The Structure of Criminal Procedure: Laws and Practice of France, the Soviet Union, China, and the United States

The fourth task, adjudication, covers procedures regulating what is known as the "trial" phase in Anglo-American adversarial procedure. The word "trial" in English suggests an ordeal or a contest between competing champions. Both connotations of the word suggest what is unique about adversarial procedure: the degree to which the question of guilt or innocence is left to the game-playing skills of two adversary lawyers. I will not enter the debate here as to whether the real purpose of the adjudication phase of our criminal procedure is the pursuit of truth in an adversary setting, as opposed to some other objective--let us say, maximizing participation by the defendant in the final determination of his case. There are grounds for arguing that the revelation of truth about a criminal incident is not what Anglo-American criminal procedure is all about. ¹ Nevertheless, it is clear that the search for the truth and the achievement of substantive (and not merely procedural) justice are the main objectives of inquisitorial procedural systems. In these systems the search for the truth begins with the investigation and receives its final testing at the trial where the evidence is reviewed by judges and/or jurors so that mistakes or oversights can be corrected and only the guilty convicted. In adversarial procedure, on the other hand, the search for the truth, if there is one, begins officially at the trial phase because all previous investigation by the police has no standing and is given no consideration until it is presented in court

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