2022-23 Criminal Law CPD Series:

Myths, Misconceptions and Mixed Messages: An Early Look at the New Tendency and Coincidence Evidence Provisions

Substantive Law
CPD Points: 1.5

About

Following the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Uniform Evidence Law jurisdictions are implementing reforms to the tendency and coincidence evidence provisions. These reforms aim to relax the exclusionary rules so that the prosecution can more readily rely upon other allegations against the defendant and the defendant’s prior guilty pleas. The reforms purport to address the traditional misconception that such evidence would lack probative value unless the defendant’s other misconduct shares distinctive similarities with the charged offence. The reforms can be expected to increase the rate of successful prosecutions. However, these benefits are likely to be compromised by the reforms’ unnecessary complexity. Rather than improve understanding of the inferential value of other misconduct evidence, the reforms may sow confusion, wasting court resources, and creating associated costs for complainants, defendants, and other participants.

This seminar will follow the argument presented in Professor Hamer’s article of the same title, which appeared in (2021) 45(4) Criminal Law Journal 232.

Presenter

David Hamer is a Professor at the University of Sydney Law School. He is interested in the way criminal courts deal with evidence in determining whether to convict or acquit defendants. While often focusing on the detail of evidence law and criminal procedure, he takes an interdisciplinary approach. David’s research has regard to both the psychology and the logic of proof and draws on empirical research and formal probabilistic models. Further, his work explores how the pursuit of factual accuracy is affected by other sometimes competing concerns: efficiency, fairness, and the overarching need to provide a mechanism for settling disputes that retains public acceptance.