Evidence Law Adrift

In this important book, a distinguished legal scholar examines how the legal culture and institutions in Anglo-American countries affect the way in which evidence is gathered, sifted, and presented to the courts. Mirjan Damaska focuses on the significance of the divided tribunal (between judge and jury), the concentrated character of trials ("day-in-court" justice), and the prominent role of the parties in adjudication (the adversary system). Throughout he contrasts the Anglo-American system with Continental, or civil- law justice, where lay fact finders sit with professional judges in unified tribunals, proceedings are episodic rather than concentrated, and the parties have fewer responsibilities than in the common-law tradition.Damaska describes the impact of the traditional institutional environment on the gathering and handling of evidence in common- law jurisdictions and then explores recent transformations of this environment: trial by jury has dramatically declined, pretrial proceedings have greatly proliferated, the adversary system shows signs of weakening in some types of cases. As a result, many rules and practices supporting the treatment of evidentiary material are in danger of becoming extinct. In addition, says Damaska, the increasing use of scientific methods of inquiry could place further strains on the use of traditional common-law evidence. In the future we should expect greater variety in decisionmaking activity, with factual inquiries tailored to the specific type of proceeding and common-law evidence restricted to a narrow sphere.

Well-chosen negative legal proof rules can be useful procedural safeguards. They existed in both pre-modern and modern criminal procedures.

This book aims to honour the work of Professor Mirjan Damaška, Sterling Professor of Law at Yale Law School and a prominent authority for many years in the fields of comparative law, procedural law, evidence, international criminal law and Continental legal history. Professor Damaška 's work is renowned for providing new frameworks for understanding different legal traditions. To celebrate the depth and richness of his work and discuss its implications for the future, the editors have brought together an impressive range of leading scholars from different jurisdictions in the fields of comparative and international law, evidence and criminal law and procedure. Using Professor Damaška's work as a backdrop, the essays make a substantial contribution to the development of comparative law, procedure and evidence. After an introduction by the editors and a tribute by Harold Koh, Dean of Yale Law School, the book is divided into four parts. The first part considers contemporary trends in national criminal procedure, examining cross-fertilisation and the extent to which these trends are resulting in converging practices across national jurisdictions. The second part explores the epistemological environment of rules of evidence and procedure. The third part analyses human rights standards and the phenomenon of hybridisation in transnational and international criminal law. The final part of the book assesses Professor Damaška 's contribution to comparative law and the challenges faced by comparative law in the twenty first century.

Softbound - New, softbound print book.

Why did Enlightenment happen in Edinburgh?

The dominant approach to evaluating the law on evidence and proof focuses on how the trial system should be structured to guard against error. This book argues instead that complex and intertwining moral and epistemic considerations come into view when departing from the standpoint of a detached observer and taking the perspective of the person responsible for making findings of fact. Ho contends that it is only by exploring the nature and content of deliberative responsibility that the role and purpose of much of the law can be fully understood. In many cases, values other than truth have to be respected, not simply as side-constraints, but as values which are internal to the nature and purpose of the trial. A party does not merely have a right that the substantive law be correctly applied to objectively true findings of fact, and a right to have the case tried under rationally structured rules. The party has, more broadly, a right to a just verdict, where justice must be understood to incorporate a moral evaluation of the process which led to the outcome. Ho argues that there is an important sense in which truth and justice are not opposing considerations; rather, principles of one kind reinforce demands of the other. This book argues that the court must not only find the truth to do justice, it must do justice in finding the truth.

Analyses the recent, sweeping changes to Scottish criminal evidence law and what they entail Scottish criminal evidence law has recently undergone major, primarily reactive changes, with more reform on the way. These ad hoc developments are fundamentally altering the basic principles of Scottish criminal evidence which have been in place since the 19th century. This book gathers leading experts in the field to analyse these changes, discern any patterns and ask what the ramifications are for the future of Scottish criminal evidence law. The areas affected include: police questioning of suspects, the treatment of vulnerable witnesses in court, hearsay, the admissibility of the accused's previous convictions, the Crown's duty of disclosure and the need for corroboration.

This book examines an unexplored method of interpretation: the use of domestic law in the interpretation of international law.