Thompson v. Church, one of the earliest authorities regarding inadmissibility of character evidence in trials, proposed the principle ““The business of the court is to try the case, and not the man”. Though principally true, the question of admissibility of evidence is nevertheless filled with complexities that have led scholars and academicians to call it one of the most controversial areas in the law of evidence.
Under Common Law, ‘character’ has traditionally referred to “a person’s reputation, whether in general or in some particular respect, or his/her disposition to conduct himself in some way or other”, although evidence is accepted of general reputation only. In 2001, the Law Commission of UK recommended that ‘bad character’ be defined
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Various authorities, thus, attach differing degrees of importance to character evidence. For example, while representing bad character has been known as a matter of common sense, it has likewise been viewed as lacking for need of 'reasonable connection between principal and evidentiary facts'. Therefore, there are contrasting explanations for its exclusion, identifying with both standards of relevance.
The most compelling analysis of the exclusionary principle has been undertaken by Wigmore. He sets two contradictory standards for criminal and civil cases. Bad character evidence has ‘too much’ appreciable probative value in criminal cases, while it has none in civil cases, since no moral quality is associated with the acts in question. In general, he identifies five arguments for exclusion
• It carries little probative value;
• It detracts from the merits of the case;
• Prior misconduct acts as a handicap to the
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For example, in the case of serial murders, the prosecution may tend to adduce evidence of bad character to show a design or pattern for the purpose of identification relating to the commission of certain acts to pin the same to the defence, who has been accused of the same previously.
In a certain case, a couple was accused of the murder of an infant, whose body was found buried in the garden of their house. Prosecution produced evidence indicating the presence of other such similarly buried infants in the gardens of their other (previously occupied) houses. Evidence was also produced indicating that the couple had agreed to take care of these children for minimal amounts, on each occasion. Given the significant similarities and pattern of the crimes, the Court held that the evidence of the allegations of the previous crimes was admissible when the circumstances surrounding them were of remarkably similar facts. The evidence was found admissible as the previous crimes were discussed, not only to show the tendency of commission of the crime due to their character, but also to show a distinct pattern, the presence of which pinned the offences to the
The Crown gave notices pursuant to ss 97 and 98 of the Evidence Act (EA) 2008 (Vic), intending to lead the Evidence against the appellant at trial. The trial judge ruled that the coincidence evidence was admissible but the tendency evidence was inadmissible.
Kassin, Saul, and Lawrence Wrightsman (Eds.). The Psychology of Evidence and Trial Procedure. Chapter 3. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1985. Print.
The application of Browne v Dunn is established in Australia in both civil and criminal cases, however its appliance in the criminal ones differs. There is some vagueness as to when precisely the rule is breached and the penalties that apply to a party in breach. The question that arose recently is whether Browne v Dunn applies to criminal proceedings at all. The case of MWJ v R confirmed that Browne v Dunn applied to criminal proceedings in Australia, despite some differences in judicial reasoning. The case was further followed by R v MAP which moreover elaborates certain aspects of the following rule. Gleeson j and Heydon J stated that “the requirement is accepted and applied day by day in criminal trials”. One of the principles the High court articulated was that the rule must be applied with caution, when considering the conduct of the defense, this was emphasized with reference to the cases of R v Birks and R v Manunta.
Park, R. (1996). Character Evidence Issues in the O.J. Simpson Case - Or, Rationales of the Character Evidence Ban, With Illustrations from the Simpson Case. University of Colorado Law Review, 747-776.
The ways in which truths are presented to external audiences concerning outside characters display not only a good judgment of character on the presenter, but furthermore, the often insignificant nature of whom the presenter is talking about, even if the insignificance presented is accidental. Both Peter Shaffer’s Equus and Albert Camus’ The Stranger approach different ways in presenting the truths of Alan Strang and Meursault to the audience/jury, but one thing remains clear; intentional or unintentional manipulation of these characters leads to the eternal distrust of the reliability of their presenters, Martin Dysart and the members of the law.
This rule does not allow an individual’s character of other implications that is solely based on evidence from bad acts an individual has done, but however the court system has shown that it breaks this rule and has even gone as far to let criminal prosecutors to use this type of evidence, wrong doings, or other characteristics that the defendant may have done in his/her past and use it against the defendant in a criminal
Therefore, under these ethical standards, prosecutors cannot file charges if there is not enough evidence to support a conviction, they also do not file if it is not in the public interest to do so. This is what makes the possibilities limitless; however, three key factors also play a part in determining which cases to prosecute. If prosecutors follow these three factors in determining cases then the contradiction of limitless discretion and high ethical standards should be remedied for others. These are factors that should be followed are as followed: the seriousness and nature of the offense, the offender’s culpability, and the likelihood of being able to obtain a conviction at a trial. “Ethical conduct, then, must be the core of the prosecutor’s role in the criminal justice system” (Hemmens, Brody, & Spohn, 2013). Therefore, even though prosecutors have almost limitless discretion in their decisions, they still must
In this paper, an examination of the legal standard of relevance evidence will be discussed. Furthermore, the rules of inclusion and exclusion of evidence based on the wording of the rules will be scrutinized. In the final section, examples of evidence will be presented that could be both relevant and irrelevant for certain crime.
...tz et. al. 1997). “The standard of proof in a trial is one such fundamental tenet of criminal law.” (Horowitz et. al. 1997).
On Bloodsworth’s appeal he argued several points. First he argued that there was not sufficient evidence to tie Bloodsworth to the crime. The courts ruled that the ruling stand on the grounds that the witness evidence was enough for reasonable doubt that the c...
The accused is not compellable as a witness in his own defence but a decision not to testify is usually regarded as tactically astute. In certain situations, s35 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 permits the jury to draw “such interference as appear proper” from the accused’s failure to give evidence or his refusal to answer to a particular question put to him. Despite the fundamental nature of the rights involved in silence, very great public dissatisfaction arose at the ease with which many defendants appeared able to evade justice by resorting to silence in the knowledge that this could do their case no harm and might well allow their very silence as a right to inject reasonable doubt into the trial. There was also great unease at the idea of defendants being permitted to advance defences and matters at trial for the first time, long after any satisfactory investigations into the matter had ceased to be possible. The experience of Northern Ireland legislation, based on recommendations of the Criminal Law Revision Committee showed that there was a supportable case for allowing inferences to be drawn from silence.
The collection, custody and preservation of forensic evidence is a vital aspect of evidence integrity, without proper adherence to these procedures, crucial evidence that could potentially have great impact on a court case could be rendered useless. In the case of criminal proceedings, a skilled defence lawyer will look to scrutinise every step taken by forensic practitioners’ involved within the case in regards to the continuity of the evidence, in doing this they attempt to undermine the practitioner’s ability to properly carry out strict evidence collection, protection and preservation procedures and also look to find fault in the techniques they used to carry out these procedures.
However to think that our justice system has been reduced to such cold and clerical decision making, as Judge Keen suggests, then the legal profession, and perhaps the entire human race is bound for an inevitable and rapid demise. The Law should consider the moral viewpoints of the society at large. In unfortunate circumstances such as that of the Case of the Speluncean Explorers, which even though is fictional, raises the question whether the law has capacity to adjust to the public opinions and also consider the plea on moral implications
but this was not the view taken in R v Mokrecovas.39 In R v Floyd Charles Darnell40, defence counsel, relying on Lord Hope’s remarks, suggested that a very wide interpretation should be given to section 42(1)(a). The Court of Appeal did not consider it necessary to explore the matter in this case but commented that if evidence could be admitted under section 42(1)(a) as indicative of a motive to lie, it was not clear how this could be reconciled with section 41(4), which forbids evidence the purpose or main purpose of which is to impugn C’s credibility. In R v Martin (Durwayne)41, the Court of Appeal found a way of circumventing this problem. D, who was charged with indecent assault, denied any contact with C on the occasion in question, claiming he
The courts of England and Wales acknowledge that the above must be something of value, in order to amount to consideration. A valuable consideration in the perspective of the English La...