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。     

IF A THREAT OF VIOLENCE IS PRESENTED,WHEN DOES THE LAW REQUIRE FAMILY MEDIATORS TO BREACH CONFIDENTIALITY?

For a family mediator to protect his client, a third party, and/or himself from unlawfully disclosing a client's admission, the family mediator should use the principles set forth in Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California when a threat of violence is presented by one of his clients, since many states have adopted these principles through case law and statute to protect third parties from acts of violence. The two most significant factors in determining whether to breach confidentiality are the identifiability of the victim and the likelihood of the potential physical harm. If a jurisdiction has not explicitly done so via statute, the family mediator should nonetheless follow these principles since they are likely to be adopted by that jurisdiction through case law, because the probability of a court's finding a special relationship between a family mediator and a client is relatively high.     

论刑事附带民事诉讼制度的立法完善——从被害人民事权益保障视角的思考

现行《刑事诉讼法》所规定的刑事附带民事诉讼制度,全面承袭了1979年《刑诉法》的相应规定,在刑事司法审判中已经明显不适应对于被害人权利保护的需要。充分保障被害人的权利,在程序上应当对于附带民事诉讼的受案范围;被害人提起附带民事诉讼的方式;被害人在诉讼中的权利和义务;附带民事诉讼中的反诉;撤回公诉以后附带民事诉讼的处理等等问题进行完善。在完善相应程序制度的方式上,应当通过立法修改的方式进行,而不是采用现行司法解释的方式。     

英美侵权法行为“自身可诉”侵权制度及其合理借鉴——以我国《侵权责任法》的完善为中心

行为自身可诉侵权制度是英美侵权法上别具特色的术语和制度,其特点在于在某些特殊的侵权诉讼中,受害人或原告无需对损害事实的存在承担举证责任,该损害事实的存在或者由法院根据被告的行为直接推定,或者由法院根据合理人标准自由裁量确认。这对保护民事主体十分重要的民事权益及客观上受害人和原告难以实际证明损害事实的侵权类型是十分必要和有益的。我国立法有必要结合我国具体情况,合理借鉴其有益经验,规定在某些特殊情形下受害人无需承担证明损害事实的责任,并具体规定损害名誉侵权,以及我国《侵权责任法》第22条规定的"严重精神损害之诉"属该特殊情形。     

Sex crime legislation: Proactive and anti-therapeutic effects

Therapeutic jurisprudence may have its major role within law practice, but analysis of the law from a therapeutic perspective is a task that should not be neglected; how a piece of legislation is designed and formulated certainly influences the therapeutic outcome of a legal process. This article uses sex legislation as an example to demonstrate how the old rape law based on coercion has anti-therapeutic effects on rape victims. If the law requires resistance, it implies that a woman is sexually available until she resists physically, resulting in an attitude that a woman reporting rape without injuries should be mistrusted. This mistrust of the victim and the victim's attendant feelings of self-blame aggravate the victim's trauma. On the other hand, a modern rape law based on lack of consent gives the signal that a woman is not available until she has given her consent, resulting in a different starting position for the investigation. Since the will of the victim must be respected, the victim herself must be respected in the legal process. Furthermore, being able to tell one's story in a respectful atmosphere can be more important for the well-being of the victim than the outcome of the reported case.     

Cherry-Picking Records in Independent Medical Examinations: Strategies for Intervention to Mitigate a Legal and Ethical Imbroglio

Independent medical examinations (IMEs) theoretically construe a means of “independently” assessing a claimant’s physical and psychological status, as well as to determine whether treatment that has been and will potentially be provided is reasonable and necessary. IMEs may be undertaken both for the plaintiff and defense or related adversaries. In the present case, we focus on IMEs that are requested by insurers. One can query the degree to which IMEs are actually “independent.” It has been posited that one of the ways in which claims managers contribute to potential bias against claimants is through a process of selectively providing examiners with medical records, which has been described as “cherry-picking.” Despite the existence of rules and laws that are designed to prevent cherry-picking, the practice still occurs. This analysis discusses the legal as well as ethical implications of cherry-picking and its potential to cause or exacerbate psychological injury that a claimant may experience. The authors propose that psychologists as well as attorneys can advocate for their vulnerable patients/clients in cases of cherry-picking. A recent case study from the clinical practice of the first author in which he so acted is provided. We conclude with a discussion of the ethical implications of the psychologist’s intervention.     

过失犯中被害人的作为义务与自我负责的边界

被害人自我答责理论强调自我决定,从而保障个人自由。法所关注的领域,是交往性的契约领域。非契约领域,属于个体的自治空间。刑法并不关注发生在"自我管辖领域"内的"侵害行为和侵害结果"。在自治领域,被害人应当确保"结果的不发生"。对参与被害人"自我管辖领域"内的行为,立足于限制的正犯概念和共犯的二元参与体系的概念,能够在教义学上得到准确解读。义务人在事实上有防止结果发生的可能性、义务履行与利益损害不能显著失衡、不能以生命为代价履行义务、人身保护与财产保护义务的"强制力"应当有别,是考量作为义务边界的因素。超出财产保护义务履行范围的,义务人完全进入到了自我管辖的空间。对于造成的损害结果,由被害人答责。超越人身保护义务的,应区分职业义务人与非职业义务人,分别对待。行为人创设的风险与职业义务人伤亡之间存在紧密关联之时,属于急迫性风险,由行为人答责。职业义务人正常履行职业义务的,属于职业性管辖。职业义务人发生误判之时,不能由职业义务人自我答责。无义务者实施保护行为造成损害的,应该对侵害结果自我答责。     

过犹未及：保护被害人诉讼权利之反思

目前,虽然适度保护被害人诉讼权利确有必要,但是国内学界主流的学术观点过于强化了对被害人诉讼权利的保护。因为无论是从西方国家兴起的被害人权利保护运动之后的立法动态、刑事诉讼的本质及其基本法理,还是从立法与司法实践中的具体作法来看,对被害人诉讼权利的保护只能限定在物质补偿权与知情权等方面,否则就是过犹未及。     

性侵儿童案中被害人陈述可信度判断研究

在性侵儿童案中,由于被害儿童身心特点,导致其作证能力和证言可信度常存在争议。但实际上年幼不是否认儿童作证能力的决定性因素。在性侵儿童案件中,要摒弃过度纠缠于对儿童作证能力的争议,将作证能力与证言可信度分开,肯定其作证能力,而着重判断证言可信度。通过对371份性侵儿童案件的裁判文书的分析可知,判断儿童被害人陈述可信度的因素与判断成年被害人陈述可信度的因素大致相同,同时实践中也结合儿童的特点提出了有针对性的考量因素。因此,对"童言"过于忌惮实无必要。在判断儿童被害人陈述可信度时,可以主要依靠判断被害人(证人)可信度的通常方法,同时更多地引入专家证人/辅助人帮助理解儿童行为和心理特点。这样将有助于解决儿童作证涉及的证明问题,更好地保护儿童权益。     

智能司法中的伦理问题及其应对

人工智能使用于司法涉及到突出的伦理问题,智能司法与司法伦理既有紧密关系又有紧张关系.司法公正的一个很重要因素是证据的获取,证据的获取与知识智慧有很大的关联性,人工智能使用于司法在证据获取等方面具有相对于人工的以下优势:准确性、重复性、快速性、抉择性、无私性.智能司法与司法伦理的紧张关系是指智能司法可能损害司法公正:算法...     

《中华人民共和国合同法》第122条的缺陷评析及补救

合同法第122条赋予了受损害方要求违约方承担违约责任或侵权责任的“择一请求”权,是我国民事立法的重大突破。但是,当两个请求权所指向的利益可以独立并存时,该法条规制乏力,有明显缺陷,应予以修补。应当既承认受损害方的诉讼选择权,又同时维护其两方面的实体利益。     

Defining a clinically useful model for assessing competence to consent to treatment

Burdened with the responsibility of making an initial assessment of their patients' capacity to make treatment decisions, clinicians need a sound clinical assessment model. Drawing on ethical, legal, and clinical sources, the author reviews the appropriateness of existing models and standards and describes why each fails the needs of the clinician. The patient's ability to form a therapeutic alliance is shown to be a valid assessment model for defining a treatment decision-making ability threshold because it adheres to widely accepted ethical and legal standards. Using threshold because it adheres to widely accepted ethical and legal standards. Using this model to set a threshold for the decision to bring cases to the attention of a court or administrative body, the therapist arrives at a satisfactory balance between competent treatment, patient autonomy, and judicially mandated due process imperatives while providing a forum for patient education and assessment of the clinician's technical skill. Explanations of case examples illustrate the use of the therapeutic alliance for this purpose in a variety of clinical situations. Specific recommendations are made on what may be represented to court in cases in which the patient's competence appears to fall below this treatment threshold.     

Crossover and stability of victim type in child molesters

Purpose. This study examined the degree to which child sex offenders demonstrated crossover in victim choice, as defined by age, gender, and relationship to the offender. It also aimed to explore the direction of the shift in victim type with repeated offending within each of the three domains and to identify variables predictive of crossover behaviour. Method. The sample comprised 128 adult male child sexual offenders. All had offended against multiple victims and were attending a community‐based assessment and treatment service for sexual offenders at the time of data collection. Variables were gathered, coded, and de‐identified from a manual search through clinical casenotes, from client assessment reports as well as from supplementary information consisting of sentencing remarks or other professional reports. Results. More than half of the sample (63.3%, N = 81) demonstrated crossover in victim type across at least one domain. Crossover was 48.0% (N = 59) in the age domain, 22.0% (N = 28) in the gender domain, and 25.8% (N = 33) in the relationship to victim domain. Crossover offending was associated with number of victims but unrelated to frequency of offending or to recidivism risk as assessed by a standard risk assessment instrument. Transitional matrices showed general stability in victim type across offences within the gender and relationship domains, but lower stability within the age domain. Conclusions. Crossover offending behaviour was found to be frequent in the age domain, but the high frequency of crossover in this domain may be artifactual. Crossover offending was less frequent in the gender and relationship domains, but should be taken into account in risk assessment. Victim type shows stability across multiple offences in the gender and relationship to victim domains. Analysis of victim type across multiple offences should be replicated under conditions where disclosure of offending is maximized.     

Sex offender treatment is not punishment

Abstract

The treatment of sexual offenders can be fraught with ethical dilemmas. Practitioners must balance the therapeutic needs of sex offender clients alongside the risks they might pose to others. These ethical challenges include balancing community safety with the rights of the offender, the privileged therapeutic relationship and the potential for coerced treatment. In this paper, we respond to Glaser's argument that treatment is punishment and that sex offender treatment providers breach ethical codes by violating confidentiality, engaging in coercion, and ultimately causing harm to clients. We first consider whether sex offender treatment is indeed punishment. We argue that it is not, and that mandated treatment can and should be conducted in a fashion consistent with professional codes of ethics familiar to mental health providers. We then discuss the human rights model, which we agree is an essential lens through which to view the psychological treatment of sexual offenders. We attempt, as have other scholars, to illustrate the ways in which human rights principles intersect with traditional mental health codes of ethics particularly in the case of sex offender treatment. We conclude that sex offender treatment can be conducted ethically, that treatment differs from punishment in clear and distinct ways, and that ethical treatment conforms to a human rights perspective.     

急性醉酒所涉及的法律问题

急性醉酒在医学上是一种异常的精神状态,出于维护公共安全的需要,当醉酒者作为加害人时法律宜将其视作正常人对待,接受同样的处罚,但法律对非自愿和病理性的醉酒应作除外性规定。当醉酒者是受害人时,法律应尊重客观事实,承认其精神异常,按法律对精神病人同样的规定来处理。     

Rethinking The Ends of Harm

In The Ends of Harm, Victor Tadros claims that the general justifying aim of the criminal law should be general deterrence. He also takes seriously that we cannot use people as a means, and thus he argues that we may only punish people in the name of general deterrence who have a ‘duty’ to suffer. Tadros claims that this duty arises as follows: An offender initially has a duty not to harm the victim. If the offender violates that duty, the offender still has a duty to stop the harm from occurring (so that, for example, an offender would have to jump in front of his own bullet). And if the harm does occur, then the offender has a duty to rectify that harm. This duty to rectify, argues Tadros, requires the defendant not only to compensate the victim but also to protect the victim to the extent that he would have been able to have been harmed to prevent the threat from occurring. Tadros further advances intricate arguments for why the state may therefore punish the offender to protect other potential victims to the extent of the offender’s duty to rectify. This symposium contribution seeks to explore three problems with Tadros’ analysis, ultimately arguing that Tadros’ theory fails on its own terms. First, attempts present a substantial problem for Tadros’ regime because attempts do not give rise to duties to prevent harm because there is no harm to be prevented. Tadros’ attempt to account for attempts, as completed offenses of diversions of security resources, ultimately leads to punishments that bear little resemblance to the crime attempted. Such a wildly counterintuitive result creates problems for a regime premised on general deterrence, which must be understood and respected. Second, Tadros’ regime will often exempt the rich from suffering criminal punishment. Tadros claims that duties to prevent harms from occurring (by jumping in front of bullets) are only enforceable when compensation will be inadequate. However, affluent offenders may be able to fully compensate. Moreover, since the scope of the duty to suffer will be determined by what remains of the duty after the victim is compensated, affluent offenders will be able to compensate more and thereby suffer less. Again, the actual sentences will thereby bear little resemblance to the rationale for criminalization, thus threatening the deterrent message of the law. Moreover, a system that exacerbates distributive inequalities will not achieve public respect. Third, Tadros cannot justify taking the duty that the defendant owes to the victim and forcing the victim to transfer this asset to the state. In his quest to articulate a theory that does not impermissibly use defendants, he ultimately endorses a theory that impermissibly uses their victims. He thus fails to achieve the very goal he sets for himself, which is to achieve general deterrence without impermissibly using anyone.     

Female versus male perpetrated femicide: an exploratory analysis of whether offender gender matters

Femicide, the murder of females (most often at the hands of males), is an understudied area in homicide research. Furthermore, femicide perpetrated by females has been all but ignored. One reason this may be is because of the rarity of homicide victimization perpetrated by females. Rather, most homicide incidents consist of a male offender and a male victim. When a homicide does involve a female, either as a victim or as an offender, the other party implicated is generally a male. The primary goal of the proposed study is to provide an in-depth, albeit exploratory, examination of female-perpetrated femicide. Using homicide data taken from the Dallas Homicide Unit, 403 cases of femicide will be analyzed, with special attention devoted to comparing female-perpetrated femicide incidents (n = 39) against male-perpetrated femicide incidents (n = 364). Specifically, the current study will explore the similarities and differences in sociodemographic characteristics of victims and suspects, offense characteristics, and offense circumstances. Contrary to what was expected, results, at first glance, seem to suggest an overwhelming similarity between femicide suspects and victims, irrespective of gender. However, when the relationship between victim and suspect is considered, distinct differences appear. Implications from these findings as well as limitations and suggestions for further research are discussed.     

我国刑法中应当设立“暴行罪”——以虐待儿童的刑法规制为中心

在我国许多虐待儿童的行为,由于没有造成轻伤以上的后果无法以故意伤害罪评价,由于加害被害双方不是家庭成员不能定为虐待罪,也无法以其他罪名有效规制,至多由公安机关处以15日的行政拘留,这样未充分体现对暴力行为的打击以及对人身的特别保护.为了惩罚和预防虐待儿童一类的暴行,为了严厉打击暴力犯罪,全面严密保护公民的人身权利,我们应借鉴日本、英美刑法的立法理念及法律规定,将暴行罪引入我国刑法,将以殴打或其他暴行侵犯他人身体的行为纳入刑法的评价视野,从而更有效地保护包括儿童在内的公民的人身安全.     

The association between the offender–victim relationship,severity of offence and attribution of blame in mentally disordered offenders

Abstract

The aim of this research was to investigate the association between the offender–victim relationship, severity of violence and attribution of blame for a violent act. Data were collected from 65 male psychiatric inpatients from two secure units. Participants were divided into three groups according to how well they knew their victim: victim well-known, victim acquaintance and victim stranger. Violent acts were further ranked according to offence severity. Participants were administered the Quick Test (QT) and the Gudjonsson Blame Attribution Inventory (GBAI). Although there was a trend towards higher guilt attributions when the victim was well-known to the perpetrator, this relationship was complicated by the severity of the violent act. The most severe ranking of offence (i.e. murder/manslaughter) was most common in the offender group who knew their victim well. Furthermore, guilt-feeling attributions were highest in the most severe ranking of offence. The implications of these findings for assessment and intervention programmes are considered.