Este libro tiene por objeto de investigación el procedimiento penal acusatorio y oral, desde una perspectiva normativa, analítica y empírica. Normativa, porque parte de las normas fundamentales —derechos, principios, garantías— constitucionales, convencionales y procesales, así como de la interpretación jurisprudencial. Analítica, porque se refiere a la estructura procedimental para culminar con un juicio —sentencia—. Empírica, porque si bien parte de lo teórico y normativo, se complementa con lo que en realidad sucede en la tramitación de un procedimiento penal, tanto de tipo mixto como acusatorio, imprimiendo en todo ello la experiencia obtenida en la larga trayectoria profesional de la autora. Su base es documental, pues abarca la doctrina desarrollada por prominentes autores —Gadamer, Popper, Damaska, Ferrajoli, Taruffo, Foucault, entre otros—, legislación, jurisprudencia y casos reales, para concluir con propuestas relacionadas con el carácter epistémico del proceso penal acusatorio. El capítulo inicial parte de la evolución de los sistemas procesales, para mostrar que el primero en aparecer en la historia es el procedimiento acusatorio y no el inquisitorial. En el capítulo segundo se hace una breve referencia al garantismo, precisando qué debe entenderse por tal, así como la ideología y las razones políticas de su nacimiento. El capítulo tercero aborda los fines del proceso, tomando en cuenta que es importante distinguir las finalidades, porque de eso depende la forma de proceder para alcanzar las metas. Finalmente, los capítulos cuarto y quinto son torales, ya que tienen por objeto demostrar que el procedimiento acusatorio y oral tiene un carácter epistemológico, tanto el proceso como la decisión. Sin lugar a dudas, este libro llena un vacío en la literatura especializada sobre la materia, ya que nos ofrece las bases filosóficas y epistémicas del procedimiento penal, acusatorio y oral.

Comparative Law for Spanish–English Speaking Lawyers provides practitioners and students of law, in a variety of English- and Spanish- speaking countries, with the information and skills needed to successfully undertake competent comparative legal research and communicate with local counsel and clients in a second language. Written with the purpose of helping lawyers develop the practical skills essential for success in today’s increasingly international legal market, this book aims to arm its readers with the tools needed to translate unfamiliar legal terms and contextualize the legal concepts and practices used in foreign legal systems. Comparative Law for Spanish–English Speaking Lawyers / Derecho comparado para abogados anglo- e hispanoparlantes, escrita en inglés y español, persigue potenciar las habilidades lingüísticas y los conocimientos de derecho comparado de sus lectores. Con este propósito, términos y conceptos jurídicos esenciales son explicados al hilo del análisis riguroso y transversal de selectas jurisdicciones hispano- y angloparlantes. El libro pretende con ello que abogados, estudiantes de derecho y traductores puedan trabajar en una segunda lengua con solvencia y consciencia de las diferencias jurídicas y culturales que afectan a las relaciones con abogados y clientes extranjeros. La obra se complementa con ejercicios individuales y en grupo que permiten a los lectores reflexionar sobre estas divergencias.

This practical guide for practitioners and the judiciary provides readers with guidance on all aspects of jury selection, from the initial decision to select trial by jury to challenges for cause and peremptory challenges.

The print edition is available as a set of three volumes (9789004302020).

For as long as accuser and accused have faced each other in public, criminal trials have been establishing far more than who did what to whom–and in this fascinating book, Sadakat Kadri surveys four thousand years of courtroom drama. A brilliantly engaging writer, Kadri journeys from the silence of ancient Egypt’s Hall of the Dead to the clamor of twenty-first-century Hollywood to show how emotion and fear have inspired Western notions of justice–and the extent to which they still riddle its trials today. He explains, for example, how the jury emerged in medieval England from trials by fire and water, in which validations of vengeance were presumed to be divinely supervised, and how delusions identical to those that once sent witches to the stake were revived as accusations of Satanic child abuse during the 1980s. Lifting the lid on a particularly bizarre niche of legal history, Kadri tells how European lawyers once prosecuted animals, objects, and corpses–and argues that the same instinctive urge to punish is still apparent when a child or mentally ill defendant is accused of sufficiently heinous crimes. But Kadri’s history is about aspiration as well as ignorance. He shows how principles such as the right to silence and the right to confront witnesses, hallmarks of due process guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, were derived from the Bible by twelfth-century monks. He tells of show trials from Tudor England to Stalin’s Soviet Union, but contends that “no-trials,” in Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere, are just as repugnant to Western traditions of justice and fairness. With governments everywhere eroding legal protections in the name of an indefinite war on terror, Kadri’s analysis could hardly be timelier. At once encyclopedic and entertaining, comprehensive and colorful, The Trial rewards curiosity and an appreciation of the absurd but tackles as well questions that are profound. Who has the right to judge, and why? What did past civilizations hope to achieve through scapegoats and sacrifices–and to what extent are defendants still made to bear the sins of society at large? Kadri addresses such themes through scores of meticulously researched stories, all told with the verve and wit that won him one of Britain’s most prestigious travel-writing awards–and in doing so, he has created a masterpiece of popular history.