Criminal Trial Evidence: Proof and Judicial Assessment

The Criminal Trial: Proof and Judgment

Proof is the core activity in the criminal trial process, upon which the court founds its justification and decides the case. Initially, one can only speak of holding a party's claims; however, this alone is insufficient to support the final decision. Verification activity within the process is necessary.

Therefore, we must consider the evidence only after all research activity conducted during the instruction phase by the judge has been completed. The trial is not merely for research but for judgment, and the judging authority must always be a different subject from the one who conducted the initial investigation.

Evidence Presentation and Appreciation

Evidence is only practiced before the judge, who must and can appreciate it once the appropriate allegations have been made. The sources of evidence are external elements introduced into the process, arising prior to the proceedings. These sources consist of objects or people who can provide expertise to assess the facts alleged by one party to the proceedings.

Evidence, in procedural terms, refers to the instruments through which these sources are incorporated into the process; they only exist within the legal proceedings. The purpose of the evidence is to establish the facts that the litigants have presented in their written submissions regarding the ratings.

Evidence in Criminal Proceedings

In criminal proceedings, evidence must relate to all facts constituting the punitive claim; this is called incriminating evidence. The burden of proving the facts constituting the accusation rests entirely on the accuser.

The pre-constituted evidence test is the source intended to acknowledge the existence of a fact, event, business, or legal relationship and how it existed for future use. Therefore, pre-constitution is not accidental but reflects the intention of perpetuating the information obtained from the evidence source. It is a concerted element designed to document something that happened in the past.

Guarantees in Obtaining Evidence Sources

Guarantees in obtaining evidence sources include:

• Judicial intervention, which is subject to judicial control and contradiction.
• Judicial orders to ensure and preserve physical evidence, such as the corpus delicti, its instruments, and effects.
• Obtaining measures like registration or communication interception to ensure the object or footprint remains unaltered in its original state and is thus brought to trial.

It must be ensured that the chain of custody establishes that the evidence source has not been contaminated at any time. This prevents the evidence source from being altered for any reason, ensuring that what is presented in court is the same as what was found during the instruction phase.

Trial Evidence Principles

Evidence presented during the trial is conducted under the principles of contradiction, orality, immediacy, and advertising, along with the principle of concentration.