Adam Jackson

Expert Evidence in Criminal Proceedings: Current challenges and opportunities

In its 2011 report Expert Evidence in Criminal Proceedings in England and Wales (Law Com No. 325), the Law Commission recommended that the admissibility of expert evidence in criminal proceedings should be governed by a new statutory regime comprising a new statutory reliability test in combination with codification and refinement of existing common law principles relating to ‘assistance’, ‘expertise’ and ‘impartiality’. The government declined to enact the Law Commission’s draft Bill due to a lack of certainty as to whether the additional costs incurred would be offset by savings. Instead the government invited the Criminal Procedure Rule Committee (CrimPRC) to consider amendments to the Criminal Procedure Rules (CrimPR) to introduce, as far as possible, the spirit of the Law Commission’s recommendations. The consequent amendments to CrimPR Part 33 (now CrimPR Part 19) in combination with the making of the new Practice Direction CrimPD 33A (now CrimPD 19A) by the Lord Chief Justice resulted in what he described in his 2014 Criminal Bar Association Kalisher Lecture as ‘a novel way of implementing an excellent Report’. This paper considers the possible evolution of the common law in light of these amendments, the challenges associated with adopting such a novel approach to reform and the potential opportunities for the improvement of expert evidence in criminal proceedings that the changes were intended to create.

The Admissibility of Identification Evidence Made on the Basis of Recognition from Photographs Taken at a Crime Scene: R v Doherty [2016] EWCA Crim 246

later, have had the words of Jesus in mind, this time from Mark 10:7–8 ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ Is Parliament there to preserve religious ideology, or to preserve and promote the freedom, rights, and responsibilities of citizens who, whether they agree with it or not, live in a society where freedoms and entitlements must be balanced against obligations and responsibilities? The marital exemption ought to be as much of a fiction as the doctrine of the unity of marriage itself. It is long overdue for abolition.

The Use of Disproportionate Force in ‘Householder’ Cases and Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights: R on the application of Denby Collins (A protected party by his father and litigation friend Peter Collins) v The Secretary of State for Justice [2016] EWHC 33 (Admin)

Case comment on R. (on the application of Collins) v Secretary of State for Justice [2016] EWHC 33 (Admin); [2016] 2 W.L.R. 1303 (DC).

Reforming Offences Against the Person In Defence of ‘Moderate’ Constructivism

Whilst the criminal law typically favours the principle of correspondence between actus reus and mens rea, the current law governing offences against the person takes an approach which may be more accurately defined as ‘moderate’ constructivism. This approach is based on consideration of both the defendant’s mens rea and the degree of harm caused by the defendant’s actions. The recent Law Commission Scoping Consultation Paper Reform of Offences against the Person appears to prefer reform based on a move towards the principle of correspondence. This article discusses the theoretical rationale for both the adoption of the correspondence principle and the retention of a moderate constructivist approach in the context of offences against the person. Consideration is given to the fairness of attributing liability to a defendant for the unforeseen consequences of her actions and whether such an approach can be justified by the change in D’s normative position based on her decision to use violence. Consideration is also given to the concept of fair labelling and to potential lacunae that may be created as a result of a move towards a set of offences based on the correspondence principle.

Sexual history evidence: late disclosure and relevance.

This case note concerns the operation of section 41 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 which regulates the admissibility of evidence of s sexual offence complainants sexual behavior.

Admissibility of Fingerprints Taken on an Unauthorised Device

Subject: Police. Other related subjects: Criminal evidence Legislation: Police and Criminal Evidence (Northern Ireland) Order 1989 (SI 1989/1341) art.61 Case: Public Prosecution Service v McKee [2013] UKSC 32; [2013] 1 W.L.R. 1611 (SC)

Bad Character Evidence and Potential Satellite Litigation: R v Dizaei (Jamshid Ali) [2013] EWCA Crim 88

Deals with the decision of the Court of Appeal in R v Dizaei (Jamshid Ali) [2013] EWCA Crim 88 which concerned the extent to which the court is obliged to admit evidence of the bad character of a prosecution witness upon a defence application in circumstances in which this would result in satellite litigation.