This groundbreaking monograph asserts the need for the establishment of an exclusionary rule of evidence in China as a means of protecting the people from police wrongdoing. The author skilfully explores the foundations and developments of the exclusionary rule in the UK and USA, assessing the rule from a comparative perspective and illuminating some issues that may arise in transferring the rule from one legal system to another. Divided into two parts, the first part discusses lessons from the past, and provides an in-depth examination of the development of the exclusionary rule in the UK and USA, covering rationales, debates and the theoretical foundation of the exclusionary rule in the constitutional context. The second part looks to the future and the establishment of a Chinese exclusionary rule. Specifically, it analyses the effects of police torture, the passive attitude of judges and the need to establish such a rule in practice for future protection of human rights. The author's experience in criminal law and procedure allow him to adroitly analyse crucial issues on both theoretical and practical level that is understandable to those working in the areas of human rights, comparative criminal procedure, and the Chinese legal system.

The term judicial opinion can be a misnomer as rarely are judges' true feelings on legal issues and the work they do made available to the public. Judges are constrained when writing decisions to follow the law and leave personal commentary aside. Through a series of revealing interviews, this book gathers empirical data from judges and justices from different legal systems to provide a scintillating look at how they view their jobs and cope with difficult legal matters. Interviews are conducted according to strict guidelines with a standardized format for consistency. Each chapter begins by describing the region and its style of judicial governance. This is followed by an interview with a judge or justice in the particular jurisdiction. They discuss their careers, personal judicial philosophies, the problems and successes they've experienced, and how theory influences practice in their jurisdiction. Many also discuss transnational relations and several chapters include glossaries that explain unfamiliar terms and acronyms. Each chapter concludes with the interviewer's assessment and observations. This structure allows readers to easily compare the views of judges and to see the similarities, the differences, and the uniqueness of the different legal models and systems. Trends in the Judiciary: Interviews with Judges Across the Globe, Volume Two is the seventh publication in the Interviews with Global Leaders in Policing, Courts, and Prisons series. The broad-based coverage of varying viewpoints in this text encourages a great breadth of understanding of global justice.

John Appleton was a prominent American lawyer who practiced in and around Bangor, Maine, beginning in the early 1820s and earned a national reputation as Chief Justice of Maine's supreme court. Through a study of Appleton's life and thought, Gold shows how the commitment to individual liberty and personal responsibility helped shape nineteenth-century American law. By tracing Appleton's life and law practice, the book addresses an aspect of early American culture that has received little attention--the nature of American individualism as embodied in the law. The book contributes to American legal historiography in other ways. It is one of just a handful of serious studies of state judges. It adds to the current revisionist interpretation of laissez-faire constitutionalism. Finally, it sheds light on some little studied areas of legal history, in particular the history of the law of evidence. Recently some historians have recognized that law in the nineteenth century incorporated broadly held social values or world-views, and a few have written on the relationship between law and individualism. Gold contends these scholars have associated American individualism with self-reliance in the nineteenth century and nonconformity in the twentieth. Gold shows there is another side to individualism with self-reliance in the nineteenth century and nonconformity in the twentieth. Americans lived in society, therefore, their relations with one another had to be ordered. While they believed in freedom of action, they also believed that individuals had to be responsible for the effects of their actions on others. The book is ideal reading for all students of American legal history in particular and American history in general.

Rule of law and constitutionalist ideals are understood by many, if not most, as necessary to create a just political order. Defying the traditional division between normative and positive theoretical approaches, this book explores how political reality on the one hand, and constitutional ideals on the other, mutually inform and influence each other. Seventeen chapters from leading international scholars cover a diverse range of topics and case studies to test the hypothesis that the best normative theories, including those regarding the role of constitutions, constitutionalism and the rule of law, conceive of the ideal and the real as mutually regulating.

Volume 2 of this two-volume companion study into the administration, experience, impact and representation of summary justice in Scotland explores the role of police courts in moulding cultural ideas, social behaviours and urban environments in the nineteenth century. Whereas Volume 1, subtitled Magistrates, Media and the Masses, analysed the establishment, development and practice of police courts, Volume 2, subtitled Boundaries, Behaviours and Bodies, examines, through themed case studies, how these civic and judicial institutions shaped conceptual, spatial, temporal and commercial boundaries by regulating every-day activities, pastimes and cultures. As with Volume 1, Boundaries, Behaviours and Bodies is attentive to the relationship between magistrates, the police, the media and the wider community, but here the main focus of analysis is on the role and impact of the police courts, through their practice, on cultural ideas, social behaviours and environments in the nineteenth-century city. By intertwining social, cultural, institutional and criminological analyses, this volume examines police courts' external impact through the matters they treated, considering how concepts such as childhood and juvenile behaviour, violence and its victims, poverty, migration, health and disease, and the regulation of leisure and trade, were assessed and ultimately affected by judicial practice.

In this book, readers will take a fascinating journey with local prosecutors as they seek to obtain reasonable and appropriate case dispositions while preventing abuse and misuse of the law and protecting the civil rights of their jurisdictions. Prosecutors have a powerful and generally little-understood role in the criminal justice system. Their important powers include accepting or rejecting cases, making decisions about dismissing charges, or moving cases to disposition and recommending a sentence-all of which can critically affect not only individuals but society through their ability to shape our criminal justice system. The Power of the Prosecutor: Gatekeepers of the Criminal Justice System explores the real-world actions and outcomes of local prosecutors through five well-known cases, documenting the variety of pressures prosecutors face both within and outside their offices as they attempt to make the best decisions about crimes and defendants. Written by individuals who have actively engaged prosecutors in practically every U.S. state over 30 years' time, the book examines actual case profiles that enable readers to witness how prosecutors reach their behind-the-scenes decisions and grasp how the criminal justice system operates. The authors explain the variations in prosecution, including the effects of policies and priorities, action choices available, and the types of both internal and external relationships with other participants in the system: the police, the courts, the defense counsel, and the community they represent. Readers will come away with in-depth knowledge and understanding of the complexities and pressures faced by prosecutors in upholding justice under a wide variety of conditions. Offers understandable explanations of why outcomes vary so widely in the criminal justice system-for example, why one prosecutor's office uses drug treatment programs for first-time offenders and another seeks jail time Answers many of the questions raised in Ferguson, MO, and Staten Island, NY, about the role of prosecutors and their discretionary powers Presents specific well-known cases to enhance readers' understanding of the intended/unintended consequences of our adversarial system of justice Addresses in detail the complex relationships between various parts of the U.S. criminal justice system

In this book, James R. Maxeiner takes on the challenge of demonstrating that historically American law makers did consider a statutory methodology as part of formulating laws. In the nineteenth century, when the people wanted laws they could understand, lawyers inflicted judge-made, statute-destroying, common law on them. Maxeiner offers the cure for common law, in the form of sensible statute law. Building on this historical evidence, Maxeiner shows how rule-making in civil law jurisdictions in other countries makes for a far more equitable legal system. Sensible statute laws fit together: one statute governs, as opposed to several laws that even lawyers have trouble disentangling. In a statute law system, lawmakers make laws for the common good in sensible procedures, and judges apply sensible laws and do not make them. This book shows how such a system works in Germany and how it would be a solution for the American legal system as well.

This provocative book brings together twenty-plus contributors from the fields of law, economics, and international relations to look at whether the U.S. legal system is contributing to the country's long postwar decline. The book provides a comprehensive overview of the interactions between economics and the law - in such areas as corruption, business regulation, and federalism - and explains how our system works differently from the one in most countries, with contradictory and hard to understand business regulations, tort laws that vary from state to state, and surprising judicial interpretations of clearly written contracts. This imposes far heavier litigation costs on American companies and hampers economic growth.

Since the 1980s, an array of legal and non-legal practices-labeled Transitional Justice-has been developed to support post-repressive, post-authoritarian, and post-conflict societies in dealing with their traumatic past. In Understanding the Age of Transitional Justice, the contributors analyze the processes, products, and efficacy of a number of transitional justice mechanisms and look at how genocide, mass political violence, and historical injustices are being institutionally addressed. They invite readers to speculate on what (else) the transcripts produced by these institutions tell us about the past and the present, calling attention to the influence of implicit history conveyed in the narratives that have gained an audience through international criminal tribunals, trials, and truth commissions. Nanci Adler has gathered leading specialists to scrutinize the responses to and effects of violent pasts that provide new perspectives for understanding and applying transitional justice mechanisms in an effort to stop the recycling of old repressions into new ones.

The Death Penalty's Denial of Fundamental Human Rights details how capital punishment violates universal human rights-to life; to be free from torture and other forms of cruelty; to be treated in a non-arbitrary, non-discriminatory manner; and to dignity. In tracing the evolution of the world's understanding of torture, which now absolutely prohibits physical and psychological torture, the book argues that an immutable characteristic of capital punishment-already outlawed in many countries and American states-is that it makes use of death threats. Mock executions and other credible death threats, in fact, have long been treated as torturous acts. When crime victims are threatened with death and are helpless to prevent their deaths, for example, courts routinely find such threats inflict psychological torture. With simulated executions and non-lethal corporal punishments already prohibited as torturous acts, death sentences and real executions, the book contends, must be classified as torturous acts, too.

This remarkably original and vital work argues that the problems are rooted in a disjunction between prevailing values and the prevailing doctrinal regime in constitutional law. Dripps asserts that the Fourteenth Amendment's more general standards of due process and equal protection encompass the values that ought to govern the criminal process.

Why does the American criminal justice system punish too many innocent people, failing to punish so many guilty parties and imposing a disproportionate burden on blacks? This remarkably original and vital work argues that the problems are rooted in a disjunction between prevailing values and the prevailing doctrinal regime in constitutional law. Dripps asserts that the Fourteenth Amendment's more general standards of due process and equal protection encompass the values that ought to govern the criminal process.

Criminal procedure ought to be about protecting the innocent, punishing the guilty, and doing equal justice. Modern legal doctrine, however, hinders these pursuits by concentrating on the specific procedural safeguards contained in the Bill of Rights. Dripps argues that a renewed focus on the Fourteenth Amendment would be more consistent than current law with both our values and with the legitimate sources of Constitutional law, and will promote the instrumental values the criminal process ought to serve. Legal and constitutional scholars will find his account of our criminal systeM's disarray compelling, and his argument as to how it may be reconstructed important and provoking.

This book explores contemporary social theory and developments in the study of sexuality through the analysis of law and its practices. Each chapter explores the power of discourse in law in relation to homosexualities, while simultaneously examining how homosexuals resist and disrupt these legal discourses. It is a valuable addition to the literature of the fields of Sociology, Cultural Studies, Law, Politics, Gender Studies and Sexuality.

An extensive exploration of the major decisions and personalities of the Supreme Court during the 14-year tenure of Chief Justice Morrison Remick Waite. The Waite Court: Justices, Rulings, and Legacy presents a fresh interpretation of the Supreme Court under the tenure of Chief Justice Morrison Remick Waite (1874-1888). An in-depth analysis of key decisions demonstrates how the Waite Court confronted such profound issues as the post-Civil War rights of African Americans and state regulations intended to cope with rampant industrialization. Highlighting the Court's most famous decision, Munn v. Illinois, which upheld legislation regulating railroad and grain elevator rates, this careful analysis also reviews the Court's unique involvement in the 1876 presidential election electoral predicament. Profiles of the 15 justices who served on the Waite Court include extensive descriptions of the five that rank among the most outstanding justices ever to serve on the Supreme Court. A-Z entries on key people, laws, cases, events, and concepts that were relevant during the Waite Court era, including the growing volume of state economic regulations enacted to cope with industrial expansion and urban growth fueled by the Civil War and by a nationwide rail network for people and goods An appendix including a timeline of important events for the years 1865 through 1890, plus excerpts from other important source materials, such as landmark decisions of the Waite Court

The responsibility of any state is to protect its citizens. But if a state, either through omission or commission, fails to investigate and prosecute crime then what remedies do citizens have? Veronica Michel investigates procedural rights in Chile, Guatemala, and Mexico that allow citizens to call for the appointment of a private prosecutor to initiate criminal investigations. This right diminishes the monopoly of the state over criminal prosecutions and thus offers citizens a way of insisting on state accountability. This book provides the first full-length empirical study of how the victims' right to private prosecution can impact access to justice in Latin America, and shows how institutional and legal arrangements interact to shape the politics of criminal justice. By examining homicide cases in detail, Michel highlights how everyday legal struggles can help build the rule of law from below.

This timely collection examines the record of current and recent justices in fashioning the Constitution and looks at the larger political context in which their work has occurred. The eight essays, written by distinguished scholars of the Supreme Court, review the achievements of current Justices O'Connor and Rehnquist as well as recent justices Douglas, Black, and Harlan. The essay on Justice O'Connor is one of the first overall assessments of her record to appear in print. Editor D. Grier Stephenson, Jr.'s introductory chapter presents an insightful overview of the Supreme Court's role in American government today. Collectively these chapters make a rich contribution to an understanding of constitutional government and render a complex subject both accessible to general readers and interesting to experts. Following editor Stephenson's cogent introduction, Henry AbrahaM's Can Presidents Really Pack the Supreme Court? focuses on the political and intellectual environments within which the Supreme Court functions and on the candidates selected by presidents to sit on the High Bench. In Chapter Three, former solicitor general Rex E. Lee zeroes on a central aspect of, and a key player in, the judicial process. Leadership and the relationships among the justices are the subject of Chapter Four. Harold J. Spaeth's essay on Justice Sandra Day O'Connor emphasizes personality as an element contributing to the Court's decisions. The legacy of Justice William O. Douglas and the impact of the Court's past on its present decisions are both examined by Walter Murphy. Similarly, the next chapter's study of Justice John Marshall Harlan shows the importance of the Constitutional legacy in understanding the Supreme Court. Affirmative Action and the Supreme Court reviews the responses of current members of the Court to one of the most divisive and significant policy questions of our time. The concluding essay surveys Chief Justice Rehnquist and the Future of the Supreme Court. This volume is important reading for students of law, history, and political science.

Plea bargaining is one of the most important and most discussed issues in modern criminal procedure law. Based on historical and comparative legal research, the author has analysed the wide-spread use of plea bargaining in different criminal justice systems. The book sets out in-depth studies of consensual case dispositions in the UK, examining how plea bargaining has developed and spread in England and Wales. It also goes on to discusses in detail the problems that this practise poses for the rule of law by avoiding procedural safe-guards. The book draws on empirical research in its examination of the absence of informal settlements in the former GDR, offering a unique insight into criminal procedure in a socialist legal system that has been little studied. Drawing on her research findings, the author goes on to discuss the extent to which plea bargaining should be developed in the International Criminal Court in The Hague, as the question of this practise is set to be one of the seminal debates in the development of international criminal procedures in the new International Criminal Court. Plea Bargaining in National and International Law will be of particular interest to academics and students of international criminal law, criminal procedures and comparative law.

What is it like working as a barrister in the 21st century? The independent Bar has transformed in the last 30 years into a commercialised, enterprising profession. Based on interviews with and observation of barristers and chambers' staff, this book identifies key changes that have taken place at the Bar and how these are reshaping and reformulating barristers' professionalism and working culture. This is the first empirical overview of the depth, scope and effects of multiple reforms that have been imposed on the profession. It explores how this once unified profession has fragmented, as the lived experiences of barristers in different practice areas have diverged. Highly specialised sets of chambers now operate like businesses, whilst others, who are dependent on legal aid funding, struggle to survive. This book offers a unique examination of different sites of change: how the chambers model has evolved, how entrepreneurial barristers market themselves, how aspirant law students prepare to enter the profession and how regulatory and procedural reforms have imposed managerial constraints on practitioners. The conclusion considers what the far-reaching changes mean for the prospects of the Bar in England and Wales.

Whether you're new to higher education, coming to legal study for the first time or just wondering what Evidence Law is all about, Beginning Evidence is the ideal introduction to help you hit the ground running. Starting with the basics and an overview of each topic, it will help you come to terms with the structure, themes and issues of the subject so that you can begin your evidence module with confidence. Adopting a clear and simple approach with legal vocabulary explained in a detailed glossary, Charanjit Singh Landa breaks the subject of Evidence Law down using practical everyday examples to make it understandable for anyone, whatever their background. Diagrams and flowcharts simplify complex issues, important cases are identified and explained and on-the- spot questions help you recognise potential issues or debates within the law so that you can contribute in classes with confidence. Beginning Evidence is an ideal first introduction to the subject for LLB, GDL or ILEX and especially international students, those enrolled on distance learning courses or on other degree programmes.

Even though legal aid is available for people seeking asylum, there is uneven access to advice across Britain. Based on empirical research, this book offers fresh thinking on what has gone wrong in the legal aid market. It presents a rare picture of the barristers, solicitors and caseworkers practising immigration law in charities and private firms. In doing so, this book examines supply and demand and illuminates what constitutes high-quality legal aid work/provision, subsequent conflicts with financial rationality and how practitioners resolve these issues. Challenging existing legal aid policy, this book presents innovative insights to ensure public service markets around the globe function well for all those involved.

In A Legal History of Mississippi: Race, Class, and the Struggle for Opportunity, legal scholar Joseph A. Ranney surveys the evolution of Mississippi's legal system and analyzes the ways in which that system has changed during the state's first two hundred years. Through close research, qualitative analysis, published court decisions, statutes, and law review articles, along with unusual secondary sources including nineteenth-century political and legal journals and journals of state constitutional conventions, Ranney indicates how Mississippi law has both shaped and reflected the state's character and, to a certain extent, how Mississippi's legal evolution compares with that of other states. Ranney examines the interaction of Mississippi law and society during key periods of change including the colonial and territorial eras and the early years of statehood when the legal foundations were laid; the evolution of slavery and slave law in Mississippi; the state's antebellum role as a leader of Jacksonian legal reform; the unfolding of the response to emancipation and wartime devastation during Reconstruction and the early Jim Crow era; Mississippi's legal evolution during the Progressive Era and its legal response to the crisis of the Great Depression; and the legal response to the civil rights revolution of the mid-twentieth century and the cultural revolutions of the late twentieth century. Histories of the law in other states are starting to appear, but there is none for Mississippi. Ranney fills that gap to help us better understand the state as it enters its third century.

'[Optimize is] ideal for undergraduate students at all levels. The content is of a high standard, easy to read and understand. The materials are very catching and easy on the eye making it easy to read and digest the materials...an essential study tool for all law students' - George Ellison, Derby 'I am really impressed...the strengths are the user friendly format, clear explanations, helpful diagrams/flowcharts and appropriate suggestions for analysing the issues concerned' - Katherine Davies, Northumbria The Optimize series is designed to show you how to apply your knowledge in assessment. These concise revision guides cover the most commonly taught topics, and provide you with the tools to: Understand the law and remember the details o using diagrams and tables throughout to demonstrate how the law fits together Contextualise your knowledge o identifying and explaining how to apply legal principles for important cases o providing revision advice to help you aim higher in essays and exams Avoid common misunderstandings and errors o identifying common pitfalls students encounter in class and in assessment Reflect critically on the law o identifying contentious areas that are up for debate and on which you will need to form an opinion Apply what you have learned in assessment o presenting learning objectives that reflect typical assessment criteria o providing sample essay and exam questions, supported by end-of chapter feedback The series is also supported by comprehensive online resources that allow you to test your progress during the run-up to exams. URL: www.routledge.com/cw/optimizelawrevision/

Often, the success of court actions depends upon the effectiveness of provisional remedies, conservatory measures or summary judgments taken before or in lieu of the main proceedings. A good decision, obtained after years of effort, is of no use if it cannot be enforced because the debtor's assets have disappeared. This text provides a guide through the web of preliminary actions that can be taken in order to ensure the successful seizing of assets. This practical guide answers questions such as: what is a Mareva Injunction and how can it be used effectively?; what is a refere, in France, Belgium and several other countries, and how can it save the plaintiff years of litigation?; and how can assets be seized in Hong Kong on the basis of a German judgment concerning an Australian living in Turkey? Within each country, each topic is clarified using a comprehensive example, which allows the reader to see the theory in action. "Summary Proceedings" covers the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, The Netherlands, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Korea, Luxembourg, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey and the USA.

How can multilingualism and legal certainty be reconciled in EU law? Despite the importance of multilingualism for the European project, it has attracted only limited attention from legal scholars. This book provides a valuable contribution to this otherwise neglected area. Whilst firmly situated within the field of EU law, the book also employs theories developed in linguistics and translation studies. More particularly, it explores the uncertainty surrounding the meaning of multilingual EU law and the impact of multilingualism on judicial reasoning at the European Court of Justice. To reconceptualize legal certainty in EU law, the book highlights the importance of transparent judicial reasoning and dialogue between courts and suggests a discursive model for adjudication at the European Court of Justice. Based on both theory and case law analysis, this interdisciplinary study is an important contribution to the field of European legal reasoning and to the study of multilingualism within EU legal scholarship.

New Private Law Theory opens a new pathway to private law theory through a pluralistic approach. Such a theory needs a broad and stable foundation, which the authors have built here through a canon of nearly seventy texts of reference. This book brings these different texts from different disciplines into conversation with each other, grouping them around central questions of private law and at the same time integrating them with the legal doctrinal analysis of example cases. This book will be accessible to both experienced and early career scholars working on private law.