Criminal Evidence

• A highly original contribution to evidence scholarship providing authoritative commentary on the fundamental principles and underlying logic of the law of criminal evidence
• Engages with the broader jurisprudential, moral, and political significance of detailed rules of evidence, encouraging a deeper and more holistic understanding of the subject
• Identifies and elucidates coherent foundations of principle for particular evidentiary doctrines including fair trial, the presumption of innocence, the privilege against self-incrimination, hearsay, and bad character
• Considers the forensic applications of inductive logic, narrative and probability
• Fully integrated coverage of the European Convention on Human Rights and post-Human Rights Act developments to date, alongside relevant jurisprudence from the USA, Australia, Canada and other commonwealth jurisdictions
• Conclusion reflects on recent, partly contradictory trends towards constitutionalization, discretionary admissibility and cosmopolitanism in the law of criminal evidence
• First edition quickly established itself as a leading evidence text throughout the common law world. It was widely and favourably reviewed (including a symposium issue of the International Commentary on Evidence), and has been cited by the Supreme Court of Canada

New to this edition

• The second edition of this critically acclaimed work has been comprehensively revised, to keep each chapter to a manageable length and to enhance the book's thematic approach
• Fully updated to account for all major doctrinal developments since the first edition, including new cases on torture evidence, reverse onus clauses, confrontation, hearsay, previous sexual history and bad character
• Includes more detailed coverage of the important topic of confession evidence
• Engages with recent theoretical scholarship on the law of evidence, including the work of Antony Duff, Hock Lai Ho, Larry Laudan and Alex Stein

Readership: Undergraduate students studying LLB modules on the law of evidence. Also postgraduates studying towards the Bar Vocational Course.

Paul Roberts, Professor of Criminal Jurisprudence, University of Nottingham, and Adrian Zuckerman, Professor of Civil Procedure, University of Oxford

"If you want to pursue the law of criminal evidence as an intellectual inquiry, you will be hard pressed to find a better textbook than this...An admirably wide range of materials is covered and thought-provoking comments can be found at every turn." - Hock Law Ho, Criminal Law and Philosophy

1.: Understanding criminal evidence
2.: The procedural framework of adversarial jury trial
3.: Sources of information and proof requirements
4.: Relevance, admissibility and fact-finding
5.: Fair trial
6.: Burdens and presumptions
7.: The principle of orality
8.: Examination-in-chief and cross-examination
9.: Hearsay
10.: Vulnerable and intimidated witnesses
11.: Expert evidence
12.: Confessions
13.: The privilege against self-incrimination
14.: The accused's character and extraneous misconduct
15.: Corroboration and forensic reasoning rules
16.: Criminal evidence - retrospective and prospects