Character Evidence Rules In Criminal Procedure

Character evidence is independently been proposed in the proceedings, it is used to prove that the participants in the proceedings on another occasion and the actions of their character characteristics consistent with the evidence.Character evidence first appeared in the British judicial practice activities,The United States introduce the character evidence from the British after the founding of the U.S.A., the two countries developed and perfected the character evidence in the long judicial practice, eventually they formed a higher maturity and feasibility of the character evidence rules.The character evidence rule is the use of character evidence to be subject to the constraints in the judicial practice,the reason to constraint the use of character evidence is that the uncontrolled use of it will result in judicial prejudice and unfair trial. We are unable to explore the character evidence in China’s law,and no rules are similar to the character evidence rules in the common law.However, in China’s judicial practice, the use of character evidence is indeed common,investigative organs, procuratorial organs or judicial judicial activities will involve some practice on character evidence. When dealing with similar problems, due to the lack of laws and regulations,they are often have different results,This is not fair to the suspect,and it’s also deviate from the principles of justice and fairness in China’s judicial practice. So the building of the character evidence rules in our contry is very urgent and important. This article from the following four-part to analysis the character evidence rule.The first part is the overview of character evidence.First, we analysis the meaning of the character, and we analysis of the concepts and classifications of character evidence.Finally is the analysis of the use of character evidence rules in criminal proceedings.The second part is the extra-territorial comparative analysis of the character evidence rule.First we analysis the character evidence rule of common law countries, we analysis and discuss it from accused persons, victims and witnesses,then we introduce the character evidence rules for civil law countries, and finally from the angle of culture,legal thinking and the litigation system to analysis of the reasons of the different attitudesof the character evidence rule.The third part is the analysis of need and feasibility to build our character evidence rules. We discuss the need to build our character evidence rules from three parts,the three parts are the need to protect the balances of prosecution and defense and rights of the accused,correct sentencing and penalties for individual needs and rightly judge the testimony of witnesses and achieveing a just conviction of the need.From the embodiment of the character evidence and judicial practice in China and the use of character evidence of the existing legislation in China to analyze the feasibility of building a character evidence rules.The fourth part is the idea of the character evidence rules’ building in China.First, we should clearly stipulates the provisions of the character evidence in legislation, then the use of character evidence in practice will have a legal basis.Then we put forward some concrete ideas to build the character evidence rule, respectively we from the three aspects of the accused, victims and witnesses to build the character evidence rule.