Bible and Criminal Procedure

Criminal Procedures

The Bible and criminal procedures

There are several instances where the Bible speaks about the criminal procedures as well as justice in the society. These verses in the Bible were given as guidelines towards ensuring the protection of the innocent from undue punishment and holding the criminals to account for their crime. The verses given in the prompt affirmed my belief and conviction of how the criminal procedures should operate in a civilized society.

In the first instance, the prompt outlines the significance of having witnesses in the course of handling a case. I am in agreement two scriptures on the importance of corroboration by witness testimonies and the need for a second witness to act as a validation or affirmation of the events that led to the crime as accounted for by the first witness in order to fairly convict an individual. Deuteronomy 17:6 further gives higher stakes on witnesses to be more than two when it comes to possible death sentence so that there is further minimization of mistrials.

I am also in agreement with the aspect of cross examination of witnesses since there is a possibility of false testimony hence the investigations need to be carried out and one of the ways to verify the truth in a case is by cross examining the key witnesses.

Deuteronomy 22:13 -- 18 and Exodus 22:12-13 point out to the significance of physical evidence in determining a case. The inclusion of physical evidence is central to determining which way the case goes. In the contemporary law, if the accused person is able to produce physical evidence to prove their innocence or to give a verifiable allay exempting them from the crime scene, then the law will let them free. This is a trend that is also supported by the Bible verses which point out to the centrality of physical evidence in determining cases.

The current system works in the following manner. On the use of witnesses in court, the current system can convict an individual on the testimony of one individual as long as the evidence, be it circumstantial or direct is strong enough to point out to the crime. One common instance is wen a witness repeatedly identifies the person who robbed him or shot at him from an identification parade. On cross examination, the current systems operate pretty much as the Bible indicates, the witnesses are often cross examined by the attorneys from either sides to make sure there are no loose ends in their testimony. This however becomes different when the use of informants in the current systems comes up since these informants are not always in the court for cross examination. On the matter of physical evidence, the current systems of justice always need the accuser to produce evidence and often protect the accused from self-incrimination (Cornell University law School, 2015).