answers, author commentary and illustrative diagrams and flow charts. This chapter deals with the type of questions that can or cannot be asked in examination-in-chief or cross-examination in criminal trials. This area overlaps considerably with criminal procedure, and Evidence courses vary in the topics they cover. The chapter covers refreshing of memory, rules on previous consistent statements and exceptions, and hostile witnesses in respect of examinations-in-chief. In respect of cross-examination, it covers rules on previous inconsistent statements, finality to answers to collateral questions and exceptions, the special rule for cross-examination of complainants in sexual offence cases and non-defendant’s bad character.

8. Opinion evidence

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maureen Spencer ◽  
John Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Expert Opinion ◽  
Expert Witness ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Expert Evidence ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
Questions And Answers ◽  
Flow Charts ◽  
Scientific Expertise ◽  
Civil Trials

The Concentrate Questions and Answers series offers the best preparation for tackling exam questions. Each book includes typical questions, bullet-pointed answer plans and suggested answers, author commentary and diagrams and flow charts. This chapter explores an area of evidence law dominated by expert witness evidence and the extent to which flawed testimony leads to miscarriages of justice. Expert evidence is now commonplace in criminal and civil trials, and the courts and Parliament have developed procedures to ensure that it is of high quality. These are an eclectic mix of common law and statute and their development reflects the importance of scientific expertise. It is necessary to be familiar with the differences between expert and non-expert opinion evidence and on when and in what circumstances both types are admissible and questions that can be asked of the expert whilst giving evidence. The approach depends on whether the question relates to civil or criminal trials

1. Exam skills for success in evidence

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maureen Spencer ◽  
John Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Present Model ◽  
Open Book ◽  
Questions And Answers ◽  
Three Stages ◽  
Flow Charts

The Concentrate Questions and Answers series offers the best preparation for tackling exam questions. Each book includes typical questions, bullet-pointed answer plans and suggested answers, author commentary and illustrative diagrams and flow charts. This book is a supplementary aid to coursework preparation and particularly to revision for examinations and coursework. It does not present model answers to be slavishly imitated but, rather, examples to help the student understand the topic and see how it might be approached. The examinee’s objective is to accumulate in the time allowed as many marks as possible, a goal that needs to be broken down into three stages: namely, planning, execution and review. These days law examinations can take different forms, including seen questions, open book exams and so on. To take account of this, the book includes essay answers that are closer to more fully researched pieces than to the answers in a traditional unseen examination.

7. Supporting evidence: lies, identification evidence and suspect witnesses

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maureen Spencer ◽  
John Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Supporting Evidence ◽  
Supportive Evidence ◽  
Codes Of Practice ◽  
Questions And Answers ◽  
Flow Charts ◽  
Identification Procedures

The Concentrate Questions and Answers series offers the best preparation for tackling exam questions. Each book includes typical questions, bullet-pointed answer plans and suggested answers, author commentary and illustrative diagrams and flow charts. This chapter discusses supporting evidence, which is variously referred to in textbooks as hazardous evidence, supporting evidence or safeguards against unreliability and error. Supporting evidence encompasses types of evidence that might intrinsically be of questionable reliability and, therefore, require supportive evidence. Key areas are disputed identification and lies told by the defendant. It is important to be familiar with the two distinct ways that the reliability of identification evidence is enhanced: first, the judge should issue the Turnbull guidelines; and, secondly, Code D of the Codes of Practice of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 should be followed in relation to identification procedures.

5. Hearsay

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maureen Spencer ◽  
John Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
Questions And Answers ◽  
Flow Charts ◽  
The Law ◽  
Law Of Evidence ◽  
Hearsay Evidence ◽  
Law Commission

The Concentrate Questions and Answers series offers the best preparation for tackling exam questions. Each book includes typical questions, bullet-pointed answer plans and suggested answers, author commentary and illustrative diagrams and flow charts. This chapter focuses on the rule against hearsay, which is, historically, one of the great exclusionary rules underlying the law of evidence. In 1997 the Law Commission recommended that hearsay evidence be put on a clearer statutory footing in criminal trials. This eventually led to wholesale reform in the Criminal Justice Act (CJA) 2003, which preserves the rule but increases the number of exceptions and safeguards, providing a comprehensive regime for hearsay. The chapter provides an overview of the changes to hearsay introduced by the CJA 2003.

Concentrate Questions and Answers Evidence

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maureen Spencer ◽  
John Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Expert Opinion ◽  
Law Students ◽  
Expert Advice ◽  
Supporting Evidence ◽  
Standard Of Proof ◽  
Character Evidence ◽  
Questions And Answers ◽  
Flow Charts

The Concentrate Questions and Answers series offers the best preparation for tackling exam questions and coursework. Each book includes typical questions, bullet-pointed answer plans and suggested answers, author commentary and illustrative diagrams and flow charts. Concentrate Q&A Evidence offers expert advice on what to expect from your Evidence exam, how best to prepare and guidance on what examiners are really looking for. Written by experienced examiners, it provides clear commentary with each question and answer and bullet points and diagram answer plans plus tips to make your answer really stand out from the crowd and further reading suggestions at the end of every chapter. The book should help the reader identify typical law exam questions, structure a first-class answer, avoid common mistakes, show the examiner what the reader knows and find relevant further reading. After an introduction, the book covers burden and standard of proof, presumptions, competence and compellability, Special Measures Directions, character evidence, hearsay, confessions, the defendant’s silence, improperly obtained evidence, supporting evidence, identification expert opinion, issues in the course of trial, privilege, public policy and mixed questions. The final chapter gives guidance on assessed coursework. The book is suitable for undergraduate law students taking optional modules in Evidence.

6. Confessions, the defendant’s silence and improperly obtained evidence

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maureen Spencer ◽  
John Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
Judicial Discretion ◽  
Crucial Difference ◽  
Questions And Answers ◽  
Flow Charts ◽  
English Law ◽  
Trial Failure

The Concentrate Questions and Answers series offers the best preparation for tackling exam questions. Each book includes typical questions, bullet-pointed answer plans and suggested answers, author commentary and diagrams and flow charts. This chapter covers three areas: confessions, silence of the accused and judicial discretion to exclude improperly obtained prosecution evidence. It explains how the most persuasive, sometimes only, evidence available to the prosecution is a pre-trial confession. While confessions have long been accepted as evidence of guilt, they have also posed risks of unreliability and violation of individual autonomy. Defendants may not be making a true confession or may have been obtained as a result of pressure. Permissible inferences from a pre-trial failure to respond to questions has the crucial difference that such failure alone cannot found a conviction. English law has previously been unwilling to acknowledge the case for excluding evidence which involves the police acting improperly or even illegally.

scholarly journals Why do you ask? The informational dynamics of questions and answers

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Hawkins ◽  
Noah D. Goodman
Keyword(s):  
Private Information ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Social Reasoning ◽  
Formal Models ◽  
Computational Framework ◽  
The World ◽  
Questions And Answers ◽  
Report Data ◽  
Asking Questions ◽  
Critical Aspects

Asking questions is one of our most efficient and reliable means of learning about the world. Yet we do not often pose these questions to an impartial oracle; we ask cooperative social partners, in dialogue. In this paper, we aim to reconcile formal models of optimal question asking and answering with classic effects of social context. We begin from the observation that question-answer dialogue is motivated by a two-sided asymmetry in beliefs: questioners have a private goal but lack goal-relevant information about the world, and answerers have private information but lack knowledge about the questioner's goal. We formalize this problem in a computational framework and derive pragmatic questioner and answerer behavior from recursive social reasoning. Critically, we predict that pragmatic answerers go beyond the literal meaning of the question to be informative with respect to inferred goals, and that pragmatic questioners may therefore select questions to more unambiguously signal their goals. We evaluate our pragmatic models against asocial models in two ways. First, we present computational simulations accounting for three classic answerer effects in psycholinguistics. We then introduce the Hidden Goal paradigm for experimentally eliciting questioner and answerer behavior in scenarios where there is uncertainty about the questioner's goal. We report data from three experiments in this paradigm and show how our core computational framework can be composed with more sophisticated question semantics, hierarchical goal spaces, and a persistent state over which extended dialogue can unfold. We find that social inference is needed to account for critical aspects of the data.

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