再论刑事立案法律监督之完善

刑事立案监督是人民检察院进行法律监督的重要组成部分,也是启动刑事诉讼程序的关键环节,它对规范刑事立案权的正确行使,纠正立案活动中的违法行为具有重要的作用,但目前司法实践存在不少问题影响了检察机关实施刑事立案监督工作取得的预期法律效果。主要从我国立法关于检察机关刑事立案监督的程序规定入手,对刑事立案监督的对象、范围、标准以及具体实施中的一些问题进行了探讨,并结合我国司法实践和现实需要,从其价值实现角度提出立法必须明确刑事立案监督对象、完善刑事立案监督范围、建立专门刑事立案监督部门、完善刑事立案监督程序、完善刑事立案监督标准等。     

Citizen assessment of local criminal courts: Does fairness matter?

Public opinion about local court systems is an important area of scholarly inquiry that has received little empirical attention. This study utilized a survey implemented by the National Center for State Courts to examine the effect of perceptions of fairness (egalitarian and discriminatory) on respondent satisfaction with local court handling of criminal cases (violent criminal, drug, and juvenile delinquency). Findings from OLS regression analyses indicated that perception of both egalitarian and discriminatory fairness had an impact on respondent reported satisfaction with local court handling of criminal cases. The results of the analyses also suggested that instrumental concerns, in the context of perceptions that courts resolve cases in a timely manner, had a significant impact on public assessment of local criminal courts. By contrast, prior experiences with local courts and respondent demographic factors had little direct influence on respondent satisfaction with local criminal court handling of cases. Direction for future research and implications of the findings are discussed.     

未完全定型背景下的协商性法律监督——作为协商内容的制度改良

检察机关法律监督内容在当前世情、国情、社情下必须有新的内容。目前检察机关面临的外部环境要求检察机关以更积极的态度、方式来应对社会矛盾,依托执法办案参与政治活动。检察机关主要工作是刑事案件办理,但从延伸检察检察职能的角度看,更应关注犯罪发生的深层制度原因,并针对制度原因提出相应的政治建言。单个刑案所反映的制度原因可能是碎片式的,但将这些碎片式的制度原因结合到一起,就可能发现罪犯的产生具有必然性。因此,协商性法律监督就是要通过个案反映出的制度累积性矛盾,以对话、沟通、建议等协商性形式提出针对性的法律监督意见。在实务方面,检察机关参与制度改良既有现成的政治环境,也有相应的工作方式。今后的检察执法更应当注重点对面式的监督。     

Criminal and Procedural Fairness: Some Challenges to the Presumption of Innocence

The presumption of innocence (POI) requires all judges, juries, and other officials in a trial, to presume and treat any accused of criminal wrongdoing as innocent, until he or she is proven guilty. Although a POI lacks an authoritative definition, this overarching principle of procedural fairness is so robust and vital for the exercise of legal power in matters of criminal law that one rarely finds anyone questioning its standing. In this article I examine the rationale behind the POI from a different perspective. The basic assumption is that this procedural standard captures the tenor of a broader principle which seeks to ensure fairness in criminal proceedings as well as in criminal law doctrine. I argue that honouring a principle of fairness is not exclusively a matter of criminal procedural law but also something that is deeply rooted in other areas of criminal law doctrine. Hence: not maintaining a principle of fairness in criminal law doctrine could lead to the POI being compromised or even undermined. In the article, I draw attention to three areas in which I believe that criminal law policies threaten a principle of fairness: criminalising remote harm, doctrine of ignorance of law and inversed presumptions of guilt. My conclusion is that some solutions to so called doctrinal problems in criminal law, are questionable and their practical consequences (on a general level) are, at least partially, equal to treating an individual (in a trial) as guilty for something for which he or she ought not to be accountable. Hence: gaining the support of a POI could thus work as principle for keeping the use of criminal law moderate and in accordance with a principle of fairness.     

Race and the Construction of Evidence in Homicide Cases

Research that attempts to document racial or gender disparities in the criminal justice system inevitably paints a distorted picture if only one point in the criminal justice process is examined. For example, studies that look at who is sentenced to death among a group convicted of first-degree murder will miss exposure of biases that occur at earlier stages of the criminal justice process. In this paper, we looked at prosecutorial files on over 400 homicide cases from Caddo Parish, Louisiana (the Shreveport area). Results indicate that even after controlling for aggravating factors, cases with White female victims result in thicker files than other homicides, indicating more prosecutorial effort in attempting to secure convictions in such cases. This, in turn, was related to more severe sentencing of offenders convicted of killing whites and women. On the other hand, cases with black victims resulted in the thinnest case files and the least severe sentences.     

地方政法委协调处理刑事案件的制度考察及分析

我国的刑事案件事实认定机制不具有对抗"协调"的功能。书面认定案件事实是地方政法委协调处理案件的技术方式。现行制度设置决定了案件事实认定主体具有多元化的特征。要保证我国刑事诉讼程序得以有效运行,就需要地方政法委在一定程度上发挥协调功效;同时,要实现公、检、法三机关之间的利益平衡也需要地方政法委进行协调;此外,地方政法委通过对刑事案件进行协调处理也可以实现自身的政策目标。目前,不宜取消地方政法委对刑事案件的协调制度,但应当合理限制地方政法委协调刑事案件的范围,并禁止地方政法委对刑事案件事实进行"协调"。地方政法委对刑事案件适用程序的协调功效应部分予以保留。地方政法委也不应对办案机关之间因处理刑事案件而出现的利益"纠葛"进行"协调"。此外,地方政法委不能以实现政策目标为由,以协调处理刑事案件的方式,不当干预办案机关正常办案。     

REVISITING THE CRIMINOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF EXPOSURE TO FETAL TESTOSTERONE: A META‐ANALYSIS OF THE 2D:4D DIGIT RATIO*

As criminology has become more interdisciplinary in recent years, biosocial criminology has earned a place at the table. Although this perspective comes in many forms, one important proposition has gained increasing attention: that the 2D:4D finger digit ratio—a purported physical biomarker for exposure to fetal testosterone—is related to criminal, aggressive, and risky/impulsive behavior. Strong claims in the literature have been made for this link even though the findings seem to be inconsistent. To establish the empirical status of this relationship, we subjected this body of work to a meta‐analysis. Our multilevel analyses of 660 effect size estimates drawn from 47 studies (14,244 individual cases) indicate a small overall effect size (mean r = .047). Moderator analyses indicate that this effect is rather “general” across methodological specifications—findings that are at odds with theoretical propositions that specify the importance of exposure to fetal testosterone in predicting criminal and analogous behavior later in life. We conclude with a call for exercising caution over embracing the findings from one or two studies and instead highlight the importance of systematically organizing the full body of literature on a topic before making decisions about what does, and what does not, predict criminal and analogous behavior.     

Domestic violence and criminal justice training needs of social services workers

Domestic violence is a multifaceted problem that requires various agencies to work together to serve victims. Among other agencies that are involved in this collaborative effort, criminal justice officials must work with social services workers to ensure that cases are handled effectively. At the root of this collaborative effort, it is natural to question whether various parties have the knowledge needed to effectively respond to specific cases of domestic violence. In this study, attention was given to whether social workers possessed enough knowledge about various aspects of domestic violence, including information required to process domestic violence cases in the criminal justice system. In all, 186 social services worker supervisors in the Commonwealth of Virginia were asked to rate the level of knowledge they believed social services workers had regarding specific domestic violence topics with the level of knowledge workers they believed social workers needed regarding each domestic violence topic. Findings suggested that social services workers might have more problems dealing with the interpersonal nature of domestic violence cases than they do with the legal issues. At the same time, the supervisors suggested the workers knew less about specific legal options than they needed to know. Based on this, the authors suggest changes in training for all human services workers, including criminal justice officials and social workers.     

贪污贿赂犯罪案件诉讼程序的反思与重构

贪污贿赂犯罪作为权力型职务犯罪，越来越具有高智能性、高隐秘性的特点。现行刑诉法所规定的诉讼程序是在特定历史条件下仅为普通刑事犯罪所设计，并没有考虑到贪污贿赂犯罪案件的特殊性而赋予相应的特殊诉讼程序，已不能满足当前贪污贿赂犯罪侦查与审判工作的需要。规定贪污贿赂犯罪案件特殊诉讼程序，是检察机关职务犯罪侦查权合理配置与运行的重要内容。随着社会发展和科技进步，国家应权衡利弊得失，有必要对贪污贿赂犯罪案件的诉讼程序在立法上进行修改完善和在制度上进行科学构建。     

What happens when a reform works? The need to study unanticipated consequences of mandatory processing of domestic violence

One of the primary facets of the sociology of law is concerned with the relationships between formal rules and regulations having the force of governmental social control and the values, norms and practices of those who enforce them (or not). This “law in action” perspective enables research to test out the differential impact on legal decisions of both formal and informal aspects of social control (Hawkins, 1992). One of the limitations of recent work on domestic violence is that it focuses too narrowly on one or two negative sanctions, e.g., arrest or restraining orders, to the exclusion of the other options and the mix of formal and informal decisions in the criminal justice system as a whole (Reiss, 1974). This research attempts through a close analysis of the workings of the Quincy, Massachusetts criminal justice system in response to domestic violence, to identify the consequences, unanticipated and anticipated, of decisions made in several domains (public, police, prosecutors, and courts) of the criminal justice system. This study uses in-depth interviews with batterers, victims and criminal justice agency and related personnel as well as agency policies, training materials and records to examine possible unintended consequences of aggressive intervention in cases of domestic violence. This study will explore the impact of the Quincy Domestic Violence Program, considered to be a national model, on the lives of victims and offenders who are treated by the court. We have selected the District Court at Quincy, Massachusetts as our research site. It has a well deserved national reputation treating abusers systematically from the initial intake by arresting officers through close supervision in probation.     

A forensic visual aid: Traces versus knowledge

In this paper, I introduce the Forensic Field Map (FFM) that provides a two-dimensional view on the forensic field. This field is by definition very broad, encompassing a wide range of scientific areas and activities. The forensic work that supports solving criminal cases ranges from recognizing and preserving traces at crime scenes to explaining forensic results as expert witness in court. This goes hand in hand with the development of scientifically based methods and tooling as well as legal, forensic and laboratory procedures. Although the FFM came into being while developing a (visual) framework for digital forensic investigations, the framework turned out to be generically applicable to other forensic disciplines.     

Situational prevention of terrorism. Remarks from the field of counterterrorism in the Netherlands on Newman and Clarke’s Policing Terrorism

In this paper I shall discuss how criminal investigation might contribute to a situational approach to terrorism. Therefore I discuss Policing Terrorism by Newman and Clarke, and confront it with experiences from work in the field of counterterrorism: criminal investigations at the Dutch National Police Agency (NPA). I demonstrate that Newman and Clarke have too narrow a scope on policing terrorism, in particular when it comes to the role of criminal investigation. They restrict their focus to local police work in the phases immediately before and after a terrorist attack. This is unfortunate because case files show that criminal investigators play a central role in the prevention of terrorism. They intervene in earlier phases of terrorist preparation, target a wider range of terrorist offences than terrorist attacks, and prosecute radicals for their non-terrorist offences. Furthermore, criminal investigations offer insights that might be of help in developing an SCP approach to terrorism.     

对“四战”背景下强化犯罪现场勘查工作的思考

“四战”对刑事技术和侦查工作提出了新的要求,现场勘查工作还存在如现场勘查不到位、现场勘查指挥不力、信息化手段运用不充分、侦查员与技术员缺乏沟通等诸多问题,强化现场勘查工作是适应“四战”需要。     

CRIME AS AN OCCUPATION

Students of crime have traditionally stressed the uniqueness of the criminal world and have developed special concepts in their attempt to explain the functioning of this “special” domain. In contrast, others in the field have asserted that the concepts used to investigate the coventional world can also be employed to provide insight into its criminal counterpart. This sentiment has been particularly evident among those who have utilized the concept of “occupation” to analyze criminal behavior. Building on the “crime as work” perspective, this research illustrates that, similar to conventional occupations, criminal work is stratified by prestige and stereotyped by sex. Further, the data suggest that Davis and Moore's (1945) functional theory may be a useful explanation not only of the stratification of conventional work but of criminal occupations as well.     

General systems theory and criminal justice

Criminal justice agencies are organized sequentially — “output” from one agency is “input” to the next — but most scholars argue that criminal justice is not a system in a theoretical sense. In this article, it is argued that general systems theory (GST) reveals important insights into criminal justice structures and functions. Specifically, it is argued that the criminal justice system processes “cases” rather than people, and that the common goal of criminal justice processing is to “close cases so that they stay closed.” It also is argued that processing capacity progressively declines, in that at each system point the subsequent agency cannot input as many cases as the previous agency can output. Each agency therefore experiences “backward pressure” to close cases in order to reduce input to the next agency. Overall, this article highlights that criminal justice agents and agencies are best understood as operating in the context of the larger whole, thus it is concluded that criminal justice is a system in the sense of general systems theory.     

监所检察权利保障职能的优化与实现-基于对新《刑事诉讼法》的研判

修改后的《刑事诉讼法》基于司法文明的要求,在更高层次和水平上完善了监所检察权利保障的司法职能。然而,监所检察．Y-作的客观现状与新《刑事诉讼法》的现实要求之间的矛盾在一定程度上消弭和制约了监所检察监督职能的发挥。因此,如何深化对新《刑事诉讼法》中涉及监所检察权利保障理念变革与制度更新的思考,是我们全面落实新《刑事诉讼法》、正确履行监所检察权利保障职能着重探讨的课题。我们应当以强化监所检察权利保障的理论基础为逻辑起点,优化监所检察权利保障职能的立法设计,并就如何落实好、发挥好新《刑事诉讼法》赋予监所检察的权利保障职能,解决好监所检察的执法理念转变、加强基础保障和机制创新等问题作出贡献。     

Child witnesses in criminal court

The last decade has witnessed a dramatic rise in public and professional concern regarding the special needs of children as witnesses in the court setting. This study was conducted to examine characteristics of criminal court cases involving children as potential witnesses that were adjudicated through a trial conviction, trial acquittal, or guilty plea, from among cases that went to court in a 12-month period in nine judicial circuits in three states. Three hundred sixteen criminal court cases involving children as potential witnesses were examined. The vast majority, of these cases involved sexual crimes against children. The results indicated that relatively few (16.8%) adjudicated cases were resolved through a trial proceeding. Sentencing varied from state to state and as a function of the disposition of the case. Future research should be conducted prospectively to determine (a) whether cases involving children as witnesses in criminal court are prosecuted at lower rates than cases involving adults and (b) the reasons that cases leave the criminal justice system prior to any court actions.This research was supported by State Justice Institute grant No. 88-11J-D-064. Points of view or opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the State Justice Institute.     

论我国刑事鉴定项目CNAS认可的证据法定位

我国刑事鉴定项目CNAS认可是一新生事物,它的主要认可依据是司法鉴定机构参加的能力验证,这需要相应的能力验证实施方案和结果处理手段作为保障。现阶段我国能力验证活动存在验证项目代表性、经验型鉴定验证可行性、能力验证技术方法统一性三大问题,在证据法上不宜将CNAS认可作为刑事鉴定结论的可信性要件来看待,而应将其定位在证据能力层面。刑事鉴定项目CNAS认可的证据法意义是,刑事鉴定结论的出具人(包括鉴定机构和鉴定人)对于此结论所在的检测项目具有基本的技术检测能力。CNAS认可的刑事鉴定结论,并不当然的具备充分解释案件专业问题的法律效力。     

云南边疆民族地区毒品犯罪透视

云南边疆民族地区毒品犯罪猖獗，农民（包括少数民族）是贩毒的高发群体。这除了跟特殊的地缘位置有紧密联系之外，还与他们自身的弱势地位有关。各种能力的弱势和地理、文化的边缘性在一定程度上推动他们参与贩毒，从而在贩毒方面表现为多体能型、马仔型的特点。要想遏制毒品犯罪，就必须加强边疆地区经济的快速发展，为弱势群体赋权，加强其各方面能力建设。     

刑事受案价值论

刑事案件的受理是公安机关侦查工作中的一个重要环节。然而,在侦查理论和实践中,这项工作远未受到足够的重视和关注。实践证明,刑事案件的侦破,时机把握极为重要。刑事受案作为侦查的起始,对今后侦查工作的走向影响较大,在法律程序和侦查行为中都体现出重要的价值,采取有效的措施,使刑事受案工作及时、合理、高效,对侦查工作有重要意义。