On The Character Evidence In Criminal Proceedings

As one controversial issue in the context of the law of evidence, character evidence plays an important role in criminal proceedings. To establish reasonable rules of character evidence is the fundamental purpose of the studies, the rules which attempt to solve the question about when the evidence of character has probative value to be adopted by the judge, are based on two points, one is relevancy, and the other is admissibility. In abroad, especially in Common law countries, sound rules have been established. However, controversy and problems also surface in some criminal cases in our country which involves rules of character evidence, because the legal system of character evidence is imperfect in China. Therefore, this essay tries to study the character evidence in criminal procedure, and bases ourselves on China's realities and sums up the experiences and lessons from foreign countries, and then forms the perspective of improvement on the rules of character evidence in China's criminal procedure. In a word, we hope this essay can provide a little reference for the admissibility of character evidence in China's reality.This essay is composed of four chapters apart from the introduction and conclusion.The first chapter is a brief understanding of character evidence at home and abroad, which introduces the basic connotation and value of character evidence, so that we may clearly understand the necessity of the rules of character evidence.The second chapter probes into the core of the rules, it includes relevancy and admissibility. We will explain the evidential value of character evidence, and illustrate its effect on the penalty measure and criminal detection with some real criminal cases as examples in China.The third chapter focuses on how character evidence influences the process of conviction in practice, and this part still makes relevancy and admissibility as a basis for discussion, we will demonstrate from three aspects, firstly, the defendant's character evidence and conviction, secondly, the victim's character evidence and conviction, thirdly, the witness's character evidence and conviction. At last we will make a conclusion of China's judges' viewpoint on the admissibility of character evidence.The fourth chapter makes a deep analysis of reasons of the potential rules of character evidence by contrasting the different lawsuit ideas of China and Common law countries, and concludes the potential rules of evidence governing character evidence in China. Finally, some reasonable suggestions will be made by weighing the advantages and disadvantages of the subject in current situation.