The Research On The Rules Of Character Evidence In Sex Crimes

Character evidence rule is a very important and complex evidence rule in common law countries,which plays an important role in the rule system of evidence law.Although the civil law system does not stipulate the rules of character evidence in its statute law,the judges still maintain a prudent attitude when applying character evidence.The judicial practice of our country is still faced with the problem of character application.However,due to the lack of corresponding provisions in legislation,the judges' understanding and application of character evidence vary greatly in different cases.In this context,it is necessary for us to fully study the relevant theories of western countries' character evidence,absorb the parts suitable for our country,as a reference for constructing the relevant rules of our country.However,the rules of character evidence cover a wide range of contents.This paper only takes the character evidence in sexual crimes as the research object,and also as a response to the current social appeal for the protection of women's rights.The first chapter is the basic concept of character evidence and the summary of character evidence and character evidence rules in sexual crime cases.The rule of character evidence is a special rule of common law system,which is closely related to the theory of admissibility of evidence.The theory of admissibility of evidence also includes the concepts of relevance,substantiality and proving power of evidence.Whether the character evidence is admissible requires the judge to judge according to the order of substantiality,proving power,evidence value and negative impact.When discussing the character evidence in the sex crime case,we need to distinguish the common character evidence and the sex character evidence in the sex crime case,the defendant character evidence and the victim character evidence to apply different evidence rules,the former has different proof value,and the latter is used on different basis.In sexual crime cases,the defendant's common character evidence is not admissible,but the defendant's human character evidence is allowed to be used.In sexual crime cases,the victim's common character evidence is admissible when attacking the credibility of his testimony,but the victim's sexual character evidence is forbidden to be applied.As the rules of character evidence come from the common law system,the second chapter of this paper focuses on the specific rules,theoretical basis and legislative process of the defendant's and the victim's human character evidence in the sexual crime cases.The Federal Evidence Rules allow the application of the defendant's human character evidence in sexual crime cases,but at the same time,it still gives the judge the right to decide whether to exclude the evidence whose negative influence is far greater than the value of proof.On the other hand,evidence of human nature and character of victims was often used in the past,but because these evidences involve the privacy of victims' human nature,high cost of application and more serious consequences,at the same time,the voice of calling for women's rights and the rise of women's rights movement have directly promoted the birth of "rape shield clause" in British and American law.In practice,the exclusion of sexual character evidence which is closely related to the victim's reliability or dispute point will infringe the defendant's right to pledge.Therefore,the common law system does not exclude the application of the victim's sexual character evidence.After reviewing the relevant rules of the common law system,this paper compares the practices of the civil law system and analyzes the reasons for the differences between them.There are no written rules and concepts of character evidence in civil law system.The mainland law does not set the admissibility of evidence and the evidentiary power of evidencein advance by law.When dealing with sex crimes,judges do not need to review the evidentiary capacity of evidence in advance,and even judges will take the initiative to obtain a variety of character evidence types,and form a judgment through free evaluation.The only restriction of law on judges is to require them to fully explain the reasons for judgment in the judgment.Therefore,there is no need to distinguish the defendant's character evidence from the victim's character evidence,the common character evidence from the sexual character evidence in the mainland law.Through two cases and the French "personality investigation" system,this paper shows the specific judgment process of the application and exclusion of character evidence in sexual crimes cases in mainland China.It can be seen that although the mainland law seems to have no objection to the evidence,it does not mean that they really ignore the possible negative impact of sexual evidence.After analysis,the historical reasons,the ideological basis of free evaluation,the unitary trial organization,the judge selection system,the evidence evaluation mode under holism,the litigation mode of authority doctrine and the pursuit of real judicial purpose are all the reasons why the mainland countries adopt different approaches from the British and American countries.The third chapter analyzes the defects of the application of character evidence in sexual crimes in China.At present,there is no character evidence rule in our country.When dealing with sex crime cases,judges lack a complete and logical thinking of evidence evaluation on the character evidence of the parties concerned.The system design of our country can not guarantee the independence of trial,and judges are easy to be interfered by external factors and affect the justice of trial.The close contact among people's courts,people's procuratorates and public security organs is not conducive to guarantee The basic rights of the defendant,the unfriendly public opinion environment and the imperfect procedure are not conducive to the protection of the victim's privacy.Finally,the paper puts forward specific suggestions on the establishment of the defendant's character evidence rules and the victim's character evidence rules in sexual crime cases,compares the similarities and differences between China and Western countries,and constructs theapplication rules of character evidence in sexual crime cases in China.Although there are many similarities between China 's litigation system and the mainland countries,there are also great differences.On the contrary,although there is no jury in our country and the confrontation between the two parties in the court is not strong,the evidence rules of common law system can be used to guide our judges to apply evidence and limit their discretion.Therefore,we should draw lessons from the theory of admissibility of evidence,distinguish common character evidence and sexual character evidence in sexual crimes,make clear the specific rules,pay attention to the protection of victims' rights and the protection of defendants' basic rights,give full play to the role of pre court meeting and judges' initiative in collecting evidence to find out the truth,improve the leniency system of confession and punishment,establish the personality investigation system and corresponding procedures Safeguard mechanism.