The adversary system of trial, the defining feature of the Anglo-American criminal procedure developed late in English legal history. For centuries, defendants were forbidden to have counsel, and lawyers seldom appeared for the prosecution either. Trial was meant to be an occasion for the defendant to answer the charges in person. The transformation from lawyer-free to lawyer-dominated criminal trial happened within the space of about a century, from the 1690s to the 1780s. This book explains how the lawyers captured the trial. In addition to conventional legal sources, Langbein draws upon a rich vein of contemporary pamphlet accounts about trials in London's Old Bailey. The book also mines these novel sources to provide the first detailed account of the formation of the law of criminal evidence.

• Introduction


• 1: The Lawyer-Free Criminal Trial


• The Altercation


• The Rapidity of Trial


• The Rule Against Defence Counsel


• The Marian Pretrial


• The 'Accused Speaks' Trial


• The Plight of the Accused


• 2: The Treason Trials Act of 1696: The Advent of Defense Counsel


• The Treason Trials of the Later Stuarts


• The Critque of the Trials


• The Provisions of the Act


• The Restriction to Treason


• Of Aristocrats and Paupers: Treason's Legacy for Adversary Criminal Justice


• 3: The Prosecutorial Origins of Defence Counsel


• Prosecution Lawyers


• Prosecution Perjury


• Making Forgery Felony


• Evening Up: Defense Counsel Enters the Felony Trial


• 4: The Law of Criminal Evidence


• The View From the Sessions Papers


• The Character Rule


• The Corroboraion Rule


• The Confession Rule


• Unfinished Business: The Hearsay Rule


• Groping for the Lever: Excluding Evidence


• 5: From Altercation to Adversary Trial


• Latency


• Silencing the Accused


• Prosecution Counsel


• Defense Counsel


• Judicial Acquiescence


• Jury Trial


• The Truth Deficit

John Langbein is Sterling Professor of Law and Legal History at Yale Law School. He teaches and writes in four fields: trust and estate law, pension and employee benefit law, Anglo-American and European legal history, and modern comparative law.