Author: Maurice Hankey
Publisher: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.
ISBN: 158477228X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 190
Book Description
Hankey, The Right Hon. Lord. Politics, Trials and Errors. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, [1950]. xiv, 150 pp. Reprinted 2002 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 1-58477-228-X. Cloth. $65. * Lord Hankey [1877-1963] served as secretary of the British cabinet during the Second World War. This allowed him the rare opportunity to observe crucial events at the highest political levels, which he describes in this volume. Hankey opposes the Allied policy of unconditional surrender and desire to hold war crime trials, goals that were announced during the middle years of the war. He takes the position that the former encouraged the Axis to take desperate measures to prolong the war, a policy that led to needless destruction and death, and dismisses the latter as empty propaganda that did nothing for the victims and impeded the peace process.
Uncontrolled
Author: Jim Manzi
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465029310
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
How do we know which social and economic policies work, which should be continued, and which should be changed? Jim Manzi argues that throughout history, various methods have been attempted -- except for controlled experimentation. Experiments provide the feedback loop that allows us, in certain limited ways, to identify error in our beliefs as a first step to correcting them. Over the course of the first half of the twentieth century, scientists invented a methodology for executing controlled experiments to evaluate certain kinds of proposed social interventions. This technique goes by many names in different contexts (randomized control trials, randomized field experiments, clinical trials, etc.). Over the past ten to twenty years this has been increasingly deployed in a wide variety of contexts, but it remains the red-haired step child of modern social science. This is starting to change, and this change should be encouraged and accelerated, even though the staggering complexity of human society creates severe limits to what social science could be realistically expected to achieve. Randomized trials have shown, for example, that work requirements for welfare recipients have succeeded like nothing else in encouraging employment, that charter school vouchers have been successful in increasing educational attainment for underprivileged children, and that community policing has worked to reduce crime, but also that programs like Head Start and Job Corps, which might be politically attractive, fail to attain their intended objectives. Business leaders can also use experiments to test decisions in a controlled, low-risk environment before investing precious resources in large-scale changes -- the philosophy behind Manzi's own successful software company. In a powerful and masterfully-argued book, Manzi shows us how the methods of science can be applied to social and economic policy in order to ensure progress and prosperity.
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465029310
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
How do we know which social and economic policies work, which should be continued, and which should be changed? Jim Manzi argues that throughout history, various methods have been attempted -- except for controlled experimentation. Experiments provide the feedback loop that allows us, in certain limited ways, to identify error in our beliefs as a first step to correcting them. Over the course of the first half of the twentieth century, scientists invented a methodology for executing controlled experiments to evaluate certain kinds of proposed social interventions. This technique goes by many names in different contexts (randomized control trials, randomized field experiments, clinical trials, etc.). Over the past ten to twenty years this has been increasingly deployed in a wide variety of contexts, but it remains the red-haired step child of modern social science. This is starting to change, and this change should be encouraged and accelerated, even though the staggering complexity of human society creates severe limits to what social science could be realistically expected to achieve. Randomized trials have shown, for example, that work requirements for welfare recipients have succeeded like nothing else in encouraging employment, that charter school vouchers have been successful in increasing educational attainment for underprivileged children, and that community policing has worked to reduce crime, but also that programs like Head Start and Job Corps, which might be politically attractive, fail to attain their intended objectives. Business leaders can also use experiments to test decisions in a controlled, low-risk environment before investing precious resources in large-scale changes -- the philosophy behind Manzi's own successful software company. In a powerful and masterfully-argued book, Manzi shows us how the methods of science can be applied to social and economic policy in order to ensure progress and prosperity.
Politics, Trials and Errors
Author: Maurice Hankey
Publisher: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.
ISBN: 158477228X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 190
Book Description
Hankey, The Right Hon. Lord. Politics, Trials and Errors. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, [1950]. xiv, 150 pp. Reprinted 2002 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 1-58477-228-X. Cloth. $65. * Lord Hankey [1877-1963] served as secretary of the British cabinet during the Second World War. This allowed him the rare opportunity to observe crucial events at the highest political levels, which he describes in this volume. Hankey opposes the Allied policy of unconditional surrender and desire to hold war crime trials, goals that were announced during the middle years of the war. He takes the position that the former encouraged the Axis to take desperate measures to prolong the war, a policy that led to needless destruction and death, and dismisses the latter as empty propaganda that did nothing for the victims and impeded the peace process.
Publisher: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.
ISBN: 158477228X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 190
Book Description
Hankey, The Right Hon. Lord. Politics, Trials and Errors. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, [1950]. xiv, 150 pp. Reprinted 2002 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 1-58477-228-X. Cloth. $65. * Lord Hankey [1877-1963] served as secretary of the British cabinet during the Second World War. This allowed him the rare opportunity to observe crucial events at the highest political levels, which he describes in this volume. Hankey opposes the Allied policy of unconditional surrender and desire to hold war crime trials, goals that were announced during the middle years of the war. He takes the position that the former encouraged the Axis to take desperate measures to prolong the war, a policy that led to needless destruction and death, and dismisses the latter as empty propaganda that did nothing for the victims and impeded the peace process.
A History of Political Trials
Author: John Laughland
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9781906165000
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
"This is a formidable and well-documented counterblast to a developing modern orthodoxy, expressing a point of view that many readers will not even have suspected existed, let alone read."--Anthony Daniels, Spectator "A useful and controversial contribution to the debate about victor's justice, and a valuable warning that international war crimes tribunals need to operate with precision and care."--Jonathan Steele, Guardian The rapid development of the use of international courts and tribunals to try heads of state for genocide and other crimes against humanity has been welcomed by most people, because they think that the establishment of international tribunals and courts to try notorious dictators represents a triumph of law over impunity. In A History of Political Trials, John Laughland takes a very different and controversial view, namely that political trials are inherently against the rule of law and almost always involve the abuse of process, as well as being seriously hypocritical. By means of detailed consideration of the trials of figures as disparate as Charles I, Louis XVI, Erich Honecker and Saddam Hussein, Laughland shows that the guilt of the accused has always been assumed in advance, that the judges are never impartial, that the process is always unfair and biased in favor of the prosecution, that the defense is not permitted to use all the arguments at its disposal, and that often the accusers have done exactly what they accuse the defence of having done. All the trials he recounts were marked by arbitrariness and injustice, often gross injustice. Although the chapters are short and easy to read, they are the fruit of formidable erudition and wide reading. The general reader will be forced by this book to re-examine the ideas on this subject, and will be much less sanguine about the possibility of bringing dictators and other leaders to genuine justice. John Laughland lives in Bath and is an author, journalist, and has been a university lecturer in France. He has published The Tainted Source: The Undemocratic Origins of the European Idea (Time Warner Paperbacks) and has written for the Spectator, he Economist, and The New York Times . Table of Contents Introduction The Trial of Charles I and the Last Judgement The Trial of Louis XVI and the Terror War Guilt after World War I Defeat in the Dock: the Riom Trial Justice as Purge: Marshal Peacute;tain faces his Accusers Treachery on Trial: the Case of Vidkun Quisling Nuremberg : Making War Illegal Creating Legitimacy: the Trial of Marshal Antonescu Ethnic Cleansing and National Cleansing in Czechoslovakia, 19451947 Peoplers"s Justice in Liberated Hungary From Mass Execution to Amnesty and Pardon: Postwar Trials in Bulgaria, Finland, and Greece Politics as Conspiracy: the Tokyo Trials The Greek Colonels, the Emperor Bokassa, and the Argentine Generals: Transitional Justice, 19752007 Revolution Returns: the Trial of Nicolae Ceausescu A State on Trial: Erich Honecker in Moabit Jean Kambanda, Convicted without Trial Kosovo and the New World Order: the Trial of Slobodan Miloscaron;evic Regime Change and the Trial of Saddam Hussein Conclusion Notes Bibliography and Further Reading Index
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9781906165000
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
"This is a formidable and well-documented counterblast to a developing modern orthodoxy, expressing a point of view that many readers will not even have suspected existed, let alone read."--Anthony Daniels, Spectator "A useful and controversial contribution to the debate about victor's justice, and a valuable warning that international war crimes tribunals need to operate with precision and care."--Jonathan Steele, Guardian The rapid development of the use of international courts and tribunals to try heads of state for genocide and other crimes against humanity has been welcomed by most people, because they think that the establishment of international tribunals and courts to try notorious dictators represents a triumph of law over impunity. In A History of Political Trials, John Laughland takes a very different and controversial view, namely that political trials are inherently against the rule of law and almost always involve the abuse of process, as well as being seriously hypocritical. By means of detailed consideration of the trials of figures as disparate as Charles I, Louis XVI, Erich Honecker and Saddam Hussein, Laughland shows that the guilt of the accused has always been assumed in advance, that the judges are never impartial, that the process is always unfair and biased in favor of the prosecution, that the defense is not permitted to use all the arguments at its disposal, and that often the accusers have done exactly what they accuse the defence of having done. All the trials he recounts were marked by arbitrariness and injustice, often gross injustice. Although the chapters are short and easy to read, they are the fruit of formidable erudition and wide reading. The general reader will be forced by this book to re-examine the ideas on this subject, and will be much less sanguine about the possibility of bringing dictators and other leaders to genuine justice. John Laughland lives in Bath and is an author, journalist, and has been a university lecturer in France. He has published The Tainted Source: The Undemocratic Origins of the European Idea (Time Warner Paperbacks) and has written for the Spectator, he Economist, and The New York Times . Table of Contents Introduction The Trial of Charles I and the Last Judgement The Trial of Louis XVI and the Terror War Guilt after World War I Defeat in the Dock: the Riom Trial Justice as Purge: Marshal Peacute;tain faces his Accusers Treachery on Trial: the Case of Vidkun Quisling Nuremberg : Making War Illegal Creating Legitimacy: the Trial of Marshal Antonescu Ethnic Cleansing and National Cleansing in Czechoslovakia, 19451947 Peoplers"s Justice in Liberated Hungary From Mass Execution to Amnesty and Pardon: Postwar Trials in Bulgaria, Finland, and Greece Politics as Conspiracy: the Tokyo Trials The Greek Colonels, the Emperor Bokassa, and the Argentine Generals: Transitional Justice, 19752007 Revolution Returns: the Trial of Nicolae Ceausescu A State on Trial: Erich Honecker in Moabit Jean Kambanda, Convicted without Trial Kosovo and the New World Order: the Trial of Slobodan Miloscaron;evic Regime Change and the Trial of Saddam Hussein Conclusion Notes Bibliography and Further Reading Index
The Politics of Apoliticism
Author: James Herbst
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110607433
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 418
Book Description
In 1942, the dictatorial regime of occupied France held a show trial that didn‘t work. In a society from which democratic checks and balances had been eliminated, under a regime that made its own laws to try its opponents, the government‘s signature legal initiative – a court packed with sympathetic magistrates and soldiers whose investigation of the defunct republic‘s leaders was supposed to demonstrate the superiority of the new regime – somehow not only failed to result in a conviction, but, in spite of the fact that only government-selected journalists were allowed to attend, turned into a podium for the regime‘s most bitter opponents. The public relations disaster was so great that the government was ultimately forced to cancel the trial. This catastrophic would-be show trial was not forced upon the regime by Germans unfamiliar with the state of domestic opinion; rather, it was a home-grown initiative whose results disgusted not only the French, but also the occupiers. This book offers a new explanation for the failure of the Riom Trial: that it was the result of ideas about the law that were deeply imbedded in the culture of the regime’s supporters. They genuinely believed that their opponents had been playing politics with the nation’s interests, whereas their own concerns were apolitical. The ultimate lesson of the Riom Trial is that the abnegation of politics can produce results almost as bad as a deliberate commitment to stamping out the beliefs of others. Today, politicians on both sides of the political spectrum denounce excessive polarization as the cause of political gridlock; but this may simply be what real democracy looks like when it seeks to express the wishes of a divided people.
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110607433
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 418
Book Description
In 1942, the dictatorial regime of occupied France held a show trial that didn‘t work. In a society from which democratic checks and balances had been eliminated, under a regime that made its own laws to try its opponents, the government‘s signature legal initiative – a court packed with sympathetic magistrates and soldiers whose investigation of the defunct republic‘s leaders was supposed to demonstrate the superiority of the new regime – somehow not only failed to result in a conviction, but, in spite of the fact that only government-selected journalists were allowed to attend, turned into a podium for the regime‘s most bitter opponents. The public relations disaster was so great that the government was ultimately forced to cancel the trial. This catastrophic would-be show trial was not forced upon the regime by Germans unfamiliar with the state of domestic opinion; rather, it was a home-grown initiative whose results disgusted not only the French, but also the occupiers. This book offers a new explanation for the failure of the Riom Trial: that it was the result of ideas about the law that were deeply imbedded in the culture of the regime’s supporters. They genuinely believed that their opponents had been playing politics with the nation’s interests, whereas their own concerns were apolitical. The ultimate lesson of the Riom Trial is that the abnegation of politics can produce results almost as bad as a deliberate commitment to stamping out the beliefs of others. Today, politicians on both sides of the political spectrum denounce excessive polarization as the cause of political gridlock; but this may simply be what real democracy looks like when it seeks to express the wishes of a divided people.
Expert Political Judgment
Author: Philip E. Tetlock
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400888816
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
Since its original publication, Expert Political Judgment by New York Times bestselling author Philip Tetlock has established itself as a contemporary classic in the literature on evaluating expert opinion. Tetlock first discusses arguments about whether the world is too complex for people to find the tools to understand political phenomena, let alone predict the future. He evaluates predictions from experts in different fields, comparing them to predictions by well-informed laity or those based on simple extrapolation from current trends. He goes on to analyze which styles of thinking are more successful in forecasting. Classifying thinking styles using Isaiah Berlin's prototypes of the fox and the hedgehog, Tetlock contends that the fox--the thinker who knows many little things, draws from an eclectic array of traditions, and is better able to improvise in response to changing events--is more successful in predicting the future than the hedgehog, who knows one big thing, toils devotedly within one tradition, and imposes formulaic solutions on ill-defined problems. He notes a perversely inverse relationship between the best scientific indicators of good judgement and the qualities that the media most prizes in pundits--the single-minded determination required to prevail in ideological combat. Clearly written and impeccably researched, the book fills a huge void in the literature on evaluating expert opinion. It will appeal across many academic disciplines as well as to corporations seeking to develop standards for judging expert decision-making. Now with a new preface in which Tetlock discusses the latest research in the field, the book explores what constitutes good judgment in predicting future events and looks at why experts are often wrong in their forecasts.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400888816
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
Since its original publication, Expert Political Judgment by New York Times bestselling author Philip Tetlock has established itself as a contemporary classic in the literature on evaluating expert opinion. Tetlock first discusses arguments about whether the world is too complex for people to find the tools to understand political phenomena, let alone predict the future. He evaluates predictions from experts in different fields, comparing them to predictions by well-informed laity or those based on simple extrapolation from current trends. He goes on to analyze which styles of thinking are more successful in forecasting. Classifying thinking styles using Isaiah Berlin's prototypes of the fox and the hedgehog, Tetlock contends that the fox--the thinker who knows many little things, draws from an eclectic array of traditions, and is better able to improvise in response to changing events--is more successful in predicting the future than the hedgehog, who knows one big thing, toils devotedly within one tradition, and imposes formulaic solutions on ill-defined problems. He notes a perversely inverse relationship between the best scientific indicators of good judgement and the qualities that the media most prizes in pundits--the single-minded determination required to prevail in ideological combat. Clearly written and impeccably researched, the book fills a huge void in the literature on evaluating expert opinion. It will appeal across many academic disciplines as well as to corporations seeking to develop standards for judging expert decision-making. Now with a new preface in which Tetlock discusses the latest research in the field, the book explores what constitutes good judgment in predicting future events and looks at why experts are often wrong in their forecasts.
The Big Book of Bisexual Trials and Errors
Author: Elizabeth Beier
Publisher: Northwest Press
ISBN: 1943890420
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 220
Book Description
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Arial} Elizabeth Beier chronicles true-life romantic tales as she breaks up with a long-term boyfriend and navigates a brave new world: dating women. Beier tackles the complexities of sexuality and self image with a conversational and immediate art style and stories anyone who’s ever struggled with dating can relate to.
Publisher: Northwest Press
ISBN: 1943890420
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 220
Book Description
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Arial} Elizabeth Beier chronicles true-life romantic tales as she breaks up with a long-term boyfriend and navigates a brave new world: dating women. Beier tackles the complexities of sexuality and self image with a conversational and immediate art style and stories anyone who’s ever struggled with dating can relate to.
United States Attorneys' Manual
Author: United States. Department of Justice
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Justice, Administration of
Languages : en
Pages : 720
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Justice, Administration of
Languages : en
Pages : 720
Book Description
Remedies against Immunity?
Author: Valentina Volpe
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3662623048
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 427
Book Description
The open access book examines the consequences of the Italian Constitutional Court’s Judgment 238/2014 which denied the German Republic’s immunity from civil jurisdiction over claims to reparations for Nazi crimes committed during World War II. This landmark decision created a range of currently unresolved legal problems and controversies which continue to burden the political and diplomatic relationship between Germany and Italy. The judgment has wide repercussions for core concepts of international law and for the relationship between different legal orders. The book’s three interlinked legal themes are state immunity, reparation for serious human rights violations and war crimes (including historical ones), and the interaction between international and domestic institutions, notably courts. Besides a meticulous legal analysis of these themes from the perspectives of international law, European law, and domestic law, the book contributes to the civic debate on the issue of war crimes and reparation for the victims of armed conflict. It proposes concrete legal and political solutions to the parties involved for overcoming the present paralysis with a view to a sustainable interstate conflict solution and helps judges directly involved in the pending post-Sentenza reparation cases. After an Introduction (Part I), Part II, Immunity, investigates core international law concepts such as those of pre/post-judgment immunity and international state responsibility. Part III, Remedies, examines the tension between state immunity and the right to remedy and suggests original schemes for solving the conundrum under international law. Part IV adds European Perspectives by showcasing relevant regional examples of legal cooperation and judicial dialogue. Part V, Courts, addresses questions on the role of judges in the areas of immunity and human rights at both the national and international level. Part VI, Negotiations, suggests concrete ways out of the impasse with a forward-looking aspiration. In Part VII, The Past and Future of Remedies, a sitting judge in the Court that decided Sentenza 238/2014 adds some critical reflections on the Judgment. Joseph H. H. Weiler’s Dialogical Epilogue concludes the volume by placing the main findings of the book in a wider European and international law perspective.
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3662623048
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 427
Book Description
The open access book examines the consequences of the Italian Constitutional Court’s Judgment 238/2014 which denied the German Republic’s immunity from civil jurisdiction over claims to reparations for Nazi crimes committed during World War II. This landmark decision created a range of currently unresolved legal problems and controversies which continue to burden the political and diplomatic relationship between Germany and Italy. The judgment has wide repercussions for core concepts of international law and for the relationship between different legal orders. The book’s three interlinked legal themes are state immunity, reparation for serious human rights violations and war crimes (including historical ones), and the interaction between international and domestic institutions, notably courts. Besides a meticulous legal analysis of these themes from the perspectives of international law, European law, and domestic law, the book contributes to the civic debate on the issue of war crimes and reparation for the victims of armed conflict. It proposes concrete legal and political solutions to the parties involved for overcoming the present paralysis with a view to a sustainable interstate conflict solution and helps judges directly involved in the pending post-Sentenza reparation cases. After an Introduction (Part I), Part II, Immunity, investigates core international law concepts such as those of pre/post-judgment immunity and international state responsibility. Part III, Remedies, examines the tension between state immunity and the right to remedy and suggests original schemes for solving the conundrum under international law. Part IV adds European Perspectives by showcasing relevant regional examples of legal cooperation and judicial dialogue. Part V, Courts, addresses questions on the role of judges in the areas of immunity and human rights at both the national and international level. Part VI, Negotiations, suggests concrete ways out of the impasse with a forward-looking aspiration. In Part VII, The Past and Future of Remedies, a sitting judge in the Court that decided Sentenza 238/2014 adds some critical reflections on the Judgment. Joseph H. H. Weiler’s Dialogical Epilogue concludes the volume by placing the main findings of the book in a wider European and international law perspective.
A Wilderness of Error
Author: Errol Morris
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143123696
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 575
Book Description
Soon to be an FX Docuseries from Emmy® Award-Winning Producer Marc Smerling (The Jinx) featuring the author Errol Morris! Academy Award–winning filmmaker Errol Morris examines one of the most notorious and mysterious murder trials of the twentieth century In this profoundly original meditation on truth and the justice system, Errol Morris—a former private detective and director of The Thin Blue Line—delves deeply into the infamous Jeffrey MacDonald murder case. MacDonald, whose pregnant wife and two young daughters were brutally murdered in 1970, was convicted of the killings in 1979 and remains in prison today. The culmination of an investigation spanning over twenty years and a masterly reinvention of the true-crime thriller, A Wilderness of Error is a shocking book because it shows that everything we have been told about the case is deeply unreliable and that crucial elements of case against MacDonald are simply not true.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143123696
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 575
Book Description
Soon to be an FX Docuseries from Emmy® Award-Winning Producer Marc Smerling (The Jinx) featuring the author Errol Morris! Academy Award–winning filmmaker Errol Morris examines one of the most notorious and mysterious murder trials of the twentieth century In this profoundly original meditation on truth and the justice system, Errol Morris—a former private detective and director of The Thin Blue Line—delves deeply into the infamous Jeffrey MacDonald murder case. MacDonald, whose pregnant wife and two young daughters were brutally murdered in 1970, was convicted of the killings in 1979 and remains in prison today. The culmination of an investigation spanning over twenty years and a masterly reinvention of the true-crime thriller, A Wilderness of Error is a shocking book because it shows that everything we have been told about the case is deeply unreliable and that crucial elements of case against MacDonald are simply not true.
The Law's Flaws
Author: Larry Laudan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781848901995
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
This is a book about the law's failure as a system of empirical inquiry. While the US Supreme Court repeatedly says that the aim of a trial is to find out the truth about a crime, there is abundant evidence that many of the rules of evidence and legal procedure are not truth-conducive. Quite the contrary; many are truth-thwarting. Relevant evidence of defendant's guilt is often excluded; reasonable inferences from the available evidence are likewise often excluded. When a defendant elects not to testify, jurors are told to draw no inculpatory inferences from the former's refusal to be questioned. If evidence of prior crimes committed by the defendant is admitted (and often it is excluded), jurors are strictly told to use them only for deciding whether the defendant lied during his testimony and not as evidence of his guilt. Making matters worse, the most important evidence rule of all (saying that defendant can be convicted only if there are no reasonable doubts about his guilt) is monumentally vague; and judges are under firm instruction to decline jurors' frequent requests to explain what a 'reasonable doubt' is. Lastly, this book examines the fact that American courts collect little information about how often they convict the innocent and no information about how often they acquit the guilty. This is tragic because ignorance of the error rates in trials and in plea bargains means that citizens have no grounds for confidence in the judicial system; such a condition of non-transparency should be unacceptable in a democracy. Reform is urgent and this book sketches some of the necessary changes.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781848901995
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
This is a book about the law's failure as a system of empirical inquiry. While the US Supreme Court repeatedly says that the aim of a trial is to find out the truth about a crime, there is abundant evidence that many of the rules of evidence and legal procedure are not truth-conducive. Quite the contrary; many are truth-thwarting. Relevant evidence of defendant's guilt is often excluded; reasonable inferences from the available evidence are likewise often excluded. When a defendant elects not to testify, jurors are told to draw no inculpatory inferences from the former's refusal to be questioned. If evidence of prior crimes committed by the defendant is admitted (and often it is excluded), jurors are strictly told to use them only for deciding whether the defendant lied during his testimony and not as evidence of his guilt. Making matters worse, the most important evidence rule of all (saying that defendant can be convicted only if there are no reasonable doubts about his guilt) is monumentally vague; and judges are under firm instruction to decline jurors' frequent requests to explain what a 'reasonable doubt' is. Lastly, this book examines the fact that American courts collect little information about how often they convict the innocent and no information about how often they acquit the guilty. This is tragic because ignorance of the error rates in trials and in plea bargains means that citizens have no grounds for confidence in the judicial system; such a condition of non-transparency should be unacceptable in a democracy. Reform is urgent and this book sketches some of the necessary changes.