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The value of truth: fact scepticism revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Zenon Bankowski
Zenon Bankowski*
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
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Extract

In his book Courts on Trial Jerome Frank suggests that we might turn our attention, when studying law, to the trial rather than the appellate courts. It is what goes on there that should inform us when talking of justice. Frank was worried over the unsatisfactory state of fact gathering in these courts and the book is not just a critique of what happens but also suggests many reforms. In this paper I am going to be concerned with his slashing attack on adversarial methods of trial in a chapter in the book revealingly entitled ‘The Fight Theory vs the Truth Theory’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Legal Studies , Volume 1 , Issue 3 , November 1981 , pp. 257 - 266
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Legal Scholars 1981

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References

1. J. Frank, Courts on Trial, 1973.

2. Op. Cit., p. 102.

3. Op. cit., p. 86.

4. Op. cit., p. 92.

5. Op. cit., p. 91.

6. Cf. P. Carlen, Magistrates Justice, 1976, A. Blumberg, The scales of Justice, 1970.

7. Cf. Z. Bankowski and G. Mungham, Images of Law, 1976, Ch.4.

8. R. Barthes, Mythologies, 1973.

9. D. N. MacCormick, Legal Reasoning and Legal Theory, 1979.

10. Op. cit., p. 12.

11. Cf. H. Kalven and H. Zeisel, The American Jury, 1966, R. Simon (ed), The Jury System in America, 1975, S. McCabe and R. Purves, The Jury at Work, 1972.

12. R. Wasserstrom, The Judicial Decision, 1961.

13. Op. cit., p. 27.

14. K. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, 1968.

15. McCormick, Op. cit., pp. 41–52.

16. Op. cit., p. 42.

17. Op. cit., p. 48.

18. H. Kelsen, Pure Theory of Law, 1967, pp.241–242.

19. P. Devlin, Trial by Jury, 1956.