Non-defendant bad character and s. 100 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003

A socio-legal analysis of admissibility gateways and trial tactics

Bibliographic Data

ID12595947
AuthorsMatt Thomason (0000-0002-6564-3221, University of Nottingham School of Law, Nottingham, UK, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume27
Issue1
Pages26-50
Publication date2022-12-27
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe International Journal of Evidence & Proof (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1365-7127 • E-ISSN: 1740-5572
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/13657127221140459
OpenAlexW4313249631
LanguageEN
References cited16

This article presents a socio-legal analysis of the use of non-defendant bad character evidence in Crown Court criminal trials in England. Combining an in-depth doctrinal analysis of s. 100 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 with original qualitative empirical methods (interviews with trial counsel and observations of real Crown Court trials), the article explores the real-life practical operation of this rule of exclusion and its associated inclusionary exceptions, and the role that non-defendant bad character can have on trial tactics of counsel. In doing so, it argues that illogical Court of Appeal decisions on the use of bad character for credibility purposes are causing confusion in practice, that the ‘tit-for-tat’ gateway for defendant bad character is a more significant hurdle than s. 100 itself, and that counsel often eschew bad character applications for fear of alienating the jury

Appeal · Character (mathematics · Confusion · Credibility · Criminal justice · Criminology · Economic Justice · Jury · Jury trial · Moral character · Political science · Sociology · Trial court · Jury Decision Making Processes · Law · Law in Society and Culture · Psychology · Sexual Assault and Victimization Studies

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