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Adjudicative Criminal Procedure: A Comparative Approach, First Edition

Authors
  • Stephen C. Thaman
Series / Aspen Casebook Series
Teaching Materials
NO
Description
Table of contents
Preface

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Adjudicative Criminal Procedure: A Comparative Approach, First Edition picks up Chapters 1 and 10 through 18 from the author’s casebook, Criminal Procedure: A Comparative Approach, First Edition. It explores the full “due process” criminal trial with all the guarantees afforded in the U.S. by the Sixth Amendment rights to a speedy trial by an impartial jury representing a fair cross-section of the community. Included in these rights are the defense’s right to confront and cross-examine the witnesses in open court and the due process rights to pretrial release, discovery, the presumption of innocence, and proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The Sixth Amendment is compared with Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which is virtually identical except for the right to jury trial.
 
The book also focuses on the disappearance of the full “due process” trial due to more or less coercive forms of plea bargaining, which compel both the guilty and innocent to give up all of their trial rights. It shows how the classic jury trial in the U.S. is distinguished from most other European countries in its approach to the presentation and evaluation of evidence, its stance on the right to confrontation and admissibility of hearsay, its rejection of reasoned judgments, and its approach to double jeopardy and the finality of judgments. Particular emphasis is placed on the difficulty in ensuring impartial juries in the U.S. and on how the rules of trial and evidence fail to prevent the conviction of the innocent.

Benefits for instructors and students:
  • Cases and other excerpted materials: A wealth of interesting and well-edited cases, both U.S. and international, providing material for comparative analysis and stimulation for classroom discussion.
  • U.S. Law Notes: Supplements to the excerpted seminal cases, discussing nuances in the prevailing approach and divergences among states which accord more protection than the U.S. Supreme Court.
  • Discussion: Provocative questions and information, designed to encourage students and instructors to identify the similarities and differences between U.S. and foreign law, and to discuss which approaches may be the preferred ones.
  • Online Appendix: A wealth of high court opinions and statutory law, for those students or instructors who wish to delve deeper into a particular area, who are enrolled in classes that are not heavily focused on U.S. law, or who need additional resources for writing papers.
  • Glossary of Terms and Concepts Translated from French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish: Important information (especially helpful for non-U.S. students) to help clear up potential terminological confusion.
  • Further Reading (U.S. and Comparative): Chapter-end suggestions for books and articles (each list focusing exclusively on U.S. or comparative law), related to the issues discussed in the chapter.
  • Materials on Confrontation, which is usually taught in Evidence classes in the U.S., are included.
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Table of Contents
SUMMARY OF CONTENTS

Contents
Preface 


CHAPTER 1
The Historical and Comparative Foundations of Crime
Prevention and Criminal Procedure 
CHAPTER 10
Pretrial Detention, Other Coercive Measures, and the
Right to a Speedy Trial 
CHAPTER 11
Preparation for Trial: Review of the Charging Decision, Discovery,
and the Postcharge Ability of Counsel to Prepare a Defense 
CHAPTER 12
The Taking of Evidence at Trial: Orality, Immediacy, and the Right
to Confrontation 
CHAPTER 13
Presumption of Innocence, Burden of Proof, and Guaranteeing the
Independence and Impartiality of the Trial Court and the Jury 
CHAPTER 14
The Roles of Lay and Professional Judges in Evaluating the Evidence,
Deciding Facts, Guilt, and Punishment, and How the Rationality of
Their Decisions Is Justified 881
CHAPTER 15
The Finality of Criminal Judgments: Appeal, Cassation, the
Reopening of Final Judgments, and the Effect of Double Jeopardy 
CHAPTER 16
How Much Evidence Suffices to Overcome the Presumption of
Innocence and Prove Guilt Beyond a Reasonable Doubt: A Closer
Look at the Difficult Cases That Are Prone to Miscarriages of Justice
CHAPTER 17
Plea and Sentence Bargaining and the Avoidance of the Full
Criminal Trial 
CHAPTER 18
Possible Pathways to Reform 

Glossary 
Bibliography 
Appendix: Excerpted Cases, Codes, and Other Norms
Index
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Professor Materials
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About the authors
Stephen C. Thaman
Professor of Law emeritus
Saint Louis University

Professor Thaman got an M.A. in German in 1968, and a J.D. in 1975, both from the University of California, in Berkeley. He then was an Assistant Public Defender in California for 11 ½ years from 1976-1987 and defended in around 60 jury trials, from misdemeanors to death penalty cases.

He was a Fulbright scholar at the Free University of Berlin from 1987-1988 and was an attorney-trainee at the European Commission of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France in 1988. From 1991-1992 he worked at the International Institute for Higher Studies in Criminal Sciences in Siracusa, Italy. In 1992 he was awarded a Dr. iur from the Univesity of Freiburg, in Germany, with a dissertation on Environmental Criminal Law in the U.S. (written in German). From 1992-1995 he was IREX fellow at the Institute of State and Law of the Russian Academy of Sciences and later as liaison for the ABA Central and Eastern European Law Initiative in Moscow. He was Professor of Law at Saint Louis University from 1995-2017, where he taught criminal law and procedure, comparative law, comparative criminal procedure, and international criminal law, and directed a summer law program in Madrid from 2000-2013.

From 2018-2014 he was on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Max-Planck-Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law in Freiburg, Germany. He was on the Board of Directors of the International Association of Penal Law from 2014-2024 and, since 2025, has been a Vice-President of that organization. He is currently Of Counsel at Oehmichen International in Berlin.

Professor Thaman has written authoritative studies of new jury systems in Russia, Spain, and Argentina, and about lay participation in Venezuela and Japan. The second edition of his book Comparative Criminal Procedure: A Casebook Approach was published in January 2008 and was later translated into Chinese. He has contributed chapters to some 60 books and written some 50 articles dealing with U.S. and comparative criminal law and procedure. He has edited or co-edited four books on comparative plea bargaining, exclusionary rules, and right to counsel, as well as on comparative criminal procedure in general. Besides English, he is fluent in German, Spanish, Russian, French, and Italian, and has written and published, lectured, and taught in all of these languages around the world.

Professor Thaman has consulted with Working Groups responsible for drafting new codes of criminal procedure in Russia (2001) and Latvia (2004) and worked on the reform of codes of criminal procedure in Georgia, Kakazhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

He has taught classes in comparative and U.S. criminal law and procedure as a visiting professor in Japan (2001), Nicaragua (2003)(in Spanish), Orleans, France (2004)(in French), Bologna (2005)(in Italian), Buenos Aires (2009)(in Spanish), Bern (2010), Rome (2010)(in Italian), Paris (2010), Modena, Italy (2013)(in Italian), Istanbul (2012), Chongqing, China (2013), Trento, Italy (2015, 2019), Szeged, Hungary (2017), Higher School of Economics in Moscow (2018, 2019, in Russian), Lisbon (2016, 2019), and Lucerne, Switzerland (2019, in German). He taught Comparative Legal Systems at the National University of Singapore from Aug. to Dec. 2008.

In 2019 he was awarded the Hans-Heinrich Jescheck Prize by the Max-Planck-Institute for Foreign and International Comparative Law and the International Association of Penal Law “in recognition of sustained innovative and outstanding research that has contributed significantly to the advancement of comparative, international or supranational criminal law.”

Product Information
Edition
First Edition
Publication date
2025-09-18
Copyright Year
2026
Pages
790
Connected eBook with Study Center + Paperback
9798892070843
Connected eBook with Study Center (Digital Only)
9798892070867
Subject
Criminal Procedure
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