The Evidence Book

John Banville’s stunning powers of mimicry are brilliantly on display in this engrossing novel, the darkly compelling confession of an improbable murderer. Freddie Montgomery is a highly cultured man, a husband and father living the life of a dissolute exile on a Mediterranean island. When a debt comes due and his wife and child are held as collateral, he returns to Ireland to secure funds. That pursuit leads to murder. And here is his attempt to present evidence, not of his innocence, but of his life, of the events that lead to the murder he committed because he could. Like a hero out of Nabokov or Camus, Montgomery is a chillingly articulate, self-aware, and amoral being, whose humanity is painfully on display.

Knowledge grows as ideas are tested against each other. Agreement is not resolved simply by naming concepts but in the dialectical process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. There are many echoes of these debates in The Evidence Book. The contributors make claims for both practitioner wisdom and the voice of experience. Against this is posed the authority of experimental science and the randomized controlled trial. The contributors are concerned, in their own ways, with collecting, ranking, and analyzing evidence and using this to deliver evaluations. As an expert group, they are aware that the concept of evidence has been increasingly important in the last decade. As with other concepts, it too often escapes precise definition. Despite this, the growing importance of evidence has been advocated with enthusiasm by supporters who see it as a way of increasing the effectiveness and quality of decisions and of professional life. The willingness to engage in evidence-based policy and the means to do so is heavily constrained by economic, political, and cultural climates. This book is a marvelously comprehensive and utterly unique treatise on evidence-based policy. It is a wide-ranging contribution to the field of evaluation.

"...should be required reading for law enforcement personnel, educators, and parents alike. There's simply nothing like it in print-no other coverage approaches the depth of history, psychology, and criminal justice insights of this story."-D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review Considered an expert in the area of psychopathic behavior, Dr. Espy has interviewed more than 30 serial murderers throughout the world including Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy. But when he was assigned to be the lead evaluator for Montana State Prison inmate Nathaneal Bar Jonah, an already once convicted serial child molester and attempted murderer in Massachusetts, Espy encountered a parasitic personality beyond imagination: a modern-day Cronos, the Greek mythological figure who devoured his children. Weighing over 375 pounds, Bar Jonah worked as a short order cook at Hardy's, carried a stun gun, impersonated police officers, told masterful lies, wrote unbreakable codes, cooked and shared with friends strange-tasting chili and spaghetti sauces, and was thought by Montana State detectives to have murdered and cannibalized at least one victim, 10-year-old Zach Ramsay. Culled from hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews with Bar Jonah, dozens of others who either knew or were involved with him, Montana State investigators and prosecutors, and Zach Ramsay's mother, Espy retells Bar Jonah's entire life-from the time before he was conceived to after his death-and those who were harmed by him in unparalleled detail and scope.

While the law of evidence has dominated jurisprudential treatment of the subject, evidence is in truth a multi-disciplinary subject. This book is a collection of materials concerned not only with the law of evidence, but also with the logical and rhetorical aspects of proof; the epistemology of evidence as a basis for the proof of disputed facts; and scientific aspects of the subject. The editor raises issues such as the philosophical basis for the use of evidence; whether courtroom proof is essentially mathematical or non-mathematical; and the use of different theories of probability in legal reasoning.

Jesus was a Jew, living in a Jewish culture and under Jewish laws, laws that governed the people of Israel at a time of conflict with their Roman overlords. A Book of Evidence takes into consideration the history of first-century Jerusalem and is a unique presentation of the passion event, written from a Jewish legal standpoint. Find out why and how Jesus came to trial, how the politics of the age and a corrupt government played a role in bringing him to death. An examination of the numerous crimes of which Jesus was accused results in a reasonable explanation of the real blasphemy that caused him to be executed, and an investigation into "crucifixion" as it was known during first-century Jewish law. Was the Jewish trial legal? Was it a trial at all? Was there a Roman trial or a simple hearing? Where was the real execution site and burial tomb? All these questions are answered in this gripping book. Follow, step by step, along the path of Jesus during the Passover, from the Garden of Gethsemane, through the trials, to the brutality of the execution, and on to the garden tomb at Bethphage from which he was resurrected!

What is required for something to be evidence for a hypothesis? In this fascinating, elegantly written work, distinguished philosopher of science Peter Achinstein explores this question, rejecting typical philosophical and statistical theories of evidence. He claims these theories are much too weak to give scientists what they want--a good reason to believe--and, in some cases, they furnish concepts that mistakenly make all evidential claims a priori. Achinstein introduces four concepts of evidence, defines three of them by reference to "potential" evidence, and characterizes the latter using a novel epistemic interpretation of probability. The resulting theory is then applied to philosophical and historical issues. Solutions are provided to the "grue," "ravens," "lottery," and "old-evidence" paradoxes, and to a series of questions. These include whether explanations or predictions furnish more evidential weight, whether individual hypotheses or entire theoretical systems can receive evidential support, what counts as a scientific discovery, and what sort of evidence is required for it. The historical questions include whether Jean Perrin had non-circular evidence for the existence of molecules, what type of evidence J. J. Thomson offered for the existence of the electron, and whether, as is usually supposed, he really discovered the electron. Achinstein proposes answers in terms of the concepts of evidence introduced. As the premier book in the fabulous new series Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Science, this volume is essential for philosophers of science and historians of science, as well as for statisticians, scientists with philosophical interests, and anyone curious about scientific reasoning.

An expanded study guide related to the documentary film, "Patterns of Evidence, The Exodus"

This book, by David M. Paciocco and Lee Stuesser, is Canada's leading text in evidentiary law in criminal and civil cases. For nearly two decades, it has been relied upon by judges, practitioners, and scholars. In the newest edition of this book, the authors continue their practice of explaining and illustrating the law of evidence.