The Philosophy of Legal Proof (Elements in Philosophy of Law)

Cover Title page Copyright page The Philosophy of Legal Proof Contents Introduction 1 Standards of Proof 1.1 The Criminal Standard 1.1.1 The Actus Reus and Mens Rea 1.2 The Civil Standard 1.3 Justifying the Standards 1.4 Two Types of Mistake 1.5 Blackstone’s Asymmetry 1.6 Consequences-Based Arguments against Beyond Reasonable Doubt 1.7 Defending Beyond Reasonable Doubt? 1.8 Criminal Proof and Community Belief 1.9 Back to Civil Proof 2 Proof: Fixed or Flexible? 2.1 Different Standards for Different Crimes? 2.2 Another Perspective on Flexible Proof 2.3 Radically Flexible Standards? 3 Should Proof Be Binary? 3.1 Binary versus Non-Binary Systems 3.2 Motivating Non-Binary Systems 3.3 Worries about Non-Binary Systems 3.4 Radical Departures from the Binary 4 Legal Probabilism and Anti-Probabilism 4.1 Probabilism and Anti-Probabilism 4.2 The Proof Paradox 4.2.1 Civil Law 4.2.2 Criminal Law 4.2.3 Discussion 4.3 Epistemic Responses to the Proof Paradox 4.4 DNA Evidence 4.5 Moral and Political Diagnoses 4.6 The Cost of Denying Statistics 4.7 Statistics in Criminal Law Reconsidered 5 Who Should Decide? 5.1 Reliability versus Moral–Political Value 5.2 Questions of Law versus Questions of Fact 5.3 The Democratic Jury? 5.4 Jury Nullification 5.5 Bias, Rape, and ‘Jury Science’ References