NCJ Number
79212
Date Published
1980
Length
16 pages
Annotation
A concept for measuring the legal evidentiary strength of criminal cases is described, the results from a pretest of the concept are presented.
Abstract
For this research, evidentiary strength was separated into four components: (1) the inherent complexity of the offense, (2) constitutional questions, (3) the nature of the evidence (both physical and testimonial), and (4) the circumstances of the arrest. The standard case set developed for this research was coded to capture the basic elements of this legal evidentiary concept. This resulted in identifying about 80 variables for each of the 150 cases comprising the standard case set. In the fall of 1978, 30 cases from the standard case set were tested at four sites. Results indicate that the concept of quantifying legal evidentiary strength as here presented appears to be reasonable. Of the four elements delineated, the constitutional issues and evidentiary matters have shown significant explanatory power. The range of the inherent complexity of the offense could not be tested because its distribution was too skewed, and the circumstances of the arrest could not be tested because the number of cases was too few to permit its introduction as an analytical variable. Future testing should include more cases. This will be done in the second phase of the research. Tabular data and six notes are provided.