Although seemingly bizarre and barbaric in modern times, trial by ordeal-the subjection of the accused to undergo harsh tests such as walking over hot irons or being bound and cast into water-played an integral, and often staggeringly effective, role in justice systems for centuries.

In "Trial by Fire and Water," Robert Bartlett examines the workings of trial by ordeal from the time of its first appearance in the barbarian law codes, tracing its use by Christian societies down to its last days as a test for witchcraft in modern Europe and America. Bartlett presents a critique of recent theories about the operation and the decline of the practice, and he attempts to make sense of the ordeal as a working institution and to explain its disappearance. Finally, he considers some of the general historical problems of understanding a society in which religious beliefs were so fundamental.

Robert Bartlett is Wardlaw Professor of Medieval History at the University of St. Andrews.

Language ideology is a concept developed in linguistic anthropology to explain the ways in which ideas about the definition and functions of language can become linked with social discourses and identities. In Entextualizing Domestic Violence, Jennifer Andrus demonstrates how language ideologies that are circulated in the Anglo-American law of evidence draw on and create indexical links to social discourses, affecting speakers whose utterances are used as evidence in legal situations. Andrus addresses more specifically the tendency of such a language ideology to create the potential to speak for, appropriate, and ignore the speech of women who have been victims of domestic violence. In addition to identifying specific linguistic strategies employed in legal situations, she analyzes assumptions about language circulated and animated in the legal text and talk used to evaluate spoken evidence, and describes the consequences of the language ideology when it is co-articulated with discourses about gender and domestic violence. The book focuses on the pair of rules concerning hearsay and its exceptions in the Anglo-American law of evidence. Andrus considers legal discourses, including statutes, precedents, their application in trials, and the relationship between such legal discourses and social discourses about domestic violence. Using discourse analysis, she demonstrates the ways legal metadiscourses about hearsay are articulated with social discourses about domestic violence, and the impact of this powerful co-articulation on the individual whose speech is legally appropriated. Andrus approaches legal rules and language ideology both diachronically and synchronically in this book, which will be an important addition to ongoing research and discussion on the role legal appropriation of speech may have in perpetuating the voicelessness of victims in the legal treatment of domestic violence.

Cardozo examines the meaning of justice, the science of values and the relationship between individual and society. Originally published: New York: Columbia University Press, 1928. v, 142 pp.
His many references in these lectures to Greek philosophy show how great a part his early classical training played in the formation of his ideas; in relating his general principles to the concrete cases which, in his words, he used as a kind of legal litmus paper, he was a true Aristotelian. --ARTHUR L. GOODHART, Five Jewish Lawyers of the Common Law 59-60.
The paradoxes or puzzles of legal science are, in many cases, not peculiar to the law, as Judge Cardozo s discussion impliedly recognizes. In legal controversies there happen to be presented, in formal opposition, the conflicting claims which it is the function of all who work with and for men -- legislators, administrators and judges -- to attempt to adjust in some manner that will result in a minimum of friction in the social order. -- U.S. Law Review 63 (1929):555
BENJAMIN N. CARDOZO 1870 1938] was an associate justice of the Supreme Court and one of the most influential American jurists of the twentieth century. The Paradoxes of Legal Science was published when he was chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals. It is based on his James S. Carpentier Lectures delivered at Columbia University in 1927 1928."

Step inside a real-life, missing person investigation in this compelling, true crime must-read.

Uncover what happened to missing estate agent Suzy Lamplugh, as David Videcette takes you on a quest to unpick her mysterious disappearance and scrutinise the shadowy 'Mr Kipper'.

One overcast Monday in July 1986, 25-year-old estate agent Suzy Lamplugh vanished whilst showing a smart London property to a mysterious 'Mr Kipper'. Despite the baffling case dominating the news and one of the largest missing persons cases ever mounted, police failed to find a shred of evidence establishing what had happened to her.

Sixteen years later, following a second investigation and under pressure from Suzy's desperate parents, police named convicted rapist and murderer John Cannan as their prime suspect. However, the Crown Prosecution Service refused to charge him, citing a lack of evidence.

High-profile searches were conducted, yet Suzy's body was never found. The trail that might lead investigators to her, long since lost.

Haunted by another missing person case, investigator and former Scotland Yard detective, David Videcette, has spent five years painstakingly reinvestigating Suzy's cold case disappearance. Through a series of incredible new witness interviews and fresh groundbreaking analysis, he uncovers piece by piece what happened to Suzy and why the case was never solved.

When women won the vote in the United States in 1920 they were still routinely barred from serving as jurors, but some began vigorous campaigns for a place in the jury box. This book tells the story of how women mobilized in fifteen states to change jury laws so that women could gain this additional right of citizenship. Some campaigns quickly succeeded; others took substantially longer. The book reveals that when women strategically adapted their tactics to the broader political environment, they were able to speed up the pace of jury reform, while less strategic movements took longer. A comparison of the more strategic women's jury movements with those that were less strategic shows that the former built coalitions with other women's groups, took advantage of political opportunities, had past experience in seeking legal reforms and confronted tensions and even conflict within their ranks in ways that bolstered their action.

The onset of the 2004 EU enlargement witnessed a number of predictions being made about the approaches, capacity and ability of Central European judges who were soon to join the Union. Optimistic voices, foreshadowing the deep transformative power that Europe was bound to exercise with respect to the judicial mentality and practice in the new Member States, were intertwined with gloomy pictures of post-Communist limited formalism and mechanical jurisprudence that could not be reformed, which were likely to undermine the very foundations of mutual trust and recognition the judicial system of the Union is built upon. Ten years later, this volume revisits these predictions and critically assesses the evolution of Central European judicial mentality, institutions and constitutionality under the influence of the EU membership. Comparatively evaluating the situation in a number of Central European Member States in their socio-legal contexts, notably Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania, the volume offers unique insights into the process of (non) Europeanisation of national legal systems and cultures.

Civil justice in the United States is neither civil nor just. Instead it embodies a maxim that the American legal system is a paragon of legal process which assures its citizens a fair and equal treatment under the law. Long have critics recognized the system's failings while offering abundant criticism but few solutions. This book provides a comparative-critical introduction to civil justice systems in the United States, Germany, and Korea. It shows the shortcomings of the American system and compares them with German and Korean successes in implementing the rule of law. The author argues that these shortcomings could easily be fixed if the American legal systems were open to seeing how other legal systems' civil justice processes handle cases more efficiently and fairly. Far from being a treatise for specialists, this book is an introductory text for civil justice in the three aforementioned legal systems. It is intended to be accessible to people with a general knowledge of a modern legal system.

The text, now updated to include the latest edition of arbitral rules, considers the full range of available dispute resolution methods, including mediation, conciliation, and (increasingly common in international construction disputes) determination by dispute review boards or expert panels, before focusing specifically on arbitration. The book then looks in detail at all aspects of arbitration, from commencement of proceedings, through preparation and collection of the evidence necessary in complex construction cases, to common procedural issues, the conduct of the hearing, the effect of the award, challenges to it and its enforcement.

The central argument of this book explores the disillusionment that Australians feel with regard to the way politics is conducted. The book explores causes of that disillusionment, and argues that because these are ultimately traceable to defects in the constitution, it is only through constitutional reform that government can be improved. This book argues that the current approach to constitutional debate suffers from the flaw of being anti-theoretical, in the sense that it is not grounded in any set of values, and is afflicted by a tendency to consider practical objections to reform before considering the moral case for it. This book argues that instead of accepting the constitution as it is, it is time we began to discuss how it ought to be, taking human dignity as the fundamental value upon which a constitution should be based. It then puts the case for change in a number of areas, including reform of the electoral system, enhanced parliamentary scrutiny of the executive, the inclusion in the constitution of a full bill of rights, the abolition of the federal system, realisation of the rights of Indigenous people, codification of constitutional conventions either in conjunction with or separately from an Australian republic, reform of the rules of standing in constitutional matters and, finally, the need to improve civics education. This book is designed to be provocative in the way that it directly challenges current academic orthodoxy. This book also outlines a proposed draft new constitution. This book will be of interest to anyone who is concerned about how Australia is governed and why it has been so difficult to achieve constitutional reform.

Lauterpacht's influential study uses models drawn from private law for the interpretation and development of international law. Lauterpacht expounds upon this subject with a useful discussion of international arbitration and international tribunals, and refers to numerous cases. Sir Hersch Lauterpacht 1897-1960], one of the greatest scholars of modern international law, was the Whewell Professor of International Law at Cambridge and a judge of the International Court of Justice. The Lauterpacht Centre for International Law at Cambridge University is named in his honor. "Dr. Lauterpacht has made a valuable and scholarly addition to the literature on international law. There has been a good deal of adverse criticism-some of it quite just-on the practice of conducting the argument of a question of international law by pure analogies to civil law. The learned author deprecates the rejection of this mode of reasoning, and develops the thesis that in the great majority of cases its employment has had a beneficial influence on the development of international law. It seems to us that Article 38 (3) of the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice, by adopting 'general principles of law recognized by civilized states' as ancillary sources of law for use by the Court, made Dr. Lauterpacht's view not only correct but also inevitable. A book of this kind was bound to come sooner or later, and it is satisfactory that it has been written by one who is an expert." --Percy H. Winfield, Cambridge Law Journal 3 (1927-1929) 322.

This book explores some of the most glaring misunderstandings about the U.S. Supreme Court-and makes a strong case for why our Supreme Court Justices should not be entrusted with decisions that affect every American citizen. Supreme Myths: Why the Supreme Court is Not a Court and its Justices are Not Judges presents a detailed discussion of the Court's most important and controversial constitutional cases that demonstrates why it doesn't justify being labeled "a court of law." Eric Segall, professor of law at Georgia State University College of Law for two decades, explains why this third branch of the national government is an institution that makes important judgments about fundamental questions based on the Justices' ideological preferences, not the law. A complete understanding of the true nature of the Court's decision-making process is necessary, he argues, before an intelligent debate over who should serve on the Court-and how they should resolve cases-can be held. Addressing front-page areas of constitutional law such as health care, abortion, affirmative action, gun control, and freedom of religion, this book offers a frank description of how the Supreme Court truly operates, a critique of life tenure of its Justices, and a set of proposals aimed at making the Court function more transparently to further the goals of our representative democracy.

This book provides international readers with basic knowledge of Chinese civil procedure and succinct explanations of essential issues, fundamental principles and particular institutions in Chinese civil procedure and the conflict of laws. The book begins with a survey of the Chinese procedural law and an overview of Chinese civil procedure and then focuses on essential aspects of court jurisdiction and trial procedure in civil matters. In view of the traditional importance of alternative dispute resolution in China, mediation (conciliation) and arbitration are also discussed with corresponding comparisons to civil procedure. The book also discusses issues relating to the conflict of laws, i.e. international jurisdiction under the Chinese international civil procedure law, recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments as well as Chinese choice of law rules. Focus is directed toward the Chinese Statute on the Application of Laws to Civil Relationships Involving Foreign Elements of 28 October 2010, which entered into force on 1 April 2011. CHEN Weizuo is Director of the Research Centre for Private International Law and Comparative Law at Tsinghua University's School of Law in Beijing. He has a Doctor of Laws degree from Wuhan University, China; an LL.M. and doctor iuris, Universit t des Saarlandes, Germany; professeur invit la Facult internationale de droit compar de Strasbourg, France (since 2003); professeur invit l'Universit de Strasbourg, France. He has published extensively on the international laws and his publications have appeared both in and outside China. He has taught a special course in French at the Hague Academy of International Law during its 2012 summer session of private international law.

The Executive Guide to Managing Disputes not only explains why litigation is so costly, but also how to manage disputes sensibly to avoid unnecessary litigation, reduce costs, and improve results. The book shows how ADR (i.e., Alternative Dispute Resolution) can short-cut disputes, and how to use often inexpensive dispute management programs to contain costs and achieve favorable outcomes.

An authoritative guide designed for Illinois criminal trial attorneys, appellate practitioners, and judges. This book provides an in-depth review of the new Illinois Rules of Evidence along with the authors' commentaries and a compilation of the most recent Illinois decisions, statutes, and Supreme Court Rules. In addition to the new rules, the book addresses complementary Illinois common law evidence rules and provides a thorough constitutional analysis of evidence law. This comprehensive guide explains everything you need to know about the new Illinois Rules of Evidence and their impact on your daily criminal litigation practice. Ralph Ruebner is a Professor of Law and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at The John Marshall Law School. He has taught evidence, criminal procedure, and international human rights law. He previously served as the Executive Director of the John Marshall Law School Criminal Justice Clinic and as the Deputy State Appellate Defender in both the First and Second Appellate Districts in Illinois. He is a 1969 graduate of the American University Washington College of Law. Katarina Durcova is a Staff Attorney at the Criminal Division of the Circuit Court of Cook County. She is a 2011 graduate of The John Marshall Law School and was a John Marshall Law School Library Research Fellow. She previously worked as a judicial extern for Justice Margaret O'Mara Frossard (ret.) at the First District of the Illinois Appellate Court and as a summer law clerk in the Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague, the Netherlands.

This Short Introduction looks at judging and reasoning from three perspectives: what legal reasoning has been; what legal reasoning is from the view of judges and jurists; and what legal reasoning is from the view of a social scientist epistemologist or humanities specialist. Geoffrey Samuel begins by identifying the main institutional focal points of legal reasoning (ius, regulae iuris, Interpretatio, utilitas and actiones). While examining legal reasoning from both an internal and external viewpoint, the book simultaneously incorporates theory and scholarship from a range of other disciplines including social science and film studies. The author also includes a discussion of fiction theory, schemes of intelligibility, and other epistemological issues as well as standard reasoning devices such as induction, deduction and analogy. Combining cases and materials with original text, this unique, concise format is designed to be accessible for students who are starting out on their law programs, as well as providing insights for students and researchers who would like to examine judging and legal reasoning in more depth.

How do judges sentence? In particular, how important is judicial discretion in sentencing? Sentencing guidelines are often said to promote consistency, but is consistency in sentencing achievable or even desirable? Whilst the passing of a sentence is arguably the most public stage of the criminal justice process, there have been few attempts to examine judicial perceptions of, and attitudes towards, the sentencing process. Through interviews with Scottish judges and by presenting a comprehensive review and analysis of recent scholarship on sentencing - including a comparative study of UK, Irish and Commonwealth sentencing jurisprudence - this book explores these issues to present a systematic theory of sentencing. Through an integration of the concept of equity as particularised justice, the Aristotelian concept of phronesis (or 'practical wisdom'), the concept of value pluralism, and the focus of appellate courts throughout the Commonwealth on sentencing by way of 'instinctive synthesis', it is argued that judicial sentencing methodology is best viewed in terms of a phronetic synthesis of the relevant facts and circumstances of the particular case. The author concludes that sentencing is best conceptualised as a form of case-orientated, concrete and intuitive decision making; one that seeks individualisation through judicial recognition of the profoundly contextualised nature of the process.

Technology has had a prevalent impact on nearly all social domains, one being the judicial system. Advancements such as computer-generated demonstrations and electronic filing can enhance presentations and give a clearer, well-organized case.""E-Justice: Using Information Communication Technologies in the Court System"" presents the most relevant experiences and best practices concerning the use and impact of ICTs in the courtroom. This groundbreaking title draws upon the leading academic and practicing perspectives from around the globe to provide academics and professionals throughout the legal system with the most comprehensive overview of present developments in e-justice.