刑事诉讼中的亲属拒证权制度研究

亲属拒绝作证权制度作为现代法治国家的一项重要证据制度,在世界许多国家的刑事证据立法中都有明确规定。我国历史上也有类似的"亲亲相隐"制度规定。确立亲属拒证权制度,对于弘扬传统的伦理道德,充分保护公民人权,提高法律效益,维护社会的和谐与稳定,推动我国法治化进程具有重大的理论价值和现实意义。     

The construction of allegedly abused children’s narratives in Scottish criminal courts

This study investigated lawyers’ use of social narratives surrounding child sexual abuse when questioning 66 5- to 17-year-old alleged victims in Scottish criminal courts using a mixed-methods approach. Thematic analysis found that the use of beliefs and stereotypes varied depending upon the lawyers’ role (defense/prosecution), children’s age, and the alleged victim-defendant relationship. These findings were investigated further using narrative analysis, which showed that, with increasing age and decreasing familiarity with defendants, narratives increasingly focused on the characteristics and actions of the victims rather than the defendants. Older children contributed more to narratives than younger children, but their contributions were only incorporated into the prosecutors’ narratives. Defense lawyers adopted more victim-blaming tactics as the narratives developed. Findings suggest that the criminal justice system, practitioners, and researchers must do more to recognize and guard against the reinforcement of stereotypes that may influence public rhetoric and jury decision-making.     

Children’s Susceptibility to Misidentifying a Familiar Bystander From a Lineup: When Younger is Better

Children from 5 to 12 years of age (N=779) were shown a videotape where a preschool teacher has money stolen from her wallet. Children were shown a lineup, and for children in the bystander condition, the lineup contained a familiar bystander without the thief. Children in the control condition viewed the same lineup but they had not seen the bystander in the videotape. Among the 11–12-year olds, participants in the bystander condition were significantly more likely than control participants to misidentify the familiar bystander. This effect was not found in children from 5 to 10 years of age. When children in the control condition were shown a lineup that contained the thief without the bystander, the 11–12-year olds were significantly more likely than the younger children to correctly identify the thief. These findings demonstrate that age can both increase and decrease the accuracy of children’s lineup identification accuracy depending on the task at hand and the content of a lineup.     

PC_Eyewitness and the Sequential Superiority Effect: Computer-Based Lineup Administration

Computer technology has become an increasingly important tool for conducting eyewitness identifications. In the area of lineup identifications, computerized administration offers several advantages for researchers and law enforcement. PC_Eyewitness is designed specifically to administer lineups. To assess this new lineup technology, two studies were conducted in order to replicate the results of previous studies comparing simultaneous and sequential lineups. One hundred twenty university students participated in each experiment. Experiment 1 used traditional paper-and-pencil lineup administration methods to compare simultaneous to sequential lineups. Experiment 2 used PC_Eyewitness to administer simultaneous and sequential lineups. The results of these studies were compared to the meta-analytic results reported by N. Steblay, J. Dysart, S. Fulero, and R. C. L. Lindsay (2001). No differences were found between paper-and-pencil and PC_Eyewitness lineup administration methods. The core findings of the N. Steblay et al. (2001) meta-analysis were replicated by both administration procedures. These results show that computerized lineup administration using PC_Eyewitness is an effective means for gathering eyewitness identification data.     

How to Improve Forensic Science

Some institutional structures for inquiry produce better approximations to truth than others. The current institutional structure of police forensics gives each lab a monopoly in the analysis of the police evidence it receives. Forensic workers have inadequate incentives to produce reliable analyses of police evidence. Competition would create such incentives. I outline a system of “competitive self regulation” for police forensics.Each jurisdiction would have several competing forensic labs. Evidence would be divided and sent to one, two, or three separate labs.Chance would determine which labs and how many would receive evidence to analyze.Competitive selfregulation improves forensics by creating incentives for error detection and reducing incentives to produce biased analyses. JEL Classification: K14, K42, H11     

司法鉴定人错误鉴定的民事责任及其豁免

鉴定人因出具错误鉴定结论导致诉讼当事人的损害应当承担专家民事责任。这不仅是出于鉴定人的特殊诉讼地位,同样也由他的专家属性所决定。其承担的的是一种特殊的侵权责任,且该赔偿责任的主体为鉴定机构更为妥当。在法律责任豁免上,由于鉴定人与普通证人性质迥异,不宜赋予其普通证人才享有的广泛豁免权,但是依然可以在一定条件和范围内免责。     

论我国行政听证范围的完善

行政听证制度是各国行政程序法的一项核心制度.国外许多国家在立法上采取以听证为原则,而对于不适用行政听证的事项则以否定列举的方式予以排除,听证范围较宽.与国外行政听证制度相比,我国现行的行政听证制度在适用范围上过窄,应当进一步予以扩大.     

论处罚劳动教养人员适用听证制度

根据《劳动教养试行办法》的相关规定,在劳动教养执行过程中,劳动教养管理委员会可以委托劳动教养管理机关对违反劳动教养管理制度的劳教人员作出延长劳动教养期限1天以上1年以下的处罚。在实际工作中,劳教管理机关注重的是处罚的实体公正,忽略了处罚的程序公正。听证制度的引入能够赋予劳教人员在处罚过程中进行陈述、申辩、质证的权利和机会,使处罚更为公平合理。     

＂亲亲相隐＂在我国刑事立法中的嬗变与终结

“亲亲相隐”是中国传统法律中的重要制度,它是儒家伦理精神在法律上的典型体现。“亲亲相隐”制度在中国古代法律实践中发挥了重要的作用,然而自清末变法修律以来,该制度逐渐式微和流变,在中国当代的刑法体系中“亲亲相隐”已经被完全抛弃。“亲亲相隐”制度同儒家伦理中的“尊尊”、“亲亲”密切关联,在法律实践中具有一定的合理性,在当代外国的刑事立法中仍然可以看到“亲亲相隐”制度的相关规定。当代的刑法实践证明,“亲亲相隐”制度的缺失会导致制度的某些困境和局限。儒家法律传统并非一无是处,“回采历史”,批判地继承儒家法律传统是我国当下法律变革中的理性选择。     

The quality of written expert testimony in alleged child sexual abuse: An empirical study

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to empirically evaluate written expert testimonies in cases of suspected child sexual abuse in Sweden. A total of 121 expert testimonies were rated with an instrument developed for the study, the SQX-12 (Gumpert et al., 2001) which is a 12-item checklist aimed to reflect consensus-established concepts of quality. Reports from different professional groups were compared, as were reports produced before and after the 1991 publication of national guidelines. The results suggested that the reports produced by professionals using statement analysis generally were of higher quality than reports written by professionals from child- and adolescent psychiatry. There was a slight increase in report quality, as measured by the SQX total score, over the studied years. However, it is concluded that the overall quality of written expert testimony on child credibility still does not reach the recommended level in Sweden.