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The Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group (ACA) supports the Ukrainian Office of the General Prosecutor in its chal­leng­ing efforts to investigate and prosecute mass atrocity crimes in the context of the Russian ag­gres­­sion against Ukraine. Klaus Hoffmann, an expert member of this group will report about his work in Ukraine, the legal chal­leng­es of applying national criminal law as well as the practical problems of investigating and prosecuting war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and the crime of ag­gres­sion during the ongoing war. He will also comment on the issue of “trials in absentia”. [mehr]

Kämpfe um Anerkennung betreffen neben dem Recht, gehört zu werden, regelmäßig auch den Anspruch, geglaubt zu werden. In diesem Sinne lautet eine sich chronifizierende Kritik an Strafverfahren nicht nur hierzulande, diese würden Aussagen einiger Perso­nen­grup­pen, insbesondere von Verletzten in Sexual­straf­ver­fahren, keinen angemessenen Glauben schenken. Diese Kritik berührt die Legitimität des Strafverfahrens und betrifft nicht allein empirische Umstände. Eine der einflussreichsten Ansätze in der Philosophie der Gegenwart, die Theorie der episte­mi­schen Ungerechtigkeit (epistemic injustice) von Miranda Fricker, untersucht Formen der Unge­rech­tig­keit in der Wissensproduktion und der Zeugenschaft. Mit dieser soll ein philo­so­phi­scher Blick auf das Strafverfahrensrecht geworfen und der Frage nachgegangen werden, inwieweit epistemische Gerechtigkeit als jedenfalls impliziter strafrechtlicher Verfah­rens­grund­satz gelten kann. Darauf aufbauend werden zwei Konstellationen erörtert: Die sog. Unwahrannahme von Zeugenaussagen, die der BGH in einer Leitentscheidung zur Aussage­analy­tik aufgestellt hat, sowie der rechtliche Umgang mit psychologischen Befunden zu Biases und Denkverzerrungen, die sich vor allem zu Lasten bestimmter Gruppen auszuwirken drohen. Aus beiden ergeben sich Reformvorschläge, u.a. die Aufgabe der Unwahrannahme. [mehr]

A dominant theme in criminal law theory is that censure and punishment are appropriate only insofar as they are proportional responses to culpable actions. The problem is that much of existing criminal law does not fit this model. A number of responses to this mismatch have been proposed. Perhaps the criminal law should be reformed to match the theory; perhaps we can do more to understand how even violations of mala prohibita offenses are culpable; perhaps we need to take this connection as aspirational but not strictly binding; or perhaps we should recognize that the connection between punishment and culpable actions is just a misguided ideological fixation—in truth, we are better off using a utilitarian conception of the criminal law, according to which it is just a tool to be used to deter potential criminal action and incapacitate potential criminals in whatever way best serves society. I reject all of these options and defend a different account. I argue that the criminal justice system draws on two normative frameworks. Criminal law properly conceived calls for and licenses censure and punishment, but only insofar as they are proportional responses to culpable actions. Penal law operates as a complement to criminal law. It is not responsive (at least not in the same way) to the culpability of action, and it grounds no censure. But it allows for penalties that exceed those that would be proportional to the culpability of an action (and certainly than those that fit Ordnungswidrigkeiten). It is also responsive to, in ways the criminal law is not, the benefits of incapacitating the dangerous. It can do these things because it operates on a separate basis: not retributive response to culpable action but fair forfeiture of the right not to be penalized. These two foundations can be harmonized to provide a normative account of the criminal justice system that fits the law reasonably well but still has some revisionist force. [mehr]

The ‘Big Data Revolution’ has allowed accumulating significant amounts of statistical data covering all areas of life. Such data can have high probative value in legal trials. Still, courts in and outside the UK have been ambivalent about the possibility of making legal judgements based solely on statistics. The presen­ta­tion will seek to uncover the root of this ambivalence, and to suggest that it highlights a fundamental connection between practical normativity and epistemic normativity. The argument will be that a Razian concept of respect for persons provides reasons against legal judgments of liability based solely on statistics. This is because statistics logically bar the elimination of the risk of error, and relatedly, they cannot justify belief in the availability of reasons to make a judgment of liability. The presentation will further seek to demonstrate that the argument carries over to non-legal spheres in which the Razian notion of respect plays a role. The UK’s attempt to determine A-level grades algorithmically during the Covid-19 pandemic provides an example. [mehr]

American criminal laws and criminal justice systems are harsher, more punitive, more afflicted by racial disparities and injustices, more indifferent to suffering, and less respectful of human dignity than those of other Western countries. The explanations usually offered—rising crime rates in the 1970s and 1980s, public anger and anxiety, crime control politics, neoliberal economic and social policies—are fundamentally incomplete. The deeper explanations are four features of American history and culture that shaped values, attitudes, and beliefs and produced a political culture in which suffering is fatalistically accepted and policy makers are largely indifferent to individual injustices. The four elements are the history of American race relations, the evolution of Protestant fundamentalism, local election of judges and prosecutors, and the continuing influence of political and social values that emerged during three centuries of Western expansion. The last, encapsulated in Frederick Jackson Turner’s “frontier thesis,” is interwoven with the other three. Together, they explain long-term characteristics of American criminal justice and the extraordinary severity of penal policies and practices since the 1970. [mehr]