Bewijsmotivering in strafzaken: een motiveringsmodel voor de rechter bij de bewijsbeslissing

Several cases of wrongful conviction, such as the "Schiedammer Park murder case”, "Lucia de Berk”, and the "Puttense murder case” have shown that much can go wrong with judicial decisions about evidence and proof. The judge must determine the facts and use those facts to assess whether the defendant committed the charged offense. Research shows that people make errors in observation, assessment, and reasoning. An example of such an error is the so-called "tunnel vision”.

An increasing number of people, both in science and legal practice, argue that reasoning with evidence in criminal cases should follow scientific insights about reasoning with evidence. Theories of rational reasoning with evidence have been proposed that specifically relate to evidence in criminal cases. Three such theories have been investigated in this research: the narrative theory, the argumentative theory and the hybrid theory. The purpose of this research was to develop a justification model that utilizes insights from these theories about reasoning about evidence and proof in criminal cases. It was investigated which theory is best suited to serve as a guiding principle for the justification model. I argued that this is the hybrid theory, which includes reasoning with scenarios and using verification and falsification so as to reduce the chance of tunnel vision.

The proposed justification model makes the current insights from theories about reasoning about evidence and proof practically applicable for judges and offers them concrete tools in decision-making about evidence and proof.