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Justice In-Between

A Study of Intermediate Criminal Verdicts

Federico Picinali (Associate Professor of Law, Associate Professor of Law, LSE Law School)

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English
Oxford University Press
24 November 2022
Most contemporary criminal justice systems adopt a 'binary' system of verdicts. In a binary system, there is a single evidential threshold, or standard of proof. If the standard is met, the verdict is 'guilty', the defendant is convicted, and punishment is permitted. If the standard is not met, the verdict is 'not guilty', the defendant is acquitted, and punishment is forbidden. There is no middle ground between the verdict of 'not guilty' and that of 'guilty'. An intermediate verdict represents such middle ground, intermediate between acquittal and conviction both in terms of the strength of the incriminating evidence that is needed to warrant the verdict and in terms of the severity of the consequences that the verdict may produce for the defendant.

Justice In-Between is a study of intermediate criminal verdicts and advances a novel justification of such controversial devices, with the aim to produce a consensus amongst scholars subscribing to different theories of punishment. Indeed, the book shows that one cannot investigate the choice of the standard of proof nor, importantly, that of the verdict system, in isolation from the question of the justification for punishing.

Justice In-Between studies historical and extant examples of intermediate criminal verdicts and engages with the debates that have accompanied them, including the popular argument that intermediate criminal verdicts are incompatible with the presumption of innocence. In doing so, the book offers an original account of the meaning and of the justification of the presumption. Relying on decision theory, Justice In-Between makes a case for intermediate criminal verdicts and shows that such decision-theoretic case is viable under any of the main theories of punishment.
By:  
Imprint:   Oxford University Press
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 242mm,  Width: 163mm,  Spine: 23mm
Weight:   606g
ISBN:   9780198864592
ISBN 10:   0198864590
Series:   Oxford Monographs on Criminal Law and Justice
Pages:   304
Publication Date:  
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Introduction 1: Intermediate Verdicts Are Not a Fanciful Construct 2: The Presumption of Innocence: A Decisive Objection to Intermediate Verdicts? 3: Acquittal vs Conviction: We Can All Be Expected-Value Maximisers in this Choice 4: The Decision-theoretic Case for Intermediate Criminal Verdicts 5: A Battery of Objections 6: Conclusion

Federico Picinali is an Associate Professor at LSE Law School. He graduated in law from the University of Milan. He has an LLM from Yale Law School and a PhD in law from the University of Trento. He teaches and researches in criminal law and evidence law, with a particular interest in theoretical approaches to these subjects. He has written on the criminal standard of proof, on inferential reasoning in legal fact-finding, on statistical evidence, on improperly obtained evidence, on criminal intention and on self-defence, among other topics. His work appeared in several journals, including the Modern Law Review, Law & Philosophy, the Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence, the Journal of Applied Philosophy, Criminal Law & Philosophy, the International Journal of Evidence & Proof, Jurisprudence, and Law, Probability & Risk.

Reviews for Justice In-Between: A Study of Intermediate Criminal Verdicts

[The book] puts [intermediate verdicts] on the table and gives them the attention they deserve. The account is rigorously argued, rooted in an understanding of criminal procedure and, without doubt, provides food for thought to those who have never questioned the binary verdict system. * Modern Law Review *


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