What would happen if one raised philosophical objections during a legal case? I'm curious what would happen in a court of law if a defendant (for instance) raised a philosophical objection to the accusations. There are lots of commonsense notions (like causality, or intentionality) that are problematic philosophically. For instance, suppose someone argued that he wasn't guilty of first degree murder because he didn't believe that premeditation was possible? Would that argument just be discarded? Could a jury be forced to consider the question? Or does each legal system have pre-specified philosophical ground rules within which trials are held?
As a defendant, one can argue almost anything in defense of one's self and one's case, as long as one (as a pro se defendent, or one's legal representation) is truthful (see Officer of the court - Wikipedia). There is no legal barrier to any argument or framework of an argument, be it religion or philosophy when one is arguing a case. (But there are limits; arguing that you're a sovereign citizen - or that you're the second coming of Christ - and laws don't apply to you might get you jailed for contempt). I can argue that I'm entitled to take food from the grocery store without paying because I am entitled to it because I am, well, I am me, the greatest person in the history of mankind, and as such, I don't have to buy food. Because I am me. Would that argument just be discarded? But the "I am me" argument isn't going to fly in court (and possibly very quickly because the court will not be happy about a frivolous argument not based in the law) against a charge of theft because we're talking about the rule of law, which is established and adopted as a framework of justice in the interest of a legal system fair to all, and not a speculative framework, such as philosophy, or a religious framework based on concepts of faith. The rule of law is a general agreement (subject to change, of course; see below) that certain things are wrong, and there is a price to pay, and that price to pay is written down and established as a norm and formalized through the lawmaking arm of the government, which can change that rule of law in a lawful way. See Rule of law - Wikipedia. Could a jury be forced to consider the question? A jury can't be forced to consider a philosophical (or religious) idea. A judge might encourage a jury to consider a philosophical or religious theory as a way to arrive at a verdict, but to arrive at verdict based in the law, not based on that philosophy or religion. A jury can certainly take a defendants' arguments into consideration; that's the basis of their debates. The members of jury may talk among itself about theories and philosophies in order to debate and arrive at a verdict based in the law. Some members of the jury may only refer to philosophy or relgion, and solely and hold out and prevent a verdict from being arrived at, because that juror(s) are pursuing something based in ideology, or they are confused about the rule of law. Those jurors could be removed from the jury (under the rule of law) in order to arrive at a verdict. Or does each legal system have pre-specified philosophical ground rules within which trials are held? It could be argued that our rule of law is derived from a set of philosophical (and arguably religious, too) ground rules that began with the United States Constitution - Wikipedia, and the rule of law as codified as a necessity excludes other philosophical ground rules in the interest of even-handed and fair justice for all. There are many other rules of law which are based in other legal, philosophical and religious traditions. And those rules of law may include written "ground rules" that are referred to as objective and based on something like a Constitution; or they may include judgements derived from the warm entrails of animals.
Let me give you a simple, even if rather silly example: You take me to a civil court. You tell the judge "gnasher regularly parks his blue car in front of my home, and the color blue violates my sense of beauty. Judge, make him stop it. " A question of fact would be: Is my car actually blue? Not green, or red? And do I actually park my car in front of your home, and do so regularly? A question of law would be: Am I allowed by law to park my car in front of your home, even when my car has a color that you don't like? If this goes to a civil court, the judge would look at it and probably say: "Even if all the facts that 'Gimme the 401' claimed are true, as a matter of law there would be no case for gnasher to answer, since these actions would be permitted by law". If the judge decided that it is illegal to park cars in offensive colours in front of someone else's home as a matter of law, the court would then have to decide the facts: Whether what you claimed is actually the truth. (And while this example is silly, there have been people claiming that the neighbour's use of WiFi interfered with their health. And by law it is illegal to interfere with someone's health, so the facts would have to be examined).
A courtroom is not a podium A court is a forum for resolving a specific dispute. Testimony is restricted for a number of reasons the most all encompassing of which is relevance. For testimony to be admitted it has to go to the issue in dispute. For a person charged under the laws of, say, India, it cannot be in any way relevant what the laws of, say, China have to say about the issue. Similarly, for a person charged with a Federal crime, state law is irrelevant (and vice-versa). There is no free speech issue here because testimony is given only for the purpose of resolving the case. If it’s not relevant to that you can’t introduce it and, if you persist in trying the court can hold you in contempt.
A party can ask a judge to recuse at the outset of a case for bias or other reasons (e.g. a family connection to a party). Generally, a judge rules on that motion personally and it is an interlocutory motion not subject to appeal except by extraordinary writ (or the equivalent) to the state supreme court. It is not generally proper to do so during a trial. Moreover, one jeopardy has attached in a criminal trial (which happens when the jury is sworn) if the trial ends prior to a jury verdict for reasons other than those attributable to the defendant, the defendant cannot be tried again on those charges and is functionally acquitted. There are probably some arguable exceptions to this rule in extraordinary circumstances that are not the fault of either party (e.g. if a meteor hits courthouse and kills the judge and some jurors mid-trial, or if it is revealed that the judge committed the crime for which the defendant is being tried). But the threshold for exceptions to the general rule is very high.
united-states I am answering this in the case of a criminal jury trial (given the context of the previous question). It is my understanding that the judge must accept (almost?) all evidence admitted into court. So, this leaves me with three questions: What happens if an official shows evidence that the judge hadn't agreed to feature in the trial? . . . What happens if the evidence happens to be inadmissible? A trial in a criminal case takes place in a courtroom at a predetermined date and time, with the prosecutor physically sitting at one table in front of a judge and the defendant and the defendant's lawyer physically sitting at another table in front of the judge, and a jury physically sitting in a seating area to the side of the judge, and a witness (usually) physically sitting in a chair on the other side of the judge (in rare circumstances, for minor witnesses, testimony is provided by telephone with the phone put on speaker in the courtroom for all to hear), and a court reporter or tape recorder keeping track of what happens verbatim. In a trial, essentially all evidence comes in through witnesses sitting on a special the chair in front of the judge designated for witnesses (called the witness stand) at the request of either the prosecuting attorney, or the defense attorney. This is the only way the evidence is introduced (other than by stipulations of both side's lawyers). Prosecutors and defense attorneys don't testify or provide evidence themselves. The judge is usually not told what evidence will be offered at trial in advance, although sometimes a pre-trial hearing is held to consider a particularly important piece of evidence's admissibility prior to trial, in a hearing on what is called a &quot;motion in limine&quot; or a &quot;motion to suppress&quot;. If that happens, the judge's decision made in advance will be honored by the judge when anyone tries to introduce the evidence at trial. But those are the exception and not the rule. Usually, any witnesses can be asked any questions at trial and the judge does not consider the admissibility of the answer to the question until it is asked and objected to by the other side's lawyer at trial. A defendant can choose to be, but is not required to be, a witness in his or her own case. In a trial, when it is their turn, the prosecution and defense, respectively, ask witnesses to sit at the witness stand one by one and ask them questions, which the witness answers under oath, absent an evidence objection from the other side's attorney. While a witness is on the stand, exhibits such as documents or physical objects can also be introduced into evidence in connection with the authenticating testimony of the witness (except in cases where both sides stipulate to the admission of the documents or other non-testimonial evidence). As the lawyers try to introduce evidence by asking a question to a witness on the stand, or by asking the judge for permission to introduce non-testimonial evidence, the other side's attorney can say, &quot;I object&quot;. If that happens, the witness on the stand is not allowed to answer the question and the non-testimonial evidence (e.g. documents, or a knife allegedly used in a crime) is not made available to the jury until the judge rules on whether it is admissible or not in accordance with the rules of evidence. Usually, the judge rules on the evidence objection immediately in the moment, although in rare cases, the judge will let the jury have a break for a few minutes while hearing arguments from the lawyers for both sides on about the relevant evidence rules and/or researching the legal issue, before ruling on the evidence issue. Once the judge rules on the evidence issue, the trial continues immediately. If the judge &quot;sustains&quot; the objection to the evidence, then the question doesn't get asked and/or the jury doesn't get to see the non-testimonial evidence. The lawyer whose question or offer to introduce evidence was successfully objected to moves on to their next question (if any) for the witness instead. If the judge &quot;overrules&quot; the objection to the evidence, then the witness answer the question and/or the jury gets to see the non-testimonial evidence which is &quot;received&quot; into evidence by the judge. This process continues continuously, for as many business days as it takes, until all witness testimony and all non-testimonial evidence has been presented to the court and both sides have told the court that they have presented all of their evidence. Then each side makes closing arguments to the jury, the judge reads the jury instructions of law on how to resolve the case, and the jury is sent to closed room to discuss the case and decide whether to say &quot;guilty&quot; or &quot;not guilty&quot; with respect to each charge brought by the prosecution in the trial. This decision is called a &quot;verdict&quot; and when the jury has made up its mind on all charges present to it, the jury lets the judge know that it has made up its mind, and the judge calls everyone back to the courtroom, and the jury tells the judge what they decided in open court. If the verdict is &quot;not guilty&quot; on all criminal charges in the case, then the case is over, with no post-trial motions and no appeals. If the verdict is &quot;guilty&quot; the defendant is convicted, subject to post-trial motions to declare a mistrial and appeals by the convicted defendant. If the convicted defendant appeals the case, and the judge abused his discretion in overruling an objection to the evidence that is made by the lawyer for the defendant (or the defendant personally if the defendant is not represented by a lawyer), because no reasonable judge could have found that the evidence was admissible under the circumstances, then the appellate court rules that the judge has made an &quot;error&quot;. The appellate court will not find that the judge's ruling is an &quot;error&quot; if the judge made the correct decision for the wrong reason. If it is reasonably possible that &quot;error&quot; possibly in combination with other errors made by the trial court judge could have caused a convicted criminal defendant to have been acquitted by the jury if the errors weren't made by the judge, then the defendant gets a new trial. The new trial usually before the same judge with a new jury. But the new trial is before a different judge and a new jury if the judge is no longer a judge on the court for any reason, or if the judge has been so defiant of the appellate court (typically ignoring its instructions in a retrial after a first appeal) that the appellate court decides it must remove the judge from the case. A criminal defendant is only acquitted by an appellate court if the appellate court finds that it would be impossible under any circumstances for the defendant to be convicted in a new trial, possibly with different evidence presented by the prosecution. What happens if a private citizen does the above? This doesn't make sense. Private citizens don't rule on the admissibility of evidence in a criminal trial, and can't introduce evidence in a criminal trial except at the request of a prosecuting attorney or defendant's attorney by being called as a witness and asking the questions that the lawyers (and sometimes the judge as well) asks the witness. Witnesses are not allowed to volunteer testimony or provide documents to a jury unless asked to do so by a lawyer in the case. What happens if someone provides evidence in court without the knowledge of the judge? As the process described above should make clear, this is basically impossible absent some extremely irregular event on the same level of irregularity as someone bribing a jury or threatening a jury with harm if he votes the wrong way.
There are instances when the testimony may still be admitted. For example, a deposition may be admitted at trial either for impeaching or when a witness cannot attend, which involves the circumstance of death (FRCP 32(a)(4)(a)). Additionally, regarding hearsay, there are numerous exceptions. My Evidence professor said in class "If you cannot find a way to get evidence around a hearsay objection, you are not trying hard enough." One such hearsay exception states in the committee notes: Accordingly, the committee has amended rule 803(8) to refer to the provision of [proposed] rule 804(b)(5) [deleted], which allows the admission of such reports, records or other statements where the police officer or other law enforcement officer is unavailable because of death, then existing physical or mental illness or infirmity, or not being successfully subject to legal process.
First we should be more specific about a person being &quot;accused&quot; – we should disregard lunatic rantings, and limit our attention to a person who has been officially, legally accused of a crime (which is the class of acts to which the concept &quot;guilt&quot; applies). In all jurisdictions, a formal accusation must be supported with some evidence. In light of that, by definition it is possible that the accused is guilty. The fact-finders will then weigh that evidence and conclude that the evidence meets the standard of proof for guilt, or does not. It is then logically incoherent to deny that guilt is a possibility, unless the intent is that all accused persons should be found innocent irrespective of the evidence. The finder of fact must allow both possible outcomes. The reason for the &quot;innocent until proven guilty&quot; viewpoint is that it puts a specific burden of proof on the government: the government has to not just knock down all of the accused's defenses, it has to conjure up a certain level of sufficiently-convincing evidence proving guilt. This is to avoid the situation that characterizes totalitarian regimes where the tyrant can accuse a person of a random crime, offer no evidence, then insist that the accused somehow prove their innocence.
The appellate court gets the trial transcript which includes all the testimony (and exhibits or descriptions/photos of them) and the trial court's rulings. Also, each side presents an appeal brief, which will generally include a statement of facts, pointing out ones it thinks favorable to its views. In civil cases a jury may be asked/instructed to give yes/no answers to a series of questions, but this is not normal in criminal cases. An appellate court can (and sometimes does) rule that there was not sufficient evidence to permit any reasonable jury to convict; to that extent it can rule on questions of fact. But, as the comment by ohwilleke mentions, an appellate court does not hear new evidence. It can overturn the conviction and send the case back for a new trial, and in such a new trial additional evidence may be introduce at the trial court level.