推定的运用与刑事证明方式

推定和证明同为刑事诉讼中的事实认定方式,二者的区别仅在于所要求达到的标准不同。推定是在通常意义上的证明所要求达到的标准无法实现的情况下,基于刑事政策的考量和司法价值的综合权衡,不得已而采用的一种事实认定方式,是"无罪推定"原则的例外。推定的运用与证明方式密切相关,本文在全面考察了历史上曾出现过的证明方式的基础上,指出:只有在"推理论证"的事实认定方式中,推定才有存在的空间。     

刑事推定及其在司法实践中的运用

刑事推定是一种证明方法,即在刑事诉讼之中,裁判者以法律的规定为依据,在反驳不成立的情况下,由基础事实认定推定事实的一种事实认定方式。目前我国解决刑事司法实践中的一些问题时,在使用刑事推定的过程中往往存在标准不一,容易出现错误认定,造成错案,不利于准确打击犯罪和保护社会法益,给社会带来诸多负面影响。因此,刑事推定的立法规范极其必要,并且应该尽快研究确立刑事推定所遵循的原则和适用规则。     

无口供受贿罪的认定应适用刑事推定

无口供受贿罪的认定适用刑事推定，是指在一定条件下，被控受贿方不交待或不承认自己的受贿行为，但有其它证据证明，而被控方又不能否定其它证据的情况下，司法机关对被控方受贿事实予以推定认定。     

推定的界限及适用

对推定界定不清和运用不当是目前证据法研究中十分突出的问题。应当厘清推定与证明(推论)的关系，二者存在事实认定义务、认定方式、证明要求和证明责任承担上的差异，且性质不同。事实推定的概念混淆了推定机制与证明机制的区别，而且在我国可能破坏法治、冲击无罪推定原则。我国刑事立法和司法解释中，只有极少量的明示和暗示证明责任转移的规范才是推定规范。应当根据实践需要设立和完善推定规范，但必须考虑我国刑事司法模式和司法资源的对比关系谨慎为之。     

推定在刑事诉讼中的适用问题研究

推定是一种替代性的司法证明方法,以基础事实与推定事实之间所具有的常态联系为前提,通过对基础事实的证明,可以直接认定推定事实的成立。目前我国刑事诉讼法确立了诸多以"非法占有目的""明知"等为要素的推定规范,很大程度上弥补了特定案件证据短缺、证明困难的不足。但一直以来,学者们对刑事推定适用过程中的证明标准、范围界限及效果未能形成统一,司法裁判中,过分运用经验和逻辑法则进行案件事实的推定,也不可避免地会导致司法的误判。文章认为,为更好地规避刑事推定的局限,有必要对其适用规则进行完善。     

论点集锦

无口供受贿罪的认定应适用刑事推定江西省吉安市人民检察院的蔡新茂认为:无口供受贿罪的认定适用刑事推定,是指在一定条件下,被控受贿方不交待或不承认自己的受贿行为,但有其它证据证明,而被控方又不能否定其它证据的情况下,司法机关对被控方受贿事实予以推定认定。无口供受贿罪的认定适用推定原则,在现实司法实践中有重大意义。一是     

证明困难视阈下的事实认定与刑事推定

从法律效果上看,刑事推定实际具有实体与程序的双重功能。以“主观罪责型”推定与“证明责任型”推定为例,前者改变了构成要件中主观罪责的证明方式,后者则在此基础上,将有限的举证责任转由被告人承担,使其成为刑事推定的不利方。为在不违背罪刑法定原则与无罪推定原则的前提下,充分实现刑事推定所预想的制度目标,不但需要对其基础事实之内容予以严格限定,突出其法定性与可证明性,而且需要明确推定事实与裁判事实之间的合理界分,强调事实认定者的心证对推定结果的可能影响,并在适用前提上,仅将刑事推定作为证明困难处境下的末位选择加以使用,在作用范围方面可将其适当扩大至定罪外的部分量刑情节。在立法选择上,考虑到刑事诉讼人权保障的基本立场,刑事立法应当对刑事推定保持最低限度的容忍态度,尽量减少其创设及适用。     

推定在刑事证据认定和运用中的地位和作用

一、推定的概念与种类在刑事诉讼中,作为一种证明方法的推定,实际上是对已有证据或已知事实进行逻辑推理、分析认定,从中推论出未知事实的存在与否。也可以说,推定就是推理和认定的简称。它是逻辑学中推理的思维形式在分析认定刑事证据方面的具体运用;是在审查判断证据时,使自己对案件的主观认识符合客观实际的一种特定方法。在司法实践中,刑事证据的推定大体可分四种不同类型:     

诈骗罪中“非法占有目的”的刑事推定

司法实践中,“主观目的”的判定一直是目的犯认定的难点和疑点之一。目前对于诈骗罪中“非法占有目的”的认定没有统一的标准,可以引入刑事推定证明方法来破解诈骗案件中行为人主观目的认定难的问题,弥补我国相关案件认定方法的缺失,也能避免直接认定带来的不利后果。在使用刑事推定方法时必须坚持主客观相一致原则,明确案件所涵盖的基础事实以及刑事推定的步骤;检察机关还应充分发挥法律监督职能,对审判活动进行监督,以确保刑事推定结论的合理性。     

刑事推定与被告人的抗辩责任

在刑事诉讼中 ,刑事推定是认定案件事实的一种重要方法 ,在某种程度上减轻了控方证明的难度。对案件适用推定不是有罪推定 ,而恰恰与无罪推定原则具有相容性。推定具有可反驳性 ,被告要推翻控方的推定必须要提出证据证明 ,承担抗辩责任。此种抗辩责任与控方承担的证明责任不是一个概念。     

Bhartṛhari and Maṇḍana on Avidyā

The concept of avidyā is one of the central categories in the Advaita of Śaṇkara and Maṇḍana. Shifting the focus from māyā, interpreted either as illusion or as the divine power, this concept brings ignorance to the forefront in describing duality and bondage. Although all Advaitins accept avidyā as a category, its scope and nature is interpreted in multiple ways. Key elements in Maṇḍana’s philosophy include the plurality of avidyā, individual selves as its substrate and the Brahman as its field (viṣaya), and the distinction in avidyā between non-apprehension and misapprehension. A closer investigation shows that Maṇḍana is directly influenced by Bhartṛhari’s linguistic non-dualism in developing the concept of avidyā. This study also compares other key constituents such as vivartta and pariṇāma that are relevant to the analysis of avidyā. As the concept of counter-image (pratibimba) emerges as a distinct stream of Advaita subsequent to Maṇḍana, this study also compares the application of pratibimba in the writings of Bhartṛhari and Maṇḍana.     

Immigration,intermarriage and the changing face of Europe in the post war period

In this article we compare the propensity to intermarry of various migrant groups and their children who settled in Germany, France, England, Belgium and the Netherlands in the post-war period, using a wide range of available statistical data. We try to explain different intermarriage patterns within the framework of Alba and Nee's assimilation theory and pay special attention to the role of religion, colour and colonial background. We therefore compare colonial with non colonial migrants and within these categories between groups with ‘European’ (Christian) and non-European (Islam, Hinduism) religions. First of all, religion appears to be an important variable. Migrants whose faith has no tradition in Western Europe intermarry at a much lower rate than those whose religious backgrounds correspond with those that are common in the country of settlement. The rate of ethnic endogamous marriages in Western Europe are highest in Hindu and Muslim communities, often regardless if they came as guest workers or colonial migrants. Whereas differences in religion diminish the propensity to intermarry, colour or ‘racial’ differences on the other hand seem to be less important. This is largely explained by the pre-migration socialisation. Furthermore, the paper argues that the attention to institutions, as rightly advocated by Richard Alba and Victor Nee, needs a more refined and layered elaboration. Institutions, often as barriers to intermarriage, do not only emanate from the receiving society, but also—be it less formalized—within migrant communities. Especially religions and family systems, but also organized nationalist feelings, can have a profound influence on how migrants think about endogamy. Finally, strong pressures to assimilate, often through institutionalized forms of discrimination and stigmatization, not only produce isolation and frustrate assimilation (with resulting low intermarriage rates), but can also stimulate assimilation by 'passing' mechanisms. These factors, together with a more comparative perspective, are not completely ignored in the new assimilation theory, but—as this study of Western European intermarriage patterns stresses—deserve to be included more systematically in historical and social scientist analyses.     

Unraveling the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Kāvyaprakāśa</Emphasis>: Jayadeva Pīyūṣavarṣa’s idiosyncratic sequence of topics in the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Candrāloka</Emphasis>

In his twelfth century alaṃkāraśāstra, the Candrāloka, Jayadeva Pīyūṣavarṣa reverses the sequence of topics found in Mammaṭa’s Kāvyapr-akāśa, an earlier and immensely popular work. With such a structural revisionism, Jayadeva asserts the autonomy of his own work and puts forth an ambitious critique of earlier approaches to literary analysis. Jayadeva investigates the technical and aesthetic components of poetry in the first part of the Candrāloka, prior to his formal semantic investigations in the latter half of the text, thus suggesting that aesthetic evaluations of poetry beneficially inform scientific investigations of language. Jayadeva’s organization of his chapters on the semantic operations, moreover, intimates that the study of suggestive and metaphoric functions of language clarifies our understanding of denotation, which is conventionally understood to be the primary and direct path of verbal designation.     

Illumination,Imagination, Creativity: Rājaśekhara,Kuntaka, and Jagannātha on <Emphasis Type="Italic">Pratibhā</Emphasis>

Sanskrit poeticians make the visionary faculty of pratibhā a necessary part of the professional poet’s make-up. The term has a pre-history in Bhartṛhari’s linguistic metaphysics, where it is used to explain the unitary perception of meaning. This essay examines the relation between pratibhā and possible theories of the imagination, with a focus on three unusual theoreticians—Rājaśekhara, Kuntaka, and Jagannātha Paṇḍita. Rājaśekhara offers an analysis of pratibhā that is heavily interactive, requiring the discerning presence of the bhāvaka listener or critic; he also positions pratibhā in relation to Bildung (vyutpatti) and practice. For Kuntaka, pratibhā, never an ex nihilo creation by a poet, serves as the basis for the peculiar forms of intensified insight and experience that constitute poetry; these may also involve the creative scrambling and re-articulation of the object in terms of its systemic composition. At times, Kuntaka’s pratibhā comes close to a strong notion of imaginative process. But the full-fledged thematization of the imagination, and of pratibhā as its support and mechanism, is best seen in the seventeenth-century debates preserved for us by Jagannātha. A link is suggested between the discourse of poetic imagination in Jagannātha and similar themes that turn up in Indo-Persian poets such as Bedil.     

Preventing Homelessness for System‐Involved Youth

Too many youth and young adults find themselves on the streets, couch‐surfing with friends, in emergency shelters or worse, after exiting the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. In some circumstances, youth have had court hearings until their exit from the legal system, but those hearings have not focused on long‐range plans of youth and emergencies youth may encounter. In other circumstances, there has been little or no planning prior to discharge, especially for young people who leave the juvenile justice system. Courts can and should prevent, alleviate or end youth homelessness for youth who appear before them through strategies that are enumerated in the recently‐passed NCJFCJ resolution. This article expounds on three of these strategies – coordinating transition and re‐entry plans, insisting on effective legal representation of youth, and utilizing sound judicial leadership. It also describes the concurrent efforts of the Coalition for Juvenile Justice and the American Bar Association's Homeless Youth Legal Network to remove legal barriers and improve outcomes for youth and young adults experiencing homelessness.     

Best practices for structuring a family court parenting plan evaluation under the 2022 AFCC Guidelines

Evaluation appointment orders provide enforceable scaffolding for conduct of family court parenting plan evaluations, and use of the evaluator's reports, feedback, file, and testimony. Unlike a contract, a stipulated or adjudicated appointment order is directly enforceable by the family court. It unambiguously positions the evaluator as the family court's appointee – answerable directly to the court and, in some jurisdictions, protected by quasi-judicial immunity from damages claims. A well-crafted appointment order governs the roles and expectations of the court, the evaluator, the parties, the lawyers, and the collateral witnesses. An appointment order mandates the legal duties, rights, powers, and responsibilities of the professionals, the parties, and the collateral witnesses. At minimum, an appointment order articulates the legal basis for the appointment, the purpose and scope of the evaluation, compensation of evaluator, and the duty of the parties to participate in the process. A written evaluation protocol or procedures statement discloses in advance the methods of investigation and assessment that the evaluator intends to use. Together, the appointment order and written protocol help the evaluator, lawyers, parents, and judge manage the complexity of the evaluation process.     

The Supreme Array Scripture: A New Interpretation of the Title “Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra”

This article argues for a new interpretation of the Sanskrit compound gaṇḍa-vyūha as it is used in the common title of the Mahāyāna text the Gaṇḍavyūha-Sūtra.The author begins by providing a brief history of the sūtra’s appellations in Chinese and Tibetan sources. Next, the meanings of gaṇḍa (the problematic member of the compound) are explored. The author proposes that contemporary scholars have overlooked a meaning of gaṇḍa occurring in some compounds, wherein gaṇḍa can mean simply “great,” “big” or “massive.” This general sense is particularly common in the compound gaṇda-śaila (a “massive rock” or “boulder”) and is found in such texts as the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, the Harivaṃśa and the Harṣacarita. Following the discussion of Gaṇḍa, the author examines the term vyūha (“array”) as it is used in the Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra. The article concludes with the suggestion that a more appropriate translation of the Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra would be “The Supreme array Scripture.”     

Evaluation of six presumptive tests for blood, their specificity, sensitivity, and effect on high molecular-weight DNA

Luminol, leuchomalachite green, phenolphthalein, Hemastix, Hemident, and Bluestar are all used as presumptive tests for blood. In this study, the tests were subjected to dilute blood (from 1:10,000 to 1:10,000,000), many common household substance, and chemicals. Samples were tested for DNA to determine whether the presumptive tests damaged or destroyed DNA. The DNA loci tested were D2S1338 and D19S433. Leuchomalachite green had a sensitivity of 1:10,000, while the remaining tests were able to detect blood to a dilution of 1:100,000. Substances tested include saliva, semen, potato, tomato, tomato sauce, tomato sauce with meat, red onion, red kidney bean, horseradish, 0.1 M ascorbic acid, 5% bleach, 10% cupric sulfate, 10% ferric sulfate, and 10% nickel chloride. Of all the substances tested, not one of the household items reacted with every test; however, the chemicals did. DNA was recovered and amplified from luminol, phenolphthalein, Hemastix, and Bluestar, but not from leuchomalachite green or Hemident.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Anyathākhyāti</Emphasis>: A Critique by Appaya Dīkṣita in the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Parimala</Emphasis>

In this paper, the problem of illusory perception, as approached by the Nyāya and Advaita Vedānta schools of philosophy, is discussed from the standpoint of the Parimala. This seminal work belonging to the Bhāmatī tradition of Advaita Vedānta was composed in the sixteenth century by the polymath Appaya Dīk?ita. In the context of discussing various theories of illusion, Dīk?ita dwells upon the Nyāya theory of anyathākhyāti, and its connection with jñānalak?a?apratyāsatti as a causal factor for perception, and closely examines if such an extraordinary (alaukika) perception is tenable to explain illusory perception. He then proceeds to point out the deficiencies of this model and thereby brings to the fore the anirvacanīyakhyāti of Advaitins as the only theory which stands scrutiny.     

Monks Who Have Sex: Pārājika Penance in Indian Buddhist Monasticisms

In the study of Buddhism it is commonly accepted that a monk or nun who commits a pārājika offence is permanently and irrevocably expelled from the Buddhist monastic order. This view is based primarily on readings of the Pāli Vinaya. With the exception of the Pāli Vinaya, however, all other extant Buddhist monastic law codes (Dharmaguptaka, Mahāsāṅghika, Mahīśāsaka, Sarvāstivāda and Mūlasarvāstivāda) contain detailed provisions for monks and nuns who commit pārājikas but nevertheless wish to remain within the saṅgha. These monastics are not expelled. Rather, they are granted a special status known as the śikṣādattaka. In this paper I explore the rules. concerning pārājika penance and the śikṣādattaka with specific regard to monastic celibacy. Given that five out of six extant law codes recognise this remarkable accommodation to the rule of celibacy, I argue that we must look to Vinayas other than the Pāli Vinaya if we are to arrive at a nuanced and representative view of Indian Buddhist monasticism.

Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet. Augustine of Hippo (354–430 C.E.)