Is Justice Blind? A Natural Experiment in the Use of Judicial Discretion in Criminal Trials

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Loeffler
Keyword(s):  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Judicial Discretion ◽  
Criminal Trials

Towards Restorative Sentencing in International Criminal Trials

2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 809-832 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph Henham
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Judicial Discretion ◽  
Discretionary Power ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Trial Outcomes ◽  
Trial Structure ◽  
International Criminal Trials

AbstractThis article considers how sentencing might be re-conceptualised if restorative justice became a more integral part of the rationale for international criminal trials. More specifically, it focuses on issues of admissibility and proof; trial structure; procedural justice; the role of victims and trial professionals, and the role of judicial discretionary power in sentencing decisions. The paper concludes by suggesting that change is possible by utilising judicial discretion as a force for developing more restorative trial outcomes and dealing effectively with inconsistency, appeal and the enforcement of sentences. More broadly, such changes should be seen as an opportunity for international trial outcomes to engage more directly with the challenges of facilitating transitional justice in post-conflict states.

Sentencing on the Evidence

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 365-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esther Nir ◽  
Elizabeth Griffiths
Keyword(s):  
Critical Factor ◽  
Judicial Discretion ◽  
Forensic Evidence ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
Physical Evidence

The type and quantity of evidence in a case is a critical factor for deciding guilt but should have little or no influence on the sentencing determinations of judges post conviction; this is because case evidence goes to guilt decisions by triers of fact, whereas sentences are imposed upon those already convicted. This study examines the effects of evidentiary type and the total quantity of physical evidence in a case on length of custodial sentence. The results demonstrate that violent felony cases with forensic evidence and those cases with more varied pieces of physical evidence result in longer custodial sentences for convicted defendants. Thus, the findings indicate that inculpatory evidence in criminal trials has enduring effects post conviction and, more broadly, suggest that judicial discretion at sentencing is, at least in part, influenced by the judge’s confidence in the defendant’s guilt.

scholarly journals Cabining Judicial Discretion Over Forensic Evidence with a New Special Relevance Rule

2018 ◽  
pp. 173
Author(s):  
Emma Shoucair
Keyword(s):  
Best Practices ◽  
Forensic Science ◽  
Judicial Discretion ◽  
Forensic Evidence ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
Science Reform ◽  
Rules Of Evidence ◽  
Federal Rules Of Evidence ◽  
Special Relevance

Modern forensic evidence suffers from a number of flaws, including insufficient scientific grounding, exaggerated testimony, lack of uniform best practices, and an inefficacious standard for admission that regularly allows judges to admit scientifically unsound evidence. This Note discusses these problems, lays out the current landscape of forensic science reform, and suggests the addition of a new special relevance rule to the Federal Rules of Evidence (and similar rules in state evidence codes). This proposed rule would cabin judicial discretion to admit non-DNA forensic evidence by barring prosecutorial introduction of such evidence in criminal trials absent a competing defense expert or a high showing of scientific viability.

Getting the Measure of Twins

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Viney
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Effects ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Human Genetics ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Identical Twin ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Modern Biology ◽  
Stephen Jay Gould

Stephen Jay Gould, the biologist and author, once joked that were he an identical twin raised separately from his brother they could ‘hire ourselves out to a host of social scientists and practically name our fee’. In order to monetise Gould’s fantasy, one would want a form of twinship that could operate according to evidential, experimental, somatic and circumstantial ideals. And Gould admits that he and his brother would need to be viewed as ‘the only really adequate natural experiment for separating genetic from environmental effects in humans’. This chapter seeks to interrogate the evidential and experimental circumstances that may underpin the comic quips that guide modern biology. In human genetics, twins are used as experimental bodies that are made to matter in particular ways and for particular people; they become newly ‘animate’ for being enrolled into scientific research. Raised in cultures assumed to be alike or dissimilar, isolated by researchers for being valuable in the measured disentanglement of assembled molecular agents (which are sometimes distinguished from an assemblage referred to as an ‘environment’), twins achieve a status of experimental significance not just for what they do but also for what they are taken to be.

Cicero's Law

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Courts ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
Apparent Contradiction ◽  
Legal Realism ◽  
Rhetorical Strategy ◽  
The Way

Why did Roman prosecutors typically accuse the defendant of multiple crimina, when in most standing criminal courts the punishment imposed on a guilty defendant was the same (typically “capital,” that is, a kind of exile), no matter how many charges were proven? The answer lies not in a failure to distinguish between legal charges leveled at the defendant and defamation of his character, but rather in a rhetorical strategy that made sense in light of what was legally necessary to obtain a conviction. The greater the number of charges, the more likely the jurors would be persuaded that the defendant had in some way violated the statute according to which the trial was being conducted. It is true that prosecutors typically argued that the defendant’s prior conduct made it plausible that he had committed the crimes with which he was charged, but in a way that, as much as possible, made his guilt on these particular charges seem likely, and defense patroni attempted to undermine the charges and the character defamation. This answer to the apparent contradiction between multiple charges and unitary punishment favors a moderate formalism over legal realism as the way to interpret Roman criminal trials.

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