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The Child Quasi-Witness, Richard D. Friedman, Stephen J. Ceci

Articles

This Essay provides a solution to the conundrum of statements made by very young children and offered against an accused in a criminal prosecution. Currently prevailing doctrine allows one of three basic outcomes. First, in some cases the child testifies at trial. But this is not always feasible, and when it is, cross-examination is a poor method for determining the truth. Second, evidence of the child's statement may be excluded, which denies the adjudicative process of potentially valuable information. Third, the evidence may be admitted without the child testifying at trial, which leaves the accused with no practical ability to …

Comment: The Doctrine Of Chances, Brides Of The Bath And A Reply To Sean Sullivan, Paul F. Rothstein

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The ‘Doctrine of Chances’ is a doctrine of probability that purports to solve an apparent logical conundrum or contradiction in the law of Evidence.

It is the author's thesis in this article that the doctrine of chances—in any acceptable logical form including that described by Mr. Sullivan—does properly describe when this kind of ‘other wrongs’ evidence is relevant, and how probative it is, but that relevance and probative value where this kind of proof is offered does depend on propensity reasoning even under these theories even in the cases where they say it does not. He is not simply arguing …