When the fourth Rutland religious conference in 12 15 abolished the use of God's trial in criminal trials, a new system was born in which people replaced God's trial. Since people are not gods after all, mistakes are inevitable, so how to ensure that the result is not as fallacious as God's judgment? People think that the only thorough way is to completely deprive judges of their discretion to find guilty. According to the traditional view of Christianity and Roman law in the Middle Ages, the objective and credible evidence is the testimony of two witnesses who witnessed the crime scene. Without this evidence, the judge can't convict on the basis of other concrete evidence without authorization, but can only be acquitted. At that time, it was generally believed that it was too easy for judges to make mistakes by resorting to inner freedom to determine guilt.
The criminal trial in this period must follow the following three basic principles: first, unless two witnesses who witnessed the crime scene prove that the defendant is guilty, no court may find the defendant guilty; Secondly, if the defendant voluntarily pleads guilty, the court can also make a judgment accordingly; Finally, no matter how convincing the evidence is, the judge can't decide the case directly. For example, someone saw a suspect run out of the victim's house, and later found a bloody dagger and stolen goods in the suspect's house. It is impossible to judge whether the suspect is the real murderer on the basis of these evidences alone. This is the basic content of the legal evidence system.
Judges soon found that the new legal evidence system set too high a standard of proof for them. This evidence system can only be applied to cases where two witnesses or defendants voluntarily plead guilty, and it is difficult to bring those criminals who are ruthless or unrepentant because of lack of witness testimony to justice. But in order to maintain public order and realize justice, it is necessary to punish criminals. Therefore, in order to overcome the inconvenience caused by this new evidence system, continental European jurists have gradually formulated a set of countermeasures. Although it is difficult to meet the evidentiary requirements of the testimony of two witnesses, the defendant's confession can be obtained. If there is no complete evidence, the judge has the right to extort a confession by torture, but only if there is enough evidence to show that the person who is extorted by torture is indeed suspected of committing a crime. The standard is probablecause, and half of the evidence can meet this standard, such as the testimony of an eyewitness. If there is no direct half evidence, considerable reasons must be proved by strict formulas and simple mathematical operations, such as the example mentioned above, and the judge can use torture on the suspect. Although circumstantial evidence can't be used directly in the conviction stage, it can be accepted in the torture stage, and the probative force of the dagger and stolen goods mentioned above is 1/4, so they together constitute half evidence, thus reaching the standard of proof required by torture. Generally speaking, torture can only be applied to felonies, and only those who may be sentenced to death or corporal punishment will be brutally tortured.
Usually, the complete evidence of the testimony of two witnesses is extremely difficult to obtain. Therefore, from12nd century to18th century, judges in continental Europe had to focus on extorting confessions by torture. The confession of the defendant required by the legal evidence system is voluntary, so only voluntary confession is evidence with complete evidential force. Medieval jurists generally believed that the confession obtained by torture was not voluntary, so it could not be directly used as evidence unless the defendant could repeat the confession obtained before the next day and after being tortured at the hearing presided over by the court. Of course, usually the defendant will retract his confession when asked to confirm his previous confession. But confession is often useless, and sometimes it only adds to the pain, because there may be another round of torture afterwards. In the cycle of extorting a confession by torture, the defendant may gradually know that only by honestly repeating the previous confession in court can further pain be avoided.
16-/kloc-During the autocratic monarchy in the 8th century, the legal evidence system prevailed in Europe, Germany, Austria, Russia and other countries, and it was still in practice until the late 9th century. The earliest representative code that stipulated this evidence system was the Carolina Criminal Code of the Holy Roman Empire (1532). The legal evidence system divides evidence into complete evidence and incomplete evidence. Complete evidence is sufficient evidence to determine the facts of the case; The evidence is not all evidence with certain credibility, but not enough to finalize the case. Incomplete evidence can be divided into most complete and a few complete. Two or more pieces of incomplete evidence can constitute a complete evidence. The testimony of two well-intentioned witnesses under oath is complete evidence, while the testimony of one witness is incomplete evidence. When the testimony of two witnesses is inconsistent, men are superior to women, dignitaries are superior to ordinary people, and monks are superior to secular people. The defendant's confession in court is considered to be the best evidence among all the evidence; The confession made by the defendant outside the court is incomplete evidence. The defendant's out-of-court confession and the witness's proof can constitute complete evidence. The confession of the defendant is generally obtained by torture.
The legal evidence system is a step forward than the divine judgment and judicial duel with strong religious superstition; It also plays a certain role in limiting the arbitrariness of judges. However, this is a metaphysical and unscientific evidence system, which restricts the judge's rationality and prevents him from identifying the facts of the case according to his own thinking logic and beliefs. In litigation, we can only achieve the "formal truth" required by law, but it is impossible to really find out the facts of the case. 18 and 19 centuries, with the victory of bourgeois revolution in European countries, the legal evidence system was replaced by free evaluation of evidence. However, in the feudal era of England, due to the implementation of the compensation judge system and debating litigation, a set of evidence rules with formalism was formed, rather than a typical legal evidence system. After the victory of the British bourgeois revolution, the old evidence system was reformed and basically preserved.
In ancient feudal litigation in China, the judge's discretion was basically implemented, but there were also some legal evidence rules. For example, in the article "Tang Law", it is stipulated that if the defendant is not allowed to extort a confession by torture, "all are convicted according to the evidence" and "please reduce the minimum number". Yi Shu explained: "If more than three people weigh themselves, they will be convicted." This is the expression of legal evidence.