*Please note that the links to the content in this Part will direct you to Westlaw AU.<\/p>\n
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The latest issue of the Australian Law Journal (Volume 97 Part 8) contains the following material:<\/p>\n
CURRENT ISSUES<\/a> \u2013 Editor: Justice Fran\u00e7ois Kunc<\/strong><\/p>\n Guest Editor: Dr Ruth CA Higgins SC<\/strong><\/p>\n CONVEYANCING AND PROPERTY<\/a> \u2013 Editors: Robert Angyal SC and Brendan Edgeworth<\/strong><\/p>\n PERSONALIA<\/a> \u2013 Editor: Emily Vale<\/strong><\/p>\n RECENT CASES<\/a> \u2013 Editor: Ruth CA Higgins<\/strong><\/p>\n Investigators, Cognitive Bias and Double-Dipping: Misunderstanding Opinion Evidence in Trials and Appeals<\/em><\/strong><\/a> \u2013 <\/strong>Gary Edmond<\/p>\n This article examines the misuse of evidence in trials and appeals. Specifically, the systematic mis-representation and over-valuing of opinion evidence. It explains how inattention to the independence (and value) of different strands of (circumstantial) evidence, along with dangers posed by context effects and cognitive biases, results in contamination, such that the same evidence might be unwittingly \u201cdipped into\u201d, and so counted, more than once. These problems are sometimes compounded when jurors are enabled to undertake comparisons (eg of voice recordings or persons in images) in the extremely suggestive conditions of the accusatorial trial. Such practices not only dilute criminal proof, they encourage unfairness and irrationality. Traditional trial safeguards (and personnel) have failed to recognise, let alone address, these problems and the substantial risks entailed.<\/p>\n Dead Men Tell No Tales \u2013 Permanent Stays in Historical Child Sexual Abuse Litigation and \u201cDead Man Statutes\u201d \u2013 An Unforeseen Outcome?<\/em><\/a> \u2013 <\/strong>James Masur<\/p>\n Following a five-year inquiry, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse produced its final report in 2017. Its recommended legislative reforms permitting survivors of historical child sexual abuse to obtain civil law redress brought a sense of optimism that their claims would be finally determined on their merits at court. While an increase of these previously barred claims was explicitly expected, it is unclear whether this included the corresponding rise in applications seeking a permanent stay? Either way, the development of authority, which has the practical consequence of preventing plaintiffs from maintaining such claims where the putative abuser cannot be confronted with the allegations due to death or infirmity, presents a direct challenge to the efficacy of the Royal Commission\u2019s objectives and recommendations. In doing so, it has produced similar outcomes to the so-called \u201cDead Man Statutes\u201d, the derided statutory vestiges of the common law\u2019s long-abolished qualification against interest rules.<\/p>\n BOOK REVIEW<\/a> \u2013 Editor: Angelina Gomez<\/strong><\/p>\n For the PDF version of the table of contents, click here: New Westlaw Australia – ALJ Vol 97 No 8 Contents<\/a>.<\/p>\n Click here to access this Part on New Westlaw AU<\/a><\/p>\n\n
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