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。     

新诗的汉语诗性传统的失落考略

胡适、郭沫若、艾青等诗坛领袖人物 ,一方面对新诗创立和发展起了重大作用 ,另一方面也由于矫枉过正 ,造成了新诗传统的负面影响与新诗意识的潜伏的危机。而历次新诗建设的误区 ,也在于对汉语诗歌自身特点的疏忽     

证人证言及其制度探讨

在执法实践中 ,证人证言的不良现象 ,直接影响了我国刑事案件的公正审判。法律制度不健全是证人证言不良现象形成的客观原因     

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.     

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.     

The importance of forensic evidence for decisions on criminal guilt

Recent studies have found that the general public perceives forensic evidence to be relatively inaccurate and to involve high levels of human judgement. This study examines how important the general public finds forensic evidence by comparing decisions on guilt and punishment in criminal cases that involve forensic versus eyewitness testimony evidence and examining whether a CSI effect exists. Specifically, this experimental survey study utilized a 2 (crime type: murder or rape) × 4 (evidence type: DNA, fingerprint, victim eyewitness testimony, or bystander eyewitness testimony) ? 1 (no victim testimony for murder scenario) design, yielding seven vignettes scenarios to which participants were randomly assigned. Results indicate that forensic evidence was associated with more guilty verdicts and higher confidence in a guilty verdict. Forensic evidence did not change the expected sentence length and did not generally affect the ideal sentence length. However, for rape, respondents believed that the defendant should receive a longer sentence when forensic evidence was presented but forensic evidence did not alter likely sentence that respondents expected the defendant to receive. The results of this study did not support a CSI effect. Overall, this study suggests that forensic evidence – particularly DNA – has a stronger influence during the verdict stage than the sentencing stage.     

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.     

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.     

论言词证据之禁止——以《德国刑事诉讼法》为中心的分析

《德国刑事诉讼法》第136条a是在特定背景下,以德国基本法为根据而单独增加的条款。它采用列举和概括相结合的方式对禁止使用的讯问方法及违法取供的程序性后果作了明确规定。该条文的内涵在德国司法实践中不断得到扩展,目前已经成为德国言词证据收集与运用的基本法则。当前我国刑事诉讼中增设非法言词证据排除规则的立法背景与德国当时增设第136条a具有许多相似性,应当借鉴德国做法,构建适合我国国情的言词证据禁止法则。     

Can Jurors Recognize Missing Control Groups,Confounds, and Experimenter Bias in Psychological Science?

This study examined the ability of jury-eligible community members (N = 248) to detect internal validity threats in psychological science presented during a trial. Participants read a case summary in which an expert testified about a study that varied in internal validity (valid, missing control group, confound, and experimenter bias) and ecological validity (high, low). Ratings of expert evidence quality and expert credibility were higher for the valid versus missing control group versions only. Internal validity did not influence verdict or ratings of plaintiff credibility and no differences emerged as a function of ecological validity. Expert evidence quality, expert credibility, and plaintiff credibility were positively correlated with verdict. Implications for the scientific reasoning literature and for trials containing psychological science are discussed.