Restraint In Jewish Law

The accused in a criminal trial is allowed to introduce evidence of his good character; that is, character witness, as a general rule. Character witness is a person who testifies to another person’s good reputation in a court of law. The character witnesses therefore provide evidence about the good reputation of the accused in the community such as being calm, careful, compassionate, considerate, generous, gentle, honest, sincere, reliable, and others. Evidence of character is, without a doubt, imperative to the accused. It can show whether the accused is a person who are capable of misconduct or not.

My case where age is an issue is People v. Santos, 333 Ill App. 3d 1 (2nd Dist. 2002). This issue, in this case, was the rape of a 13 to 17-years-old, while he is 5 years or older than

The importance of witness testimony is invaluable to any case, but how the testimonies are obtained is integral to assuring that the information given is indeed factual. In the case of

Overall, Dr. Fraser’s argument is organized, well structured, and concise, using all three tools of appeal, logos, pathos, and ethos persuading his audience that eyewitness testimony can be seen as invalid. He expresses his argument though story telling, playing a huge role on the logical reasoning, or logos, as well as reasoning abilities. His argument was very effective in getting the audience engaged immediately, using descriptions and visual aids to make it easily understandable to those who are well knowledgeable about the criminal trial process. Dr. Fraser presented his argument in a way that the audience could follow and feel personally involved in. As he states the facts as he became aware of them in the criminal case, Dr. Fraser is in turn, building up to the conclusion of the argument; that eye witness testimony is, at best,

While being interrogated, juveniles are under the same protections as adults even if they are under the age of 18; however if the juvenile is unable to understand their rights they will have to be further explained in detail otherwise

The supreme court considers the question when the child is convicted for something not involving murder. The answer is generally 18, at least for the United states and the rest of the world. Today, 41 states and the District of Columbus decided that a sixteen year old who commits a crime will go through the juvenile system. In the other nine states the criminal justice system treats the sixteen year old as an adult.

Rules of evidence ensure, in the adversarial system, that the jury is not distracted by irrelevant material and the court does not hear any inappropriate evidence in the form of unreliable or illegally obtained evidence, opinion evidence, hearsay evidence and bad character evidence (with the exception of propensity evidence) . Ultimately, irrelevant material that would confuse the issue cannot be introduced, therefore ensuring an individual’s right to a fair trial. Contrarily, there is less reliance on strict rules of evidence and procedure in the inquisitorial system - the Judge is aware of character reports and past record and is privy to all evidence and then decides which evidence is relevant to the case. This could mean that biases are formed against the accused that could be out-dated or inaccurate, leading to an unfair trial . Therefore Western Australia’s current evidentiary regulations, assure that accused parties are taken at face value, and that justice is issued, built entirely on a case-to-case basis

If you are under the age of 18, you have a different thinking process than an adult. Your ability to understand the criminal nature of a crime may be used as part of your defense.

A defendants age can also be considered a criminal defense commonly referred to as “Defense of Infancy” (Moses, 2015). This defense is used

In many cases judges or prosecutors can use waivers to have juveniles tried as adults, depending upon the nature of the crime committed. The states Kansas and Vermont allow for individuals as young as ten to be tried as an adult, while New Mexico set their minimum age at fifteen, says Marcovitz. At present, there is no minimum age set for juveniles in twenty-two states. These states leave the decision to the discretion of judges and prosecutors.

courts lose jurisdiction over a person. Generally, a juvenile is between the ages of seven

Defendant may introduce affirmative testimony that the general estimate of his character is so favorable that the jury may infer that he would not be likely to commit the offense charged. When the defendant elects to initiate a character inquiry, not only is he permitted to call witnesses to testify from hearsay, but indeed such a witness is not allowed to base his testimony on anything but hearsay. The witness may not testify about defendant's specific acts or courses of conduct or his possession of a particular disposition or of benign mental and moral traits; nor can he testify that his own acquaintance, observation, and knowledge of defendant leads to his own independent opinion that defendant possesses a good general or specific character, inconsistent with commission of acts charged. The prosecution may pursue the inquiry with contradictory witnesses to show that damaging rumors, whether or not well-grounded, were afloat for it is not the man that he is, but the name that he has which is put in issue. Another hazard is that his own witness is subject to cross-examination as to the contents and extent of the hearsay on which he bases his conclusions, and he may be required to disclose rumors and reports that are current even if they do not affect his own conclusion. A character evidence question may not be hypothetical or assume unproven facts and ask if they would affect the conclusion. In regards to character evidence, the form of inquiry, "have you heard?" has general approval, and "do you know?" is not allowed. The defendant may introduce evidence tending to prove his good reputation; but, if he does so, it throws open the entire subject and the prosecution may then cross-examine defendant's witnesses to test their credibility and qualifications and may also introduce contradictory evidence. A character witness may be cross-examined as to an arrest

Individuals of all ages are involved in the criminal justice system as eye witnesses. So, it is important to understand how witness skills and limitations may be affected by age. Past research clearly shows that older adults are poorer at lineup identification than young people, showing a tendency toward more false alarms (Memon, Gabbert, & Hope, 2004). Extensive research has also shown that older adult witnesses are viewed as less believable than younger witnesses (Allison, Brimacombe, Hunter, & Kadlec, 2006). But the research on aging is mixed with respect to the impact of misinformation at different ages (cf. Dodson & Krueger, 2006; Roediger & Geraci, 2007). It “remains unclear if older witnesses are generally more vulnerable to suggestions

Second, we must look at the affects of being a witness not only on the legal system but also on the child as an individual. Children could be further traumatized emotionally and physically by involvement as a witness. Finally, we need to closely look at how the legal system is set up and how well children fit into this system. Are witness procedures set up in a way that children can understand and accurately give their testimony? These are the things that need to be looked at closely to determine if children can be reliable and credible witnesses in court.

Courts within United Kingdom, along with several other countries have made several propositions for addressing the vulnerability of child witnesses within the courtroom, although these provisions generally do not directly address the linguistic difficulties. Thus, in some jurisdictions, child witnesses are allowed to give evidence on closed-circuit television, in order to alleviate them from trauma of being face to face in court with a suspect against whom they are testifying against. However, children are often required to be present in court for cross-examination, sometimes provided with support by a screen between the child and the accused (Birnbaum, and Bala, 2010).