宪法权利视角下的美国目击者辨认证据规则

自1967年的United States v．Wade案开始，美国最高法院逐步发展出目击者辨认证据（排除）规则。在各时期主流司法理念的影响下，律师帮助权和正当程序权利这两项宪法权利共同见证着该规则盛极而衰的历史演变。尽管正当程序正经受国际化浪潮的影响，但是却受到当前美国主流司法理念的抑制．于是很难再产生一次新的“革命”，目击者辨认证据规则的这一重要理论基础从而也大为削弱。该规则很难再单纯地继续因循修补加完善的传统套路，而是同时需要另辟蹊径采取成文法化的路径来规制辨认程序．这是美国司法界目前及未来面临的一项重要课题。     

论刑事辨认

辨认是侦查实践中经常使用的一种侦查行为,其实施必须遵循一定的程序性要求,辨认笔录的使用也必须符合证据规范.对此,域外国家立法大都对其进行了规定,司法实践中也不断通过判例对其加以修正;我国刑事诉讼法没有规定辨认制度,现有的相关规定简陋粗疏,无法对侦查实践进行指导与约束.应当改进我国的辨认制度、明确辨认的法律性质、完善辨认规则体系,加强犯罪嫌疑人权利保障,规定辨认笔录的证据效力.     

刑事错案与辨认

当前在刑事辨认程序中存在办案人员不当组织辨认或错误地采信辨认结论等不当行为,这是导致错案发生的一个重要原因。建议在立法层面尽快明确刑事辨认证据调查手段之地位,系统规定各类刑事辨认的适用条件、操作规则、监督保障机制,规定辨认结论的采纳与采信规则;在实务层面切实加强对司法实务部门工作人员认知科学和心理学有关知识的培训;在理论研究上,多运用实证研究的方法。     

刑事侦查辨认存在的问题及解决路径

侦查辨认是刑事诉讼过程中由司法人员组织的对与犯罪有关的人、物品、文件、尸体或者场所进行辨识的活动。辨认笔录是其呈现的证据形式。实践中较为常见的问题包括:侦查辨认准备不适当、违反辨认规则、辨认笔录的制作存在瑕疵、对是否应当组织辨认把握不准确等。建议从构建以审判为中心视野下的侦捕、侦诉、诉审关系出发,建构辨认规程、辨认笔录审查机制、辨认配套制度等制度,加强犯罪嫌疑人律师在场权等权利和其他辨认参与人权利保障方,以期缓解上述问题,进一步完善我国辨认制度。     

被害人辨认错误及其防范

被害人辨认错误是导致刑事错案发生的主要原因之一。被害人“身临其境”和“身受其害”的当事人身份，决定了被害人体验案件事实和辨认犯罪嫌疑人存在局限性，容易出现某些“诚实”的错误。分析被害人辨认错误的成因，进一步完善辨认规则，健全辨认程序，有助于提高被害人辨认的准确性和可信性，防范错误辨认，保护被害人权利。     

辨认原理、规则之解析与构建

辨认的原理和规则有着密切的关系。辨认的原理是辨认规则的指导和依据,而辨认规则是辨认原理的体现和具体化。辨认规则是以辨认原理为依据,通过具体的活动落实辨认原理过程的规则性总结。没有辨认原理,辨认规则就失去了理论基础;没有辨认规则,辨认原理也难以得到实现和验证。因此,二者密切关系不言而喻。以辨认原理为理念支撑,以辨认规则为技术指导,以异国异域辨认制度为参照,是构建中国辨认制度的重要路径。     

浅析侦查辨认规则

侦查辨认是在侦查活动中运用广泛的侦查措施,辨认结果以辨认笔录的方式成为我国刑事诉讼证据的法定形式。实务中,辨认规则作为辨认活动开展的核心尤为重要,但也存在诸多值得考量的问题,文章将针对辨认规则的相关问题进行浅析。     

辨认笔录证据能力问题研究——以新《刑事诉讼法》为视角

辨认笔录作为新型的证据种类为新《刑事诉讼法》所确认,在辨认程序缺乏立法规制的情况下,如何对其可靠性和合法性进行审查判断成为实践中的难题。"两院三部"联合制定的《死刑案件证据规定》初步确立了辨认结果的审查判断规则,为法庭审查和采信辨认证据提供了一定的根据。但是,在辨认录像制度、见证人在场制度以及警察出庭作证制度尚未有效确立的情况下,对具有"传闻证据"性质的辨认笔录采用书面审查的方法仍具有相当大的局限性,不但难以发现辨认过程中存在的程序瑕疵和程序违法问题,而且无法完成对辨认结果可靠性的实质审查任务。本文针对我国侦查实践中常用的列队辨认和照片辨认程序,提出了具体的审查内容和方法,对"暗示性辨认"提出了具有可操作性的判断规则。对于辨认结果证据能力的认定,可以借鉴美国的"总体情况规则",采用"可靠性"判断标准,对于违反辨认规则获得的辨认结果,并不当然否定其证据能力,当该结果获得了"真实性的情况保障"时,可以作为定案根据。     

影响错误辨认的因素及侦查对策

辨认是识别和确认嫌疑人等有关案件证据的一项侦查措施,在侦查和司法阶段发挥重要作用。由于辨认主体和客体等因素的影响往往造成在实施辨认阶段时出现差错。本文指出为了更好的进行侦查和为审判提供正确的证据,我国应加强防范错误辨认,以便更快更准确的缉捕犯罪嫌疑人,提高办案效率。     

论刑事辨认笔录的证据能力

辨认人的感知、记忆、辨识以及辨认笔录的制作均可能存在错误,而辨认错误是导致刑事误判的一项重要原因.英美法国家建立了较为完善的辨认笔录证据能力规则,其中,美国以传闻法则、律师帮助权和正当法律程序对审判外辨认进行规制,英国则通过传闻法则与证据排除规则对先前辨认陈述予以规制.我国辨认笔录的证据能力规则极为不完善,辨认人及辨认笔录制作人员出庭作证制度亦极为疏漏.为此,有必要从准入规则与排除规则两个层面对辨认笔录的证据能力规则予以建构.     

Psychological factors in eyewitness identifications

It has been suggested that incorrect eyewitness identifications have led to more miscarriages of justice than all other factors combined. Several issues which are likely to affect the accuracy of eyewitness identifications are discussed. Research on the impact of race on identifications has illustrated an “own-race bias” in identification accuracy, but it is not yet clear to what extent this bias is related to racial prejudice or amount of cross-racial experience. Although the U.S. Supreme Court has suggested that eyewitnesses who are more certain of their identifications are more likely to be correct, research on this issue has yielded mixed results. Because of its fallible nature, some writers have argued that eyewitness evidence should be used sparingly or not at all in the judicial process. Other suggestions highlight procedures for minimizing bias and providing legal safeguards for the suspect during the identification process, or educating jurors about the potential fallibility of eyewitness evidence by means of judge's cautionary jury instructions or by the use of researchers as expert witnesses. Controversial issues concerning researchers as expert witnesses are discussed.     

刑事人身辨认证据种类辨析及相关证据规则的适用

2012年3月14日,全国人大通过了经过全面修改的《刑事诉讼法》,在新《刑事诉讼法》中,辨认笔录第一次以法定证据的形式出现在了我国的刑事立法中.随后出台的配套司法解释以《刑事诉讼法》为依据,构建了较为完备的人身辨认证据规则体系,这改变了长期以来辨认笔录作为证据于法无据、作为侦查线索运用混乱的失范局面,是一个显著的进步.但规范层面的概念界定并没有完全消除理论上对于人身辨认证据种类方面的争论,人身辨认在证明对象、心理机制和证明方式上与相关言词证据千丝万缕的联系为人身辨认证据规则的适用增加了困难.因此,有必要从人身辨认证据种类界定入手,探究辨认证据在证据规则适用上的特殊问题,力图强化辨认证据的审查判断,以降低错误辨认的可能性及其对案件实体结果的不利影响.     

重新鉴定增多原因与对策研究

科学证据的运用,包括鉴定过程（程序）与鉴定结果（实体）运用两个方面。重新鉴定是鉴定程序中一个重要问题。本文侧重从鉴定实务和鉴定管理角度,分析重新鉴定增多的局部原因和总体原因;认为这种现象是社会主义法治建设过程中必然出现的一个阶段性问题,有其积极意义也有消极作用,既应合理支持又要依法控制;设计了立法方面四项控制措施,司法方面六项控制措施,鉴定管理方面五项控制措施。多管齐下,综合治理,方能医好政法部门深感头疼的这一＂顽症＂。     

Courtroom testimony by psychologists on eyewitness identification issues

This article makes two major points in regard to expert psychological testimony on eyewitness identification. First, the attention devoted by psychologists to eyewitness identification issues is far out of proportion to the incidence of trials involving eyewitness identifications of criminal defendants; furthermore, the often-expressed concern over wrongful convictions is probably misplaced. Second, the experimental methods used in studies of eyewitness performance are fundamentally unsuited for drawing conclusions about actual witnesses. Hence, there is not an adequate scientific foundation for expert psychological testimony on eyewitness identification. Archival research is perhaps the most promising approach to the study of the criminal justice system.     

Influences of accent and ethnic background on perceptions of eyewitness testimony

Abstract

The purpose of the present work was to investigate the effect two eyewitness factors, accent and ethnic background, have on the perceived favorability of eyewitness testimony and case disposition in criminal trials. Six variations of testimony were created and videotaped. The videotapes varied by accent and ethnic background of the eyewitness; the testimony text was identical. Four eyewitness favorability variables, (a) credibility, (b) judgment of accuracy, (c) deceptiveness, and (d) prestige, as well as their relationship to case disposition, were measured. One hundred and seventy-four undergraduate participants viewed one of the six videotapes. Results indicate that there was a significant main effect of accent for the four eyewitness favorability variables. Accent by ethnic background interactions also yielded significant findings for the four variables as well as for the defendant's degree of guilt. Results were interpreted using the Elaboration Likelihood Model. The potential importance of these results for judicial settings is discussed.     

A Meta-Analytic Review of the Effects of High Stress on Eyewitness Memory

In the past 30 years researchers have examined the impact of heightened stress on the fidelity of eyewitness memory. Meta-analyses were conducted on 27 independent tests of the effects of heightened stress on eyewitness identification of the perpetrator or target person and separately on 36 tests of eyewitness recall of details associated with the crime. There was considerable support for the hypothesis that high levels of stress negatively impact both types of eyewitness memory. Meta-analytic Z-scores, whether unweighted or weighted by sample size, ranged from –5.40 to –6.44 (high stress condition–low stress condition). The overall effect sizes were –.31 for both proportion of correct identifications and accuracy of eyewitness recall. Effect sizes were notably larger for target-present than for target-absent lineups, for eyewitness identification studies than for face recognition studies and for eyewitness studies employing a staged crime than for eyewitness studies employing other means to induce stress.     

Influence of confidence inflation and explanations for changes in confidence on evaluations of eyewitness identification accuracy

Guidelines for conducting police line‐ups typically recommend immediate assessment of eyewitness confidence following identification. This confidence level can presumably be used to estimate accuracy even in the presence of subsequently inflated confidence. In this experiment, we examined students' perceptions of immediate and inflated confidence and whether their reliance on confidence varies as a function of the explanations given by the eyewitness for her inflated confidence. Each of 126 university students viewed one of five versions of a videotaped officer–eyewitness interaction depicting an eyewitness identification and follow‐up interview in which the eyewitness gave a (1) high or (2) moderate level of confidence or inflated her confidence and gave a (3) confidence epiphany, (4) memory contamination, or (5) no explanation for the inflation. The memory contamination and confidence epiphany explanations led to lower ratings of identification accuracy as compared to the high‐confidence control condition, supporting the immediate confidence recommendation but in some ways contradicting previous research on this issue. The results suggest the need for further research to understand the conditions under which confidence inflation influences juror evaluations of eyewitness identification.     

Opinions of attorneys and law enforcement personnel on the accuracy of eyewitnes identifications

A survey was conducted to obtain the opinions of attorneys and law enforcement personnel regarding several important aspects of eyewitness evidence: (1) legal procedures concerning eyewitness evidence; (2) estimated frequency of mistaken eyewitness identification; (3) the effects of certain witness/ suspect characteristics on identification accuracy; (4) the amount of emphasis placed on eyewitness evidence by judges and juries; (5) the relationship between a witness' identification accuracy and certainty; and (6) the effect of stress and arousal on identification accuracy. The questionnaire was sent to a sample of defense and prosecuting attorneys in each of Florida's 20 Judicial Circuits, to each of the 67 county Sheriff's Departments in Florida, and to 100 randomly sampled Police Departments in Florida. Prosecuting attorneys and law enforcement officers indicated that they regard eyewitness identification as relatively accurate and that judges and juries appropriately emphasize its importance. Defense attorneys, on the other hand, felt that eyewitness identifications are often inaccurate and are overemphasized by triers of fact. The implications of these findings for the criminal justice system and their possible applications within the legal system are discussed.     

The Impact of Eyewitness Expert Evidence and Judicial Instruction on Juror Ability to Evaluate Eyewitness Testimony

It has been argued that psychologists should provide expert evidence to help jurors discriminate between accurate and inaccurate eyewitness identifications. In this article we compare the effects of judicial instruction with expert evidence that is either congruent or incongruent with the ground truth, focusing on juror ability to evaluate “real” eyewitness evidence. In contrast to studies which have employed “fictional” eyewitness designs, we found no appreciable effect of either congruent or incongruent expert evidence on participant-juror sensitivity to eyewitness accuracy. We discuss the role of methodology on the inferences and conclusions that can be made regarding the impact of eyewitness expert evidence.