“法官与律师”漫谈

我与律师的联系,由来已久。甚至可以说,我做法官的时间有多长,与律师的联系就有多久。在28年的法官生涯中,我始终认为,在法庭审判中,如果只有阵容强大的控方去面对势单力薄的被告,或者说只有慷慨激昂的公诉人而没有能言善辩的辩护人,这样的法庭很难说是协调的,这样的审判也很难说是公正的。 “法官与律师”,肯定说属于不同的社会角色,无论是他们看问题的角度,还是对案件、对当事人的诉辩主张的认识及其价值取向都必然存在许多差异,这完全是基于不同的职业定位使然,应当说是不足为奇的。但是,“法官与律师”都是“吃”法律这碗饭的,因此,国家法律在对“法     

Understanding of forensic expert reports by judges,defense lawyers and forensic professionals

Forensic scientists strongly advocate the use of likelihood ratios for expressing the diagnostic value of evidence in technical forensic reports. They call this the logically correct approach. The correct comprehension of such likelihood ratios by jurists, however, appears to be particularly problematic. The present research has empirically investigated this issue for defense lawyers and criminal judges. For comparative purposes forensic professionals, many of whom use the logically correct approach, were included in the study as well.

Using fictitious forensic reports, it was shown that proper understanding of likelihood ratios by jurists is quite poor, due mainly, but not exclusively, to the prosecutor's fallacy. Forensic professionals outperformed jurists to a large extent but made many mistakes themselves. It is further shown that participants’ self-expressed supposed level of understanding of logically correct conclusions is quite high and thus not justified by their levels of proper understanding. Suggestions for how to improve the situation are presented.     

以法律职业的共同精神规范法官与律师的关系，维护司法公正

在推进依法治国的历史进程中,中央领导同志十分重视政法队伍建设,最近,对于进一步加强律师队伍建设,又作出了重要的批示。这既是对律师队伍建设的要求,也是对整个政法队伍建设的期望,更是落实依法治国基本方略、建设社会主义法治国家的基础性要求。人民法院坚决拥护中央领导同志的这些重要批示,并将认真学习和贯彻落实。 一、对法官、检察官、律师提出统一的职业标准,是建设社会主义法治国家的一项基础工程 统一司法考试制度的建立,标志着法律职业的统一踏上了一个新的台阶。根据统一的法律职业要求,法官和律师都应当以法律作为基本的行为准则,依法履行各自的职责。在这个统一的法律职业中,法官、检察官、律师,分别行使不同的职     

What judges know about eyewitness testimony: A comparison of Norwegian and US judges

Abstract

We surveyed 157 Norwegian judges about their knowledge and beliefs about eyewitness testimony, and compared their answers to a prior survey of 160 US judges. Although the Norwegian judges were somewhat more knowledgeable than the US judges, both groups had limited knowledge of eyewitness testimony. The Norwegian judges, like the US judges, frequently differed from eyewitness experts in their responses to such important issues as whether eyewitness confidence is related to identification accuracy at trial and what is the best method for conducting identification procedures. As was true for the US judges, more knowledgeable Norwegian judges had many of the beliefs that may be necessary for reducing and mitigating the effects of eyewitness error. The results suggest that increasing judges’ knowledge of eyewitness testimony may be an important component of the solution to eyewitness error.     

ILO training for industrial court judges

In this article Jane Hodges, Senior Labour Law Specialist, International Labour Office, examines the role of the International Labour Organization in improving the response of the labour court system to the challenges of HIV/AIDS.     

Professionalism in higher education: important not only for lawyers

This article considers how, in light of the changing legal profession and higher education, academia could address professionalism training. The authors put forward an argument that, if professionalism is to be understood as a set of skills, values and attitudes required for any lawyer, it is now a good time to consider how these could be taught and assessed in law and non-law degrees. The formation of professional values and attitudes is a long process that continues throughout a person’s life. The earlier students are exposed to professional values, attitudes and skills, the better the quality of service these future lawyers will provide to the public. Taking into account the Legal Education and Training Review (LETR) recommendations, the article suggests some practical ways as to how professionalism could be developed in higher education.     

Do the interests of academic lawyers and practising lawyers ever overlap?

‘A book may be good for nothing; or there may be onlyone thing in it worth knowing; are we to read it all through?’(Samuel Johnson) This section is dedicated to the review of ideas, articles,books, films and other media. It will include replies (and rejoinders)to articles, the evaluation of new ideas or proposals, and reviewsof books and articles both directly and indirectly related tointellectual property law. The book-reading habits of practising lawyers can be very differentto those of academic lawyers. A well-known publisher of lawbooks for academics and practitioners provides its authors witha style guide, which includes the following, helpful advicefor writing     

Plea decision-making by attorneys and judges

Objectives

Approximately 95 % of convictions in the United States are the result of guilty pleas. Surprisingly little is known about the factors which judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys consider in these decisions. To examine the legal and extralegal factors that legal actors consider in plea decision-making, we replicated and improved upon a 40-year-old study by asking legal actor participants to review a variety of case factors, and then make plea decisions and estimate sentences for pleas and trials (upon conviction).

Methods

Over 1,500 defense attorneys, prosecutors, and judges completed an online survey involving a hypothetical legal case in which the presence of three types of evidence and length of defendant criminal history were experimentally manipulated.

Results

The manipulated evidence impacted plea decisions and discounts, whereas criminal history only affected plea discounts (i.e., the difference between plea and trial sentences). Defense attorneys considered the largest number of factors (evidentiary and non-evidentiary), and although legal actor role influenced the decision to plead, it did not affect the discount.

Conclusions

In replicating a landmark study, via technological advances not available in the 1970s, we were able to increase our sample size nearly six-fold, obtain a sample representing all 50 states, and include judges. However, our sample was nonrepresentative and the hypothetical scenario may or may not generalize to actual situations. Nonetheless, valuable information was gained about the factors considered and weighed by legal actors.

     

Educating towards ethical lawyers: a progress report

In 2010 in a conference paper on legal education and ethics, we addressed the proposition that exempting degrees offer a unique opportunity to inculcate students with the importance of ethical considerations throughout their legal education, incorporating such considerations in an integrated academic and vocational context. The paper included a detailed analysis of the practicalities of incorporating professional legal ethics into the undergraduate exempting law degree at Northumbria University. Since 2010, there has been relatively little written from a UK perspective on incorporating teaching of legal ethics at the undergraduate stage. Here we review our progress made towards achieving that goal. The article reveals that the results have been limited; we explore the reasons for this, and consider what alternative course(s) might have been followed. As such, our experiences may offer guidance for those intending to engage with the Legal Education and Training Review (LETR) recommendations to incorporate some consideration of ethics into legal education.