Abstract
Abstract The process of proof, reasoning with evidence and commonsense knowledge in order to establish the facts of the case. Some general concepts that are important in this process are clarified and some general subjects (e.g. types of evidence) are discussed in detail. The chapter also discusses the types of reasoning that play an important role in the process (e.g. abductive reasoning, causal reasoning, defeasible reasoning).
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Notes
- 1.
This interpretation of the term fact is evident in the Dutch Code of Criminal Proceedings, which states that “the court deliberates […] whether it is proved that the facts were perpetrated by the suspect […] ” (article 350 DCCP) .
- 2.
State v. Famber, 358 Mo. 288, 293, 214 S.W.2d 40, 43.
- 3.
Stern v. Employers’ Liability Assur. Corp., Ltd. Of London, England, 249 S.W. 739, 741.
- 4.
“circumstantial evidence”, Oxford Dictionary of Law. Ed. Elizabeth A. Martin and Jonathan Law. Oxford University Press, 2006. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Accessed on 15th July 2008.
http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t49e613
- 5.
In fact, the Dutch criminal procedure relies almost solely on documents.
- 6.
- 7.
In the rest of this thesis, the term “generalization” is used for commonsense statements of both a conditional and non-conditional form, keeping in mind that it is in theory always possible to rewrite a generalization as a conditional rule (see also Section 5.1.).
- 8.
Here I use the general term “hypothesis”. Such a hypothesis can have various forms (e.g. a hypothetical scenario, the identity of a person’s whose blood was found and so on). Below the specific process of proof for crime investigation will be briefly discussed.
- 9.
Wigmore characterizes a proof as “the persuasive operation of the total mass of evidentiary facts, as to a probandum” (Wigmore, 1931, p. 9) . The important parallel with the current conception of proof is that the total mass of evidence that pertains to a hypothesis is considered in a proof.
- 10.
In the overarching process of proof in crime investigation, hypotheses can be equated with scenarios. However, other hypotheses are also important in any of the “sub-processes of proof”. For example, a hypothesis can also concern the identity of the possible perpetrator or the exact time of death and each of these individual hypotheses needs to be tested before they can be incorporated in the main scenario.
- 11.
Dutch law (art. 338 and 350 DCCP) says that the judge should determine whether the suspect committed the acts as given in the indictment.
- 12.
The term “defeasibility” seems to have been introduced in legal philosophy by Hart (cf. Loui, 1995) , who argued that a legal concept (e.g. “contract”) not only encompasses the positive conditions which have to be met (e.g. there has to be an offer and acceptance of the offer) but also that which can defeat the claim that we are dealing with the appropriate legal concept (e.g. the parties hold a mistaken belief of the facts).
- 13.
Van Eemeren and colleagues (1996) characterize dialectic as “the art of arguing for and against”.
- 14.
- 15.
This last term is by Gabbay and Woods (2006) , who also contrast it with deductive reasoning, which they call truth-preserving and induction, which they call likelihood-enhancing.
- 16.
I do not consider abduction and IBE to be one and the same. Abduction involves solely the creation of new hypotheses, whereas IBE is also about testing and comparing hypotheses.
- 17.
Note that Poole, Mackworth and Goebel’s (1997) distinction between causal and evidential reasoning is different from the one presented here. Their evidential reasoning is essentially what is here called explanatory reasoning and their causal reasoning is what is here called predictive reasoning.
- 18.
It can be argued that this is only the case when c is a typical cause of e.
- 19.
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Bex, F.J. (2011). Reasoning with Criminal Evidence. In: Arguments, Stories and Criminal Evidence. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 92. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0140-3_2
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