Torture And The Law Of Proof by John H. Langbein
Europe and England in the Ancien Régime
A historical and legal analysis of why judicial torture became embedded in early modern Continental criminal procedure, showing how the Roman-canon inquisitorial “law of proof,” with its demand for either two eyewitnesses or a confession, created pressure to extract admissions under pain. It examines doctrines like full and half-proof, the regulated stages of torment, and jurists’ awareness of torture’s unreliability, and contrasts these practices with the English jury system, whose evidentiary framework reduced reliance on torture even as coercion persisted at the margins. The study traces the eventual abandonment of torture to Enlightenment-era evidentiary reform, shifting moral attitudes, and institutional changes in policing and prosecution.
- Published
- 1977
- Nationality
- American
- Length
- Medium
- Pages
- 250-350
- Original Language
- English
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- Alternate Titles
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