Relevance, Social Context and Poverty

Resource type
Author/contributor
Title
Relevance, Social Context and Poverty
Abstract
It is not uncommon in drug importation trials or other cases involving financial gain for the Crown to introduce evidence of the accused's general financial circumstances and then ask the jury to engage in inductive reasoning - to use their common sense to draw the inference that the accused had a motive to commit the offence because he or she was poor. This is what occurred in R v Mensah (2003) 9 Criminal Reports (6th) 339.This case comment explores the dangers of using common sense and experience to guide relevance assessments and why social context evidence is necessary in order to increase the likelihood that informed and reasonable inferences will be drawn from the evidence.
Genre
SSRN Scholarly Paper
Archive ID
2741203
Place
Rochester, NY
Date
2016-03-04
Accessed
9/29/23, 5:12 PM
Language
en
Library Catalog
Social Science Research Network
Citation
Tanovich, D. M. (2016). Relevance, Social Context and Poverty (SSRN Scholarly Paper 2741203). https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2741203
Author / Editor