The new edition of this seminal text outlines the fundamental aspects of the German approach to criminal procedure. It explores a wide range of issues from setting out the basic procedural principles to presenting the main players in the criminal justice system, pre-trial investigations, the path from indictment to trial judgment, rules of evidence, sentencing, and appeals and post-conviction review. As far as it is useful for an introductory text, the differences between proceedings against adults and juveniles are highlighted. The theoretical discussion of decision-making and style of judgment writing is supported by practical insights through specimen translations of an indictment, a trial judgment and an appellate judgment by the Federal Court of Justice.

The 1980s was a time of significant social, political and cultural change. In Australia, the law was pivotal to these changes. The two High Court cases that this book explores - Koowarta v Bjelke-Petersen (1982) and the Tasmanian Dams case (1983) - are famous legally as they marked a decisive reckoning by the Court with both international law and federal constitutionalism. Yet these cases also offer a significant marker of Australia in the 1980s: a shift to a different form of political engagement, nationally and internationally, on complex questions about race and the environment. This book brings these cases together for the first time. It does so to explore not only the legal legacy and relationship between Koowarta and Tasmanian Dams, but also to reflect on how Australians experience their law in time and place, and why those experiences might require more than the usual legal records. The authors include significant figures in Australian public life, some of whom were key participants in the cases, as well as established and respected scholars of law, history, environment and Indigenous studies. This collection offers a combination of personal recollections of the cases, as well as a consideration of their ongoing significance in Australian life. This book was originally published as two special issues of the Griffith Law Review.

The lawyer-dominated adversary system of criminal trial, which now typifies practice in Anglo-American legal systems, developed in England in the eighteenth century. Using hitherto unexplored sources from London's Old Bailey Court, Professor Langbein shows how and why lawyers were able to capture the trial, and he supplies a path-breaking account of the formation of the law of criminal evidence.

This book presents comprehensive information on a range of issues in connection with the Fair and Equitable Treatment (FET) standard, with a particular focus on arbitral awards against host developing countries, thereby contributing to the available literature in this area of international investment law. It examines in detail the interpretation of the FET standard of key arbitral awards affecting host developing countries, demonstrating the full range of interpretation approaches adopted by the current investment tribunals. At the same time, the book offers valuable practical guidance for counsels/scholars representing host developing countries in investment arbitration, where balancing the competing interests of the foreign investors and the host developing countries in investment disputes poses a complex challenge. The book puts forward the pressing need for a re-conceptualized interpretation of the FET standard in tune with the developmental issues and challenges faced by host developing countries, recognizing these countries' particular perspectives as an important and relevant aspect of investment disputes (often ignored by the current investment tribunals), while continuing to ensure reasonable protections for foreign investors and therefore serving the needs of the system as whole. The findings presented here will greatly benefit host developing countries engaged in investment arbitration. In addition, the book offers an insightful guide for all researchers whose work involves investment law and investment arbitration issues.

Today's high recidivism rates, combined with the rising costs of jails and prisons, are increasingly seen as problems that must be addressed on both moral and financial grounds. Research on prison and jail reentry typically focuses on barriers stemming from employment, housing, mental health, and substance abuse issues from the perspective of offenders returning to urban areas. This book explores the largely neglected topic of the specific challenges inmates experience when leaving jail and returning to rural areas. Rural Jail Reentry provides a thorough background and theoretical framework on reentry issues and rural crime patterns, and identifies perceptions of the most significant challenges to jail reentry in rural areas. Utilizing three robust samples-current inmates, probation and parole officers, and treatment staff-Ward examines what each group considers to be the most impactful factors surrounding rural jail re-entry. A springboard for future research and policy discussions, this book will be of interest to international researchers and practitioners interested in the topic of rural reentry, as well as graduate and upper-level undergraduate students concerned with contemporary issues in corrections, community-based corrections, critical issues in criminal justice, and criminal justice policy.

This book explores the journey of young people through a Secure Training Centre and, more generally, the criminal justice system in the UK. It examines the extent to which young people have been failed by the system at every stage of their lives, with incarceration used as a means of removing 'the problem' from society. To explore this process, the authors utilise an integrated theoretical framework to develop a new rehabilitative approach focused on developing positive outcomes for young people. The book deploys a social impact measurement methodology to evaluate the experience and outcomes of youth justice interventions at a Secure Training Centre. Such an approach provides a fresh perspective on the youth justice debate which has traditionally utilised outcome data to measure immediate impact relating to recidivism and is therefore not focused on the young person holistically. Using a social impact framework to evaluate youth justice, underpinned by an integrated theoretical framework, allows for assessment to be made which place the young person at the centre of evaluation.

This book investigates what happens to criminal evidence after the conclusion of legal proceedings. During the criminal trial, evidentiary material is tightly regulated; it is formally regarded as part of the court record, and subject to the rules of evidence and criminal procedure. However, these rules and procedures cannot govern or control this material after proceedings have ended. In its 'afterlife', criminal evidence continues to proliferate in cultural contexts. It might be photographic or video evidence, private diaries and correspondence, weapons, physical objects or forensic data, and it arouses the interest of journalists, scholars, curators, writers or artists. Building on a growing cultural interest in criminal archival materials, this book shows how in its afterlife, criminal evidence gives rise to new uses and interpretations, new concepts and questions, many of which are creative and transformative of crime and evidence, and some of which are transgressive, dangerous or insensitive. It takes the judicial principle of open justice - the assumption that justice must be seen to be done - and investigates instances in which we might see too much, too little or from a distorted angle. It centres upon a series of case studies, including those of Lindy Chamberlain and, more recently, Oscar Pistorius, in which criminal evidence has re-appeared outside of the criminal process. Traversing museums, libraries, galleries and other repositories, and drawing on extensive interviews with cultural practitioners and legal professionals, this book probes the legal, ethical, affective and aesthetic implications of the cultural afterlife of evidence.

When should someone who may have intentionally or knowingly committed criminal wrongdoing be excused? Excusing Crime examines what excusing conditions are, and why familiar excuses, such as duress, are thought to fulfil those conditions. The 'classical' view of excuses sees them as rational defects (such as mistake) in the motive force behind an action, but contrasts them with 'denials of responsibility', such as insanity, where the rational defect in that motive force is attributable to a mental defect in the agent him- or herself. This classical view of excuses has a long heritage, and is enshrined in different forms in many of the world's criminal codes, both liberal and non-liberal; however, in this book, Jeremy Horder contends that it is now time to move beyond it. Horder develops a 'liberal' account of excuses, arguing that the 'classical' distinction between rational defects and 'denials of responsibility' is too sharp, and also that the classical view of excuses is too narrow. He contends that it can be right to treat claims as excusatory even if they rely on a combination of elements of rational defect in the motive force behind the action, even if that defect is in part attributable to a mental deficiency in the agent him or herself ('diminished capacity'). Further, he argues that there can be a sound case for excuse even when people can give full rational assent to their actions, such as when they could not reasonably have been expected to do more than what they did to avoid committing wrongdoing ('due diligence'), or, more rarely, when their conscience understandably left them with no moral freedom to do other than commit the wrong ('demands-of-conscience').

"A MUST-READ FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN UNDERSTANDING AND DISMANTLING MASS INCARCERATION." -Chesa Boudin, District Attorney of San Francisco America's criminal justice system is among the deadliest and most racist in the world and it disproportionately targets Black Americans, who are also disproportionately poor, hungry, houseless, jobless, sick, and poorly educated. By every metric of misery, this nation does not act like Black Lives Matter. In order to break out of the trap of racialized mass incarceration and relentless racial oppression, we, as a society, need to rethink our basic assumptions about blame and punishment, words and symbols, social perceptions and judgments, morality, politics, and the power of the performing arts. N*gga Theory interrogates conventional assumptions and frames a transformational new way of thinking about law, language, moral judgments, politics, and transgressive art-especially profane genres like gangsta rap-and exposes where racial bias lives in the administration of justice and everyday life. Professor Jody Armour (Negrophobia and Reasonable Racism) calls for bold action: electing progressive prosecutors, defunding or dismantling the police, abolition of the prison industrial complex. But only after eradicating the anti-black bias buried in the hearts and minds of millions of Americans and baked into our legal system will we be able to say that Black Lives Matter in America.

The social organization of criminal courts is the theme of this collection of articles. The volume provides contributions to three levels of social organization in criminal courts: (1) the macro-level involving external economic, political and social forces (Joachim J. Savelsberg; Raymond Michalowski; Mary E. Vogel; John Hagan and Ron Levi); (2) the meso-level consisting of formal structures, informal cultural norms and supporting agencies in an interlocking organizational network (Malcolm M. Feeley; Lawrence Mohr; Jo Dixon; Jeffrey T. Ulmer and John H. Kramer), and (3) the micro-level consisting of interactional orders that emerge from the social discourses and categorizations in multiple layers of bargaining and negotiation processes (Lisa Frohmann; Aaron Kupchik; Michael McConville and Chester Mirsky; Bankole A. Cole). An editorial introduction ties these levels together, relating them to a Weberian sociology of law.

Technological linkages between justice and law enforcement agencies are radically altering criminal process and access to justice for prisoners. Video links, integral to an increasingly networked justice matrix, enable the custodial appearance of prisoners in remote courts and are becoming the dominant form of court appearance for incarcerated defendants. This book argues that the incorporation of such technologies into prisons is not without consequence: technologies make a critical difference to prisoners' experiences of criminal justice. By focusing on the prison endpoint and engaging with the population most affected by video links - the prisoners themselves - this book interrogates the legal and conceptual shifts brought about by the technology's displacement of physical court appearance. The central argument is that custodial appearance has created a heightened zone of demarcation between prisoners and courtroom participants. This demarcation is explored through the transformed spatial, corporeal and visual relationships. The cumulative demarcations challenge procedural justice and profoundly recompose prisoners' legal experiences in ways not necessarily recognised by policy-makers.

Former bank manager Ronald Dalton never got to watch his three young children grow up. In 1989 he was convicted for a crime that never happened. His wife, Brenda, was later ruled to have choked to death on breakfast cereal not strangled as a pathologist had initially claimed. Dalton's daughter, Alison, was in kindergarten when he was charged with second-degree murder in 1988. He attended her high school graduation on June 26, 2000, two days after his conviction was finally overturned.

Behind the proud facade of Canada's criminal justice system lie the shattered lives of the people unjustly caught within its web. Justice Miscarried tells the heartwrenching stories of twelve innocent Canadians, including David Milgaard, Donald Marshall, Guy Paul Morin, Clayton Johnson, William Mullins-Johnson, and Thomas Sophonow, who were wrongly convicted and the errors in the nations justice system that changed their lives forever.

This book systematically and concisely expounds the construction process of China's legal system since China's reform and opening-up. Chapter 1 defines the legal system in China and describes the development of China's legal system from 1949 to 1978. Chapter 2 introduces China's legislative system, including its historical development, division of legislative functions and power, and legislative procedures. Chapter 3 compares the differences between the law systems of other countries and China's law system and how other law systems in the world influences the law system in China. Chapter 4 studies China's constitutional law system, including its historical development, forms of law and enforcement of the constitution. Chapter 5 introduces China's administrative legal system, including main principles, administrative legislation and administrative compensation. Chapters 6, 7, 8, 9 describe China's civil and commercial legal system, China's economic legal system, China's social legal system and China's criminal legal system respectively. Chapter 10 introduces China's legal system in litigation and non-litigation procedure in terms of criminal, civil, administrative and non-litigation procedures. Chapter 11 analyses the legal system of the special administrative regions in China and its relationship with China's legal system. The last chapter, Chapter 12 studies the relationship between the international law and China's domestic law system.

This collection explores the stakes, risks and opportunities invoked in opening and exploring law's archive and re-examining law's evidence. It draws together work exploring how evidence is used or mis-used during the legal process, and re-used after the law's work has concluded by engaging with ethical, aesthetic or emotional dimensions of using law's evidence. Within socio-legal discourse, the move towards 'open justice' has emerged concurrently with a much broader cultural sensibility, one that has been called the "archival turn" (Ann Laura Stoler), the "archival impulse" (Hal Foster) and "archive fever" (Jacques Derrida). Whilst these terms do not describe exactly the same phenomena, they collectively acknowledge the process by which we create a fetish of the stored document. The archive facilitates our material confrontation with history, historicity, order, linearity, time and bureaucracy. For lawyers, artists, journalists, publishers, curators and scholars, the document in the archive has the attributes of authenticity, contemporaneity, and the unique tangibility of a real moment captured in material form. These attributes form the basis for the strict interpretive limits imposed by the rules of evidence and procedure. These rules do not contain the other attributes of the archival document, those that make it irresistible as the basis for creative work: beauty, violence, surprise, shame, volume, and the promise that it contains a tantalising secret. This book was previously published as a special issue of Australian Feminist Law Journal.

In Justice in Extreme Cases, Darryl Robinson argues that the encounter between criminal law theory and international criminal law (ICL) can be illuminating in two directions: criminal law theory can challenge and improve ICL, and conversely, ICL's novel puzzles can challenge and improve mainstream criminal law theory. Robinson recommends a 'coherentist' method for discussions of principles, justice and justification. Coherentism recognizes that prevailing understandings are fallible, contingent human constructs. This book will be a valuable resource to scholars and jurists in ICL, as well as scholars of criminal law theory and legal philosophy.

In the mid 1980s, there was a crisis in the availability, affordability, and adequacy of liability insurance in the United States and Canada. Mass tort claims such as the asbestos, DES, and Agent Orange litigation generated widespread public attention, and the tort system came to assume a heightened prominence in American life. While some scholars debate whether or not any such crisis still exists, there has been an increasing political, judicial and academic questioning of the goals and future of the tort system.
Exploring the Domain of Tort Law reviews the evidence on the efficacy of the tort system and its alternatives. By looking at empirical evidence in five major categories of accidents--automobile, medical malpractice, product-related accidents, environmental injuries, and workplace injuries--the authors evaluate the degree to which the tort system conforms to three normative goals: deterrence, corrective justice, and distributive justice. In each case, the authors review the deterrence and compensatory properties of the tort system, and then review parallel bodies of evidence on regulatory, penal, and compensatory alternatives.
Most of the academic literature on the tort system has traditionally been doctrinal or, in recent years, highly theoretical. Very little of this literature provides an in-depth consideration of how the system works, and whether or not there are any feasible alternatives. Exploring the Domain of TortLaw contributes valuable new evidence to the tort law reform debate. It will be of interest to academic lawyers and economists, policy analysts, policy professionals in government and research organizations, and all those affected by tort law reform.

This open access book focuses on public actors with a role in the settlement of investment disputes. Traditional studies on actors in international investment law have tended to concentrate on arbitrators, claimant investors and respondent states. Yet this focus on the "principal" players in investment dispute settlement has allowed a number of other seminal actors to be neglected. This book seeks to redress this imbalance by turning the spotlight on the latter. From the investor's home state to domestic courts, from sub-national governments to international organisations, and from political risk insurance agencies to legal defence teams in national ministries, the book critically reviews these overlooked public actors in international investment law.

In the Japanese criminal justice system, the prosecutor has more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other figure. Prosecutors make critical decisions about "who gets what" in Japan, chiefly by monopolizing decisions as to who will be charged with crimes, and for what. Based on extensive fieldwork inside a large prosecutors office in Japan and on numerous surveys and interviews, Johnson presents the first in-depth study in any language to describe and explain the role of Japan's 2000 prosecutors, the contexts in which they work, and the formidable powers they individually and collectively exercise.

Winner of the 2017 British Society of Criminology Book Prize The penal voluntary sector and the relationships between punishment and charity are more topical than ever before in countries around the world. In recent years in England and Wales, the sector has featured significantly in both policy rhetoric and academic commentary. Penal voluntary organisations are increasingly delivering prison and probation services under contract, and this role is set to expand. However, the diverse voluntary organisations which comprise the sector, their varied relationships with statutory agencies and the effects of such work remain very poorly understood. This book provides a wide-ranging and rigorous examination of this policy-relevant but complex and little studied area. It explores what voluntary organisations are doing with prisoners and probationers, how they manage to undertake their work, and the effects of charitable work with prisoners and probationers. The author uses original empirical research and an innovative application of actor-network theory to enable a step change in our understanding of this increasingly significant sector, and develops the policy-centric accounts produced in the last decade to illustrate how voluntary organisations can mediate the experiences of imprisonment and probation at the micro and macro levels. Demonstrating how the legacy of philanthropic work and neoliberal policy reforms over the past thirty years have created a complex three-tier penal voluntary sector of diverse organisations, this cutting-edge interdisciplinary text will be of interest to criminologists, sociologists of work and industry, and those engaged in the voluntary sector.

Bangladesh, one of the most densely populated countries in the world and second in South Asia, is known for its natural disasters, floods and political violence. However, the country plans to become a middle-income country by 2020 due to rapid economic growth led by strong and vibrant garments and pharmaceutical sectors. A developing country, Bangladesh cannot reach its true potential if there is a weak legal system and the executive have no regard for the rule of law. This book discusses and analyses the legal system of Bangladesh. It studies the various weaknesses and whether the judiciary of the country is really independent. International experts, scholars and lawyers with significant experience of working in Bangladesh and at international agencies and universities examine the role of the judiciary in maintaining the rule of law in the country and the critical role it can play in strengthening democracy. The chapters show the various roles played by the judiciary in promoting its independence and thereby strengthening democracy in the country. The first book to analyse the role of the judiciary and the various weaknesses in the legal system of Bangladesh, it is a relevant case study in the context of developing countries. The problems found in the legal system of Bangladesh prevail in most of the developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The book will be of interest to academics in the field of development studies, South Asian Studies and Asian Law.

A call to replace Canada's incarceration model, which has proven destructive, discriminatory, expensive, counterproductive, and - most of all - unnecessary. Imprisonment developed in the Western world as the punishment to suit all offences, from violent assault to victimless drug use. Centuries ago, incarcerating convicts represented progress on society's part, since it came as a replacement for capital punishment, maiming, and torture. Our current model - taking away convicts' freedom and holding them in degrading and unhealthy prison conditions - promotes recidivism and jeopardizes public safety. It is highly discriminatory, with disproportionate numbers of ethnic, indigenous, mentally ill, drug-dependent, poor, and otherwise marginalized people imprisoned. It is also ruinously expensive. Elsewhere, alternative correctional systems successfully rehabilitate offenders while treating them with dignity and respect. This book lays out the case for a complete overhaul of Canada's ineffective incarceration model of criminal justice and for a new approach.

Since its inception, the European Union (EU) has revised its foundational treaties several times, resulting in national ratification processes involving different actors, with varying success. This book focuses on the politics of ratification of EU Treaties and reviews the processes of ratification of EU primary legislation. Existing research and academic debate on EU constitutional politics have almost exclusively focussed on negotiation of new treaties and their institutional setting. However, this book explains how the result of ratification was achieved, and analyses the strategy that actors pursue across Europe. Ratification of the Treaty of Maastricht and the EU Constitution failed totally, whilst other ratification can be considered partial failures such as the Irish Nice and Lisbon referendums. As the EU Constitution has proved, the ratification process may have deep effects unforeseen during the processes of negotiation. In recent years, ratification has produced some of the most intense debates on national membership of the EU and the EU itself. The Politics of Ratification of EU Treaties will be of interest to students and researchers of European Studies, European Union studies, European Union Law and European Union Politics.

Should mediation be used in all family disputes?Is the time right for apology legislation in Singapore?What can mediators learn from improvisation theatre & neuro-linguistic programming?As the field of mediation continues to grow, so do the issues that face the modern mediator. Contemporary Issues in Mediation-Volume 2 provides a valuable launch-point for readers seeking answers to these questions, collecting the very best entries selected by leaders in the mediation and negotiation field - Prof. Joel Lee (National University of Singapore) and Marcus Lim (Singapore International Mediation Institute). This edition includes three essays on family mediation, and is an especially valuable addition to professionals working with family mediation.

The ideal companion to developing the essential skills needed to undertake the core module of English Legal System as part of undergraduate study of law or a qualifying GDL/CPE conversion course. Providing support for learning and revision throughout, the key skills are demonstrated in the context of the core topics of study with expertly written example sets of notes, followed by opportunities to learn and test your knowledge by creating and maintaining your own summaries of the key points. The chapters are reinforced with a series of workpoints to test your analytical, communication and organisational skills; checkpoints, to test recall of the essential facts; and research points, to practice self-study and to gain familiarity with legal sources. Course Notes: the English Legal System is designed for those keen to succeed in examinations and assessments with view to taking you one step further towards the development of the professional skills required for your later career. In addition, concepts are set out both verbally and in diagrammatic form for clarity, and the essential case law is displayed in a series of straightforward and indisposable tables illustrating how best to analyse and compare legal points as expressed by the opinions of the authorities in each case. To check your answers to questions examples are provided online along with sample essay plans and web links to useful web sites and sources at www.unlockingthelaw.co.uk, making this the ideal resource to guide you through the demands of compiling and revising the information you will need for your exams.

Charles M. Sevilla finds comic gems in court transcripts and now brings readers a delightful, all-new collection. Starting with a chapter on the defendants (one of whom, when asked his marital status, replies after a long pause, Adequate ) and following with sections on lawyers, experts, witnesses, evidence, and even one called Malaprops (DA: The status of the boat has no relevance to this case at all. This is a total fishing expedition). Stories from the previous books have become viral Internet sensations, priming readers for more legal disorder, such as:

Clerk: Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to given in the cause now pending before this court shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Witness: Yes, I swear. I ll say anything but the truth, nothing but the truth."