Course manual 2020/2021

Course content

The purpose of this course is to demonstrate the objectives and effects of criminal law, the position of experts in different stages of the criminal process and the use of expert evidence. The peculiarities of the communication between experts and non-experts in court will be addressed. Because students will not have a background in law and be of different nationalities, the course will not focus on any particular legal system, but instead take a more general perspective. The different aspects of a fair trial as is guaranteed in the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights will serve as a framework for discussing the role of forensic experts and their contribution towards judicial fact-finding. Besides gaining knowledge of criminal law and criminal procedure, the course aims to make students aware of the difficulties regarding the communication between forensic experts and legal professionals.

Study materials

Literature

Week 1

Theme: Introduction to criminal law

Topics:
- Theories of punishment
- Principles of Criminalisation and the Limits of Criminal Law
Required reading:

Keiler and D. Roef, Comparative concepts of Criminal Law, Cambridge-Antwerp-Portland, Intersentia, 2019 3rd edition, pp 1-84

Week 2

Theme: The criminal act

Topics:
- The Principle of Legality
- The Elements of Crime – Actus rea and mens rea
- Forms and aspects of mens rea
Required reading:

Keiler and D. Roef, Comparative concepts of Criminal Law, Cambridge-Antwerp-Portland, Intersentia, 2019 3rd edition, pp 85-105, 107-120, 177-205

Week 3

Theme: Justifications and excuses

Topics:
- Justifications and excuses
Required reading

Keiler and D. Roef, Comparative concepts of Criminal Law, Cambridge-Antwerp-Portland, Intersentia, 2019 3rd edition, pp 207-251

Week 4

Theme: inchoate liability and introduction to criminal procedure

Topics:
- Attempt and preparation
- Introduction to criminal procedure
Required reading:

Keiler and D. Roef, Comparative concepts of Criminal Law, Cambridge-Antwerp-Portland, Intersentia, 2019 3rd edition, pp 253-284

F.H. Hirsch Ballin, Anticipative Criminal Investigation - Theory and Counterterrorism Practice in the Netherlands and the United States, 2012 (dissertation) pp. 39-46 (2.1.2-2.1.3.1), 52-59 (until ‘detail’) (2.1.3.3), 61-69 (2.2.1.1-3).

Pages may vary, look at the paragraph numbers if you are in doubt.

Available through:

https://www.springer.com/cda/content/document/cda_downloaddocument/9789067048422-c2.pdf?SGWID=0-0-45-1312056-p174274163 (Links to an external site.)

Or whole dissertation:

https://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/225154 (Links to an external site.)

If you’re interested in the US criminal justice system, please take a look at chapter 5 of Hirsch Ballin’s dissertation.

Week 5

Guest lecture

Week 6

Theme: The Law of Evidence

Required reading:

John D. Jackson and Sarah J. Summers, The Internationalisation of Criminal Evidence: Beyond the Common and Civil Law Traditions, New York, Cambridge University Press New York 2012 p. 1-77

Available through the following link, please make sure you re logged in to your UvA account:

https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xww&AN=432749&site=ehost-live&scope=site&ebv=EB&ppid=pp_ix

You can also find the book through CataloguePlus:

https://lib.uva.nl/permalink/31UKB_UAM1_INST/gq32c0/alma9940213247205131

Week 7

Theme: Evidence and The Right to a Fair Trial

Required reading:

John D. Jackson and Sarah J. Summers, The Internationalisation of Criminal Evidence: Beyond the Common and Civil Law Traditions, New York, Cambridge University Press New York 2012 p. 77-107

Objectives

1. Demonstrate knowledge of the fundamental principles of criminal law (i.e. theories of punishment, legality and criminalisation
2. Explain the framework of criminal liability and meaning of the elements of crime (actus reus and mens rea) in a comparative manner.
3. Evaluate the following fundamental concepts of substantive criminal law in a comparative manner: intent, recklessness, negligence, attempt, preparation and circumstances excluding criminal liability.
4. Explain the following fundamental concepts of procedural criminal law in a comparative manner: legality, the sword and shield function, the right to a fair trial, basics of the law of evidence and exclusionary rules.
5. Evaluate a(n aspect of a) given criminal justice system in light of the right to a fair trial (article 6 ECHR).
6. Critically evaluate the role of the actors (including the expert) in criminal proceedings and their contribution to judicial fact finding.
7. present and explain their scientific findings to members of the criminal justice system in an understandable manner.

Teaching methods

Lectures

Learning activities

Activity	Hours
Tentamen	3
Werkcollege	14
Self study	151
Total	168	(6 EC x 28 uur)

Attendance

This programme does not have requirements concerning attendance (OER part B).

Additional requirements for this course:

There is no compulsory attendance required. However, it is highly recommended to follow the lectures. Experience from previous years taught us students who did not attend the lectures, failed to achieve high results on the exam.

Assessment

Item and weight	Details
Final grade
80% Exam (80%)	Must be ≥ 5.5, Mandatory
20% Individual assigment: information supplement	Must be ≥ 5.5, Mandatory

All components will be graded on a scale from 1 to 10, with a maximum of one decimal after the point. These grades are used to calculate the final grade. In order to pass the course, all components and the final grade have to be sufficient, i.e. at least a five and a half. When a student has not fulfilled this requirement, the examiner will register the mark ‘did not fulfil all requirements’ (NAV) whether or not the averaged grade is sufficient.

The components will be weighted as follows:

Written assignment: information supplement of a forensic expert report (20%)
Exchange with law students (0%)
Written exam (80%)

Examination consists of a written assignment in which an expert report is explained in such a way that lawyers can grasp the meaning of the report and a written exam at the end of the course.

The final grade will be announced at the latest on June 17th (= 15 working days after the final course activity). Between June 17th 2020 to July 15th (=35 working days after the final course activity) a post-exam discussion or inspection moment will be planned. This will be announced on Canvas and/or via email.

LO	Tested in component	EQ 1	EQ 2	EQ 3	EQ 4	EQ 5	EQ 6	EQ 7	EQ 8	EQ 9	EQ 10
1	3	x
2	3	x
3	3	x						x
4	3	x
5	3							x
6	1, 2, 3							x	x
7	1, 2				x					x

Table of specification: the relation between the Learning Outcomes (LO) of the course, the assessment components of the course and the Exit Qualifications (EQ) of the Master’s Forensic Science (described in the Introduction in the Course Catalogue)

Assignments

Component 1: Written Assignment - Expert Report (20% of final grade)

Expert reports can be quite short and lacking of background information. The Netherlands Forensic Institute provides information supplements with general information about forensic topics. In these supplements they explain which methods are used and give general background information on that particular forensic field. Students are asked to write such an information supplement on a specific topic that is provided to you. This is an individual assignment. The target audience are members from the judiciary.

Chain of Evidence

You are asked to write an information supplement on either DNA or glass, however, in each group of the course Chain of Evidence, one student needs to write a report on DNA and one on glass. After handing in your written assignment you are asked to choose one DNA report and one glass report that will be attached to your expert report in Chain of Evidence. This will contribute to the preparation of the non-scientists present during the moot court.

Component 2: Exchange with Law students (not graded)

In week 4 an exchange with law students will take place. Further information will be provided at the beginning of the course.

Component 3: The final examination (80% of the final grade)

The exam of this course will be a written examination based on the content covered during the lessons. The final exam will be assessed on an individual basis.

Fraud and plagiarism

The 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' applies to this course. This will be monitored carefully. Upon suspicion of fraud or plagiarism the Examinations Board of the programme will be informed. For the 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' see: www.student.uva.nl

Course structure

In order to give some guidance in reading the compulsory literature and preparing the weekly lectures weekly learning outcomes have been formulated.

Week 1

Describe the different theories of punishment and having regard to these theories, assess whether a certain form of punishment is desirable or can be explained;
Explain and classify the different principles of criminalisation and make arguments against or in favour of criminalisation of a given conduct;
Assess the criminalisation of certain criminal behaviour while taking into account the principles of criminalisation.

Week 2

Understand the meaning of the principle of legality and reason why its meaning differs in the distinct legal systems;
Recognize the different aspects of the principle of legality and methods of legal interpretation;
Analyse the influence of the European Convention of Human Rights on the meaning of the principle of legality in distinct legal systems that are subject to the convention;
Understand the different elements of crime and how we determine their presence in criminal cases;
Evaluate whether a certain approach to mens rea (in a certain legal system), generates a different outcome in a criminal case.

Week 3

Understand what justifications and excuses (and their criteria) are and recognize them when presented in a case (limited to the justifications and excuses that are covered by the literature);
Explain the connection between the elements of crime and justifications and excuses;
Understand the difference in perspective with regard to defences between the German and Dutch continental law systems on one hand and the English common law system on the other;
Evaluate whether the previous mentioned difference in perspective, could generate a different outcome in a specific criminal case;

Week 4

Understand the nature and rationale of inchoate offences;
Describe the different approaches of the Dutch, German and English system with regard to the actus reus and mens rea of inchoate offences;
Discuss the problems that arise with regard to the actus reus and mens rea of inchoate offences (keeping in mind the beforementioned nature);

Learning goals with regard to procedural law: To be announced

Week 5

Guest lecture

Week 6

To be announced

Week 7

To be announced

Dates, times and room numbers can be found in Datanose. In addition to the weekly lecture three guest lectures on cybercrime are offered, which take place at the law faculty on Roeterseiland. Further information will be announced through Canvas.

Course week	Activity	participants	Lecturer	Subject	Literature
1	Lecture	all students	C. Ganzeboom	Introduction to criminal law	Keiler and Roef 2019
2	Lecture	all students	C. Ganzeboom	The criminal act	Keiler and Roef 2019
3	Lecture	all students	C. Ganzeboom	Justifications and excuses	Keiler and Roef 2019
4	Lecture	all students	C. Ganzeboom	Inchoate offences, criminal procedure: criminal investigation, the right to a fair trial	Keiler and Roef 2019 and url's on Canvas
5	Practical assignment	all students	Guest Lecture	Practical assignment
6	Lecture	all students	C. Ganzeboom	Criminal procedure	See url’s on Canvas
7	Lecture	all students	C. Ganzeboom	Criminal procedure	See url’s on Canvas

Timetable

The schedule for this course is published on DataNose.

Additional information

Last year's course evaluation

In order to provide students some insight how we use the feedback of student evaluations to enhance the quality of education, we decided to include the table below in all course guides.

Criminal Law and Expert Evidence (6EC)	N=28
Strengths The law subject is interesting and instructive. Charlotte is a good teacher and the online lectures worked well. Clear course design.	Notes for improvement The separation of the questions in time slots caused a lot of stress during the exam. There was no feedback moment for the technical annex and students felt they were doing it twice because the deadlines of CLEE and CHOE did not match. There was no opportunity to test your knowledge on criminal law during the course. The course is mostly law based and maybe sometimes went a bit too far into the legal intricacies. In comparison the expert evidence part was addressed very little (NB: the exchange with the law students could not be organised this year due to corona.)
Response lecturer: In case of online exam: no time slots. Technical annex: build in rubrics in Canvas to make grading and sharing results with students easier. Align deadlines with other course, look into option for feedback. Feedback and grading is a lot of work, perhaps a form of student peer feedback and tips/tops list based on previous years. Teacher agrees to include some kind of check for students to gage at what level they are. She will look into the options for this, either quizzes or other forms of in between assignments. Depending on the situation, we would like to include the exchange again, maybe in online format.

Contact information

Coordinator

mr. C. Ganzeboom

Owner	Master Forensic Science
Coordinator	mr. C. Ganzeboom
Part of	Master Forensic Science, year 1

Criminal Law and Expert Evidence