Application And Improvement Of Criminal Character Evidence

Character evidence is a very important issue in evidence law and an external expression of personal danger,because it has relative stability and is often used as an important reference factor in court trials in practice,but it will not be directly reflected in the judgment.Character evidence has been active in the legal system since ancient times.People's consideration of virtue has always existed.After hundreds of years,common law countries have gradually condensed the experience of using character evidence into rules,which provides standards for later judicial practice.As a society that attaches importance to individual conduct in traditional culture,there is no evidence of character in modern criminal law.Character evidence is widely used in criminal justice practice,which can be divided into three stages: crime prevention stage,trial stage and execution stage.In the aspect of crime prevention,whether it is the prevention of abnormal personality or the timely correction,it is inseparable from the evaluation of people's character;in the trial stage,the evidence of bad character of the defendant should be excluded and applied first.In some cases,we can see that in exceptional circumstances,the specific process of applying character evidence should be experienced,including the value of character evidence.The game between value and Prejudice brought about by it;in the execution stage,the character evidence of the criminal is an important criterion to determine whether he has the qualification of commutation and parole.In addition,juvenile criminal cases and sexual crimes have their own particularities and different roles of character evidence.By analyzing the current legislative situation and specific application of our country one by one and comparing the mature system operation of Anglo-American legal system,we find that we still have many limitations that need to be improved urgently.Thus we can see that in practice we have no lack of the use of character evidence,but in our legislation,there has never been a clear definition of the connotation,attributes,characteristics and applicable rules of character evidence.The problem of value bias brought about by the arbitrary application of character evidence not only exists in literary stories,but also in judicial practice,because of the character of the parties,it often affects the judgment of the court.It is necessary to construct the rules of character evidence in order to realize the individualization of penalty and improve the rules of evidence.