Review: Confession Evidence
| Author | Roger Leng |
| Published date | 01 January 1998 |
| Date | 01 January 1998 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/136571279800200109 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS
Along with the other three volumes considered here, Dinstein and Tabory’s
edited collection makes a valuable contribution to the emerging discipline of
international criminal law and procedure; as well as being, for our purposes,
a worthy component of the evidence scholar’s antidote to parochialism. In
digesting these four edited collections we have sampled the
nouvelle cuisine
of
international criminal law publications: intriguing, colourful and
innovative, if sometimes repetitive, occasionally insubstantial and probably
overpriced. But if this fare leaves palates unsatisfied or appetites unsated,
there are tasty morsels aplenty to keep gourmets coming back for more.
Welcome to the feast! Enjoy.
Reference
J.H.
Langbein, ‘The Influence of Comparative Procedure in the United States’
(1995)
AmJ
Comparative
Law
545.
PAUL
ROBERTS
University
of
Nottingham
David Wolchover and Anthony Heaton-Armstrong
CONFESSION EVIDENCE
London: Sweet and Maxwell
(1996),
li
+
734
pp
+
index, hb,
E99
One’s first impression of
Confession Evidence
is of its bulk. That the text runs to
734
pages is partly explained by the authors’ decision to treat the confession
as the centrepiece of the criminal process and to include discussion of the
legal regulation of police investigations and of other confession-related rules
of proof.
The book is strong on factual history which, although welcome to the scholar,
could be a trap for the practitioner who may mistake discussion of unenacted
proposals for an account of the modern law. Unusually for a law book,
empirical research findings are included in
two
chapters on the nature of
confessions and the evidential significance of silence. The authors’ lack of
confidence with such material is apparent: some material of no modern
relevance is included and the findings of various studies are presented in
catalogue form with little attempt at criticism
or
synthesis. Apart from a
rather derivative passage on the right to silence debate, the empirical
material appears to have had little impact on the discussion of what the law is
68
THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
OF
EVIDENCE
&
PROOF
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