Can a retrial admit evidence given in the original trial? Say there was a criminal trial, and the verdict was later set aside on appeal due to some critical procedure errors happened during questioning of one specific witness (out of many). For example, a line of questioning on redirect examination was wrongly disallowed even though it directly related to an issue that arose on cross-examination. So, the verdict was set aside on appeal and a retrial was ordered. Now, on retrial, would all the witnesses need to be heard again despite that the issue that needs to be corrected pertains to just one of them? Can not the rest of the evidence presented in the original trial be just re-admitted? I am specifically interested in an answer for bench/judge-alone trials — where the judge is the trier of fact too. (In case of jury trials the requirement to re-hear all witnesses is pretty much understandable). (Any common law jurisdiction).
Yes - all evidence needs to undergo evaluation If there is ground for a Retrial or New Trial on the lower court level, that starts everything in the trial from 0. The whole matter is looked at de novo, which means as if there had never been any trial before. 1 All evidence is put on the record (again), motions to suppress or exclude evidence are evaluated (again), and then the whole trial happens once again. New Evidence just as much as evidence from the old trial will both be scrutinized the same. This means, witnesses will need to enter the stand once more, especially since the questions might be different from the first time. 1 - Note that Courts of Appeal might look at things de novo but not admit new evidence - they don't offer a retrial but evaluate the lower court was following the correct procedures in those cases.
Yes, such a scenario is plausible, and there are some cases where it has probably happened. But since juries do not normally give reasons for their votes, it is hard to establish when it has and when it has not happened, and I have seen no statistics on such occurrences. By the way, &quot;Jury Nullification&quot; is simply when one or more jury members vote in a particular way because of something other than the law and evidence as presented in the trial. Most often the term is used when a jury votes to acquit because they dislike or disapprove of the law involved. For example, in the 1850s a number of people accused of violating the US Fugitive Slave Law by harboring runaway slaves were acquitted, reputedly because juries who disliked the law (quite unpopular in many northern states) no matter what the evidence. Later, during Prohibition, some people charged with possessing or selling alcohol were acquitted, reputedly by juries who disapproved of Prohibition. In both cases, it is hard to get authoritative sources that specific cases were actual instances of jury nullification. Anyway, a juror need not &quot;ask&quot; for jury nullification, that juror just votes to acquit. A jury that votes to acquit (or convict) because of political or personal views about the accused might be said to be &quot;biased&quot; but I am not sure if that would be described as &quot;jury nullification&quot;.
The jury would never hear the recording The recording and its provenience would be provided to the prosecution who would, rightly, have issues with its admissibility. The defence and prosecution would make submissions on this to the judge, normally well before the trial date and the empaneling of the jury. If the recording had genuinely emerged during the trial, such submissions would be made without the jury seeing them. The submissions would typically be in writing rather than verbal. If the judge decided the evidence was inadmissible the jury would never see it and never know of its existence. If the jury somehow found out about it anyway, this would be grounds for an immediate mistrial and we would start again with a new jury. Illegally obtained evidence is not automatically inadmissible Hong Kong is not the United States - admitting or excluding illegally obtained evidence is at the discretion of the judge based on where the interests of overall justice are best served. In any event, the absolute prohibition in the US applies only to prosecution evidence - evidence illegally obtained by the defence is subject to the same rules as in Hong Kong; the judge decides.
Your question slightly misrepresents what the article says: Yes, the judge denied the motion which led to the collapse of the case, he did not make a ruling on the substance of the case. The distinction is significant to my mind as the judge was using non-evidentiary knowledge (i.e. what he read in the paper) to make a decision on process; in this case a process that would have put a lot of people to a lot of inconvenience. It would not be proper for the judge to have used such knowledge to inform a judgement. It is also not clear from the article if the academic paper in question was actually introduced by the defendant as evidence. If that was the case then it is only right and proper for the judge to consider it. As to why a judge is allowed to read the news and a jury is not, I can offer several ideas: A judge must document their reasoning process in a judgement which is subject to review - if they were to make a decision based on matters not supported by the evidence then an appeals court could correct it. Alternatively, juries are specifically prohibited from revealing their reasoning process to anyone. Judges do their jobs for years, perhaps a whole career - to prohibit them from consuming media is a) unworkable and b) a serious impediment on their lifestyle. Juries are empaneled for weeks or months - such sacrifices are more reasonable. Judges are (supposedly) trained and impartial professionals who are more readily able to make the distinction between evidence and news. Newsworthy cases are relatively rare
Yes It's not uncommon. In fact I am aware of at least one case where the trial judge referred it to appeal before he made his decision on the basis that whichever way he decided the law was so unsettled that grounds for appeal would occur. In that case the court of appeal called up the trial judge to sit on the 3 judge appeal a) because he knew the case and b) because you don't get to not make a decision because it's hard sonny-jim.
What remedies are therein the United States? I would imagine that the witness could be prosecuted for perjury. My guess is that the plaintiff could prosecute the witness for the lost damages. Are there any other remedies like reopening the original trial or declaring a mistrial so that the plaintiff could sue the (deep-pocketed) defendant, or would this be double jeopardy? Perjury prosecutions are like unicorns. They are rumored to exist but are almost never seen. A prosecutor would be exceedingly unlikely to bring charges in such a case, but it might not hurt to ask. Even if the criminal prosecution prevailed, however, the defeated plaintiff would be no better off, or might get out of pocket court costs as restitution at most. You could request that the witness be sanctioned for contempt. But, this leaves the loser in the original case no better off unless the judge made the highly unusual decision to award compensatory damages as a contempt sanction. Similarly, if you have reason to believe that the attorney knew that the testimony offered was false, that would be grounds to grieve the lawyer which could result in the lawyer's suspension or disbarment, but that is very difficult to prove and again would not advance the unjustly defeated plaintiff's cause. Assuming that the time to move for a retrial (usually two weeks) expired when the new evidence was discovered, you could move to set aside the verdict (Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60 or the equivalent state rule). The deadline for such motions based upon fraud by an adverse party is usually six months. Sometimes an independent action to set aside the verdict for fraud on the court could also be brought (sometimes within two or three years), which is an uphill battle, but probably the best option if all other deadlines have expired. The witness probably has absolute immunity from civil liability outside that court case for the testimony offered, so a civil action suing the witness for lost damages would be dismissed. The doctrine of double jeopardy does not apply, but a similar doctrine called "res judicata" (a.k.a. "claim preclusion") prohibits retrying a case that was tried on the merits between the same parties, if it has become a final order. So, filing a new case is ruled out assuming that no appeals were filed within the deadline for doing so. And, even if the deadline for filing an appeal has not lapsed, it probably wouldn't prevail because the key new evidence wouldn't be in the record. It would be better to file to set aside the judgment in a motion and to appeal if that motion was denied.
There have been instances where the US Supreme Court has held over cases to the next term, and instances where they ordered a case re-argued in the next term. Brown vs Board of Education was a particularly well known case that was reargued. I believe that such occasions are rare, and that the court makes a significant effort to decide each case in the same term where certiorari is granted. Once exception is when the Court has a vacancy and is waiting fora new Justice to be confirmed, and the Justices in office are tied. Then cases with 4-4 splits are often held and re-argued. More often, the Justices decide, after granting certiorari, that this was a mistake, and dismiss the case altogether. The phrase used is that the writ is &quot;dismissed as improvidently granted&quot; or &quot;DIGed&quot;. This has the same ultimate effect as if certiorari had never been granted -- the lower court decision is left standing, and no Supreme Court precedent is created. This is still fairly rare. To the best of my knowledge there is no rule requiring decision within any specific time, but I have never heard of a case held over for more than one term.
Double jeopardy applies to the same facts, not to the same sorts of crimes. Say if you are tried and acquitted of murder of person A, that won't later save you from being tried for murder of person B. Same applies to your question: if the documents/testimony on the second occasion are different from the first occasion, there is no protection. If they are the same, there is.