在刑事诉讼中对证人证言的审查认证方法

证人证言在刑事诉讼中具有重要的作用 ,但由于其易受各种主客观因素的影响 ,在司法实践中较难审查认证 ,文章从程序和实体两方面对证人证言的审查认证方法进行了探讨 ,为全面、合理地认证证人证言的合法性和客观真实性提供了一些借鉴。     

Sometimes What Everybody Thinks They Know Is True

This essay responds to D. Davis and W. C. Follette (2002), who question the value of motive evidence in murder cases. They argue that the evidence that a husband had extramarital affairs, that he heavily insured his wife's life, or that he battered his wife is ordinarily of infinitesimal probative value. We disagree. To be sure, it would be foolish to predict solely on the basis of such evidence that a husband will murder his wife. However, when this kind of evidence is combined with other evidence in a realistic murder case, the evidence can be quite probative. We analyze cases in which it is virtually certain that the victim was murdered but unclear who murdered her, and in which it is uncertain whether the husband murdered the wife or she died by accident. We show that in each case motive evidence, such as a history of battering or of infidelity, can substantially increase the odds of the husband's guilt. We also consider the actual case on which Davis and Follette base their paper. We argue that testimony of Davis on the basis of the analysis presented in their paper was properly excluded, for it would have been misleading and unhelpful.     

When Children are the Least Vulnerable to False Memories: A True Report or a Case of Autosuggestion?

In this case report, a legal case revolving around the reliability of statements given by a 6‐year‐old girl is described. She claimed to have witnessed her mother being murdered by her father. Two psychological experts provided diametrically opposed opinions about the reliability of her statements. One expert, a clinician, opined that the girl's statements were based on autosuggestion whereas the other expert, a memory researcher, stated that autosuggestion was unlikely to have played a role. This case and the analysis of the experts' opinions illustrate what may happen when experts in court are unaware of the recent literature on (false) memory. That is, recent studies show that autosuggestion is less likely to occur in young children than in older children and adults. The current case stresses the importance and implications of relying on memory experts in cases concerning the reliability of eyewitness statements.     

Concordance Rate for the Identification of Distant Entrance Gunshot Wounds of the Back by Experienced Forensic Pathologists Examining Only Images of Autopsies

The images of 66 gunshot entrance wounds with a defect on the back, a bullet in the body, hemorrhage along the wound track, and logical certainty that it was an entrance wound were collected from the files of a moderately busy medical examiner's office. Participants numbering 22 board‐certified forensic pathologists viewed a single digital archival image of each of the 66 entrance wounds randomly mixed with 74 presumptive exit wounds to determine whether they were entrance or exit wounds. The concordance rate for correctly identifying the 66 logically known entrance wounds was 82.8% with a range from 58% to 97%. This pilot study was conducted to provide an evidence‐based approach to the interpretation of the direction of gunshot wounds by reviewing pathologists with access only to archival photographs, and it is not a measure of the accuracy to distinguish entrance from exit wounds when given all of the circumstances.     

Who are the most highly cited forensic scientists in the United States?

The most highly cited forensic practitioners in the United States were identified using a publicly available citation database that used six different citation metrics to calculate each person's composite citation score. The publication and citation data were gleaned from Elsevier's SCOPUS database, which contained information about ~7 million scientist each of whom had at least five entries in the database. Each individual was categorized into 22 scientific fields and 176 subfields, one of which was legal and forensic medicine (LFM). The database contained citation records for 13,388 individuals having LFM as their primary research discipline and 282 of these (2%) were classified as being highly cited. Another 99 individuals in the database had LFM as their secondary discipline, making a total of 381 highly cited forensic practitioners from 35 different countries. The career-long publication records of each individual were compared using their composite citation scores. Of the 381 highly cited scientists, 93 (24%) had an address somewhere in the United States. The various branches of forensics they specialized in were anthropology, criminalistics, DNA/genetics, odontology, pathology, statistics/epidemiology, and toxicology. The two most highly cited scientists, according to their composite citation score, were both specialists in DNA/genetics. Bibliometric methods are widely used for evaluating research performance in academia and a similar approach might be useful in jurisprudence, such as when an expert witness is instructed to testify in court and explain the meaning of scientific evidence.     

论无罪推定与刑事强制措施之关系

本文从社会契约和三权分立理论出发,根据"清白公理"理论,认为刑事强制措施的本质是行政权而不是司法权,而无罪推定才是司法的.因此,无罪推定与刑事强制措施在逻辑上是不矛盾的.之所以在刑事强制措施程序当中推行无罪推定之理念这只是"吃好、穿好"之问题,从而强调司法理念对行政执法过程控制的重要性,提出如何实现这两者间的融和与渗透.     

Calibrating the perceived strength of evidence of forensic testimony statements

Pattern comparison disciplines use categorical statements to express conclusions. We measured the strength of evidence for six different scales as perceived by members of the general public and fingerprint examiners. The statements came from different types of scales, and included categorical conclusions, likelihoods, strength of support statements, and random match probabilities. We used an online interface that required participants to first correctly sort the statements in a given conclusion scale, and then place each statement on a single evidence axis that ranged from most support imaginable for same source to most support imaginable for different sources. We analyzed the data using both the raw values and a Thurstone–Mosteller model based on ordinal values. We found systematic differences between examiners and members of the general public, such that examiners distinguished between Identification and Extremely Strong Support for Common Source, while members of the general public did not. Statements that included numerical values tended to be placed lower than categorical conclusions, and members of the general public tended to place the highest categorical conclusion in each scale at the very top of the evidence axis. The results suggest that laypersons can distinguish between statements meant to represent moderate vs strong evidence, but tend to place categorical conclusions above statements that involve numerical values.     

Court evaluations of young children's testimony in child sexual abuse cases

Purpose

Prosecutors working with child sexual abuse (CSA) cases involving young children have raised concerns that reliability criteria from the Supreme Court of Sweden are holding children's testimony to impossible standards (e.g., expecting the child's testimony to be long, rich in detail and spontaneous). This study aimed to address these concerns by investigating how District Courts and Courts of Appeal employ said criteria in their testimonial assessments of young child complainants.

Methods

Court documents from District Courts (n = 100) and Courts of Appeal (n = 45) in CSA cases involving 100 children age 7 years and under were analysed with respect to the courts’ testimonial assessments.

Results

Testimonial assessments were more frequently referenced in acquitting verdicts and in cases with evidence of low corroborative value. Richness in detail was the most frequently used reliability criterion, followed by spontaneity. Most criteria were used in favour of the children's testimony. However, the length criterion was typically used against the reliability of the children's testimony.

Conclusions

Our findings confirm prosecutors’ concerns that criteria from the Supreme Court are frequently used in evaluations of young children's testimony. This is troublesome, as some criteria do not correspond to current research on young children's witness abilities. For example, compared to testimony given by older children or adults, testimony provided by a young child is typically not long or rich in detail. We encourage prosecutors to extend their own knowledge on young children's capability as witnesses and present this to the court.     

医疗纠纷司法鉴定40例分析

目的分析医疗纠纷产生的主要原因和医疗过失行为的主要表现形式,并探讨医疗纠纷司法鉴定中应注意的主要问题。方法对2006—2008年本所鉴定的40例医疗纠纷案件进行回顾性分析。结果在40例医疗纠纷案件中,来自市级、县级、乡镇医院及个体诊所的分别为11例（27.5%）、24例（60.0%）、2例（5.0%）和3例（7.5%）;来自内科、外科、妇产科、儿科和门/急诊的分别16例（40.0%）、10例（25.0%）、9例（22.5%）、2例（5.0%）和3例（7.5%）;来自县级以上医院的医疗纠纷被认定存在医疗过失行为的比例低于乡镇医院及个体诊所。结论市、县级医院医疗纠纷较乡镇医院及个体诊所多见,但被认定有医疗过失的要少于乡镇医院及个体诊所。     

浅析涉及患者死亡的医疗事故技术鉴定

涉及患者死亡的医疗事故属于一级医疗事故,其技术鉴定能否做到公正的意义重大。对于这类鉴定的主要形式应是医学会组织的技术鉴定,辅助形式是法医司法鉴定。为了确保鉴定结果更加公正．科学,应加大法医参与涉及患者死亡的医疗事故技术鉴定的力度。