RICERCA ITALIANA     

Scientific progress and criminal trial

Università degli Studi di Firenze

Abstract

The also comparative research will elaborate and deepen the issues concerning the scientific nature of criminal evidence, through the classification of the notion itself and the characterisation of the modalities of taking the single scientific-technical measures of inquiry as a probative legal instrument into the criminal trial, to conjugate the needs of facts-reconstructing in the criminal trial and the limits of the existing procedural mechanisms, through which new cognitive scientific-technical resources can be taken as probative means of obtaining evidence (Unit of Milano).
Further aim of the research is the individualization of the typologies of new technologies to use in the investigations, just to point out a system that considers their structural and functional characteristics. Particularly, the research will check the computer investigations, the tools for the control of the transmissions by internet and of the flows of e-mail as well as the interceptions of communications; the use of GPS; the access to public and private databases and the software for tracking; the computer ballistics; the scientific investigations; the judicial graphology; the interceptions of telephone and environmental communications; the audiovisual connections.
It will need therefore to identify and describe the operational modalities of the technical-scientific investigative tools and the formalities of their documentation, fundamental for their reliability; deepening the >>>

Principal Investigator

Paolo Tonini Università degli Studi di FIRENZE

Research Objectives

The unstoppable scientific development and the increase of technologic tools, that realize its applications, orders a lot of changes in criminal trial too: the assessment of crime can’t avoid scientific evidence. However, the research needs to deepen the concept of scientific evidence, in the purpose of understanding its structural characteristics and rules. On this basis, the research intends to study every single investigation tool that makes use of new technologies. The aim of the inquire is to study the matter both in the static and in the dynamic view. First, the characteristics and the types of these new investigation tools will be analysed, with particular regards at the defensive guarantees; afterwards, the way to get in the trial the results, obtained by these instruments, will be studied.
The aim is to understand if bringing scientific knowledge in criminal trial weakens the role of the parties and the discretion of the judge.
Besides, it’s obvious that, testing the admissibility of evidence obtained by new technologies, the research will study also if any exclusionary rule of evidence, based on the encroachment of a constitutional right, works.
The purpose is to outline a clear picture of the principles of the matter, giving some limits for the access in the criminal trial of those cognitive results obtained by new technologies. This result will be useful to control the rightness of the bills that the Parliament is analysing.
The right >>>

First Results

The research aims at ambitious results. First of all, it wants to define and study in details the concept of “scientific evidence” in order to understand, on a general level, all the relevant aspects of this topic and its regulation.
After that, it is supposed to draw a clear picture of the characteristics, functioning, and heuristic suitability of each instrument of investigation based on technology. Our purpose is therefore to find out which of the several kinds of technologies can be used for criminal investigation in order to elaborate a systematisation which considers all their structural and functional characteristics.
We will focus, in particular, on: digital evidence, internet transmission and e-mail flux monitoring, tracing and GPS system, access to public and private data base, wiretapping and open-air interception, handwriting analysis, forensic science in general and audiovisual connection.
We intend to identify the operative procedures and methods of acquisition related with technological instruments of investigation, the means to report those activities in order to guarantee their reliability, going into the theme of the right to counsel and the role of the expert witness thoroughly. All those topics will be analysed from both the point of view of the prosecutor – or the law enforcement agents – and of the defendant’s counsel.
Our intention is to mark the effects of those probative elements on the criminal trial, starting from the >>>

Timescale

24 months

National and international background

All the Research Units have been studying for several years the matter of the scientific-technical evidence, with peculiar attention to the elaboration of criteria and procedures about the concept of “scientific” evidence, in order to be able to consider it admissible as a probative means of evidence into the criminal trial.
At Milano “Università degli Studi”, chair of Criminal Procedure, a deep “in the field” research was conducted, both at Italian and US Universities. Such a research led to the publication of Prof. Oreste Dominioni’s monograph “La prova penale scientifica – Gli strumenti scientifico-tecnici nuovi o controversi e di elevata specializzazione”, Milano 2005, as well as to several doctoral thesis, publications on specialised legal periodicals, note to verdicts, that focused on scientific criminal evidence, also through the analysis of the rules of taking the single scientific-technical means of proof, that have been already introduced and evaluated in court or will be exploited in the future in the criminal trial. In addition to this, a wide analysis was conducted on the evolution of US case law concerning the specific topic of the elaboration of the concept of scientific criminal evidence and the rules of its admissibility.
Also the components of the Research Unit of Florence have been studying for years the matter of the scientific evidence and have written articles and monographs about it. Especially, remember: Paolo Tonini, Progresso >>>