Full Description
Can the criminal justice system achieve justice based on its ability to determine the truth?
Drawing on a variety of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives, this book investigates the concept of truth - its complexities and nuances - and scrutinizes how well the criminal justice process facilitates truth-finding. From allegation to sentencing, the chapters take the reader on a journey through the criminal justice system, exposing the marginalization of truth-finding in favour of other jurisprudential or systemic values, such as expediency, procedural fairness and the presumption of innocence.
This important work bridges the gap between what people expect from the criminal justice system and what it can legitimately deliver.
Contents
The Criminal Process and the Pursuit of Truth
Allegations
Confessions
Witness Testimony
Truth and the Probity of Evidence-Gathering
Decisions and Narratives: Factfinding and Case Construction
Truth and the Criminal Trial: Competing Stories
Truth, Sentencing and Punishment
Restoration, Reconciliation and Reconceptualizing Justice
The Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth: The Truth of Who Is to Blame
