Psychiatric Evaluation in Chinese Criminal Proceedings:A Legal Perspective

Psychiatric evaluation is widely used in criminal cases to screen people with mental disorder because insanity can either exempt the offender from criminal responsibility or mitigate his/her criminal punishment. The operation of psychiatric evaluation in China used to carry a typical characteristic of civil law tradition, but recent reforms have strengthened the procedural safeguards for psychiatric evaluation and stressed the requirement of its presentation and examination in criminal trials. This article will explore how psychiatric evaluation is conducted, and how the expert opinion is presented and examined as evidence in criminal trials in China. Part I will give a historical overview of psychiatric evaluation in China's criminal cases. Part II will introduce the current legislation on psychiatric evaluation in China. Part III will explore problems with current legislation and practice. In this part, high-profile cases will be cited to illustrate loopholes in the psychiatric evaluation law and practical problems with the operation of evaluation. Potential solutions to these loopholes or problems will also be explored. Part IV will focus on the presentation and examination of psychiatrists’ expert opinion in criminal trials. Although expert witnesses are also required to testify before the court in China, very few of them take the stand in practice. This part will discuss why reforms kept failing and what should be done to bring expert witnesses to court. Psychiatrists are important expert witnesses; the discussion of live psychiatrists will shed light on the appearance of all the expert witnesses in Chinese criminal trials.

The DeBoer v. Snyder Trial, 2014

Chapter 13 tells the story of the DeBoer v. Snyder trial, the expert testimony on both sides, and how the witnesses called to defend Michigan’s same-sex marriage ban were found to be entirely lacking in credibility. Defense witness Douglas Allen presented graphs that he admitted were not even intended to be accurate. Defense witness Mark Regnerus’ testimony was disavowed by his department chair and criticized by his professional organization. The plaintiffs’ expert witnesses described the scholarly consensus about the health of children raised by same-sex couples. This scholarly consensus was accepted by Judge Friedman. The DeBoer trial resulted in a victory for plaintiffs DeBoer and Rowse and their children, but the Sixth Circuit reversed the decision on constitutional grounds, necessitating a showdown in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Forensic Translations of Music in Copyright Litigation

For nearly two centuries, musical expert witnesses and amicus curiae have played an essential role in federal copyright litigation, but one that is framed by cumulating legal regulations. This chapter takes an interdisciplinary approach to investigate the effect of such regulations on the available sources for forensic musical analysis and the contributions of contemporary experts to legal evaluations of alleged infringement. Because federal rules and judicial precedent have limited the questions to which experts may respond, their role in litigation might be understood as one of translation, rendering music as legal evidence. This situation has led to trends in both the techniques that experts apply and the issues they encounter. Although non-dispositive, these contributions have the potential to influence the outcome of each case and the development of public law surrounding music as intellectual property.

Court

This chapter explains the procedure followed in criminal cases and civil cases. It explores the role of the Crown Prosecution Service in criminal prosecutions. It also considers the important role that expert witnesses can play in civil proceedings and what the expectations are of those who put themselves forward for that role.

The Role of the Expert Witness

This chapter maps out the scope of the epistemic authority of expert witnesses as interpreters and explainers of evidence and uncertainties that fall within their expertise. They argue that experts should only testify about questions of fact and ought not to express their opinions on questions of law and other ultimate adjudicative issues such as the probability of a hypothesis given the evidence. Rather, experts should facilitate the factfinder’s assessment of how strongly the evidence supports the underlying hypothesis, given all the uncertainties involved. In this chapter, our focus will be on the part where the expert is replaceable (not on first-hand observations). Further, the chapter examines how this role should be understood and constrained.

The Court of Protection: expert witness and professional reports

SUMMARY The Court of Protection has the legal jurisdiction to make decisions about people who lack capacity to make decisions themselves (in England and Wales). When hearing cases, evidence can be provided to the court by expert witnesses and professionals. The Court of Protection Rules 2017 inform the practice and procedure within the Court of Protection. This article reviews the judgment from a Court of Protection case that analyses the proper role of the expert witness in the court. In doing so the article provides guidance to authors of expert witness reports and reports under section 49 of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 submitted as evidence to the court.