en/judicial/finland/main-hearing.txt
2005-11-16
The main hearing in a Finnish criminal trial
This essay is part of my Finnish criminal court series. See the introductory essay for more information and an overview of the Finnish criminal court system.
The main hearing is the only part of the trial which directly affects the court's decision. It is immediate and oral and usually lasts no longer than a couple of hours.
The current system is fairly young. There were several fairly substantial reforms of Finnish court procedure in the 1990's. I will discuss this history in a later essay.
The parties involved in a main hearing are the prosecutor, the defendant, and the people and companies who suffered loss, injury or other harm from the alleged crime (I'll call these latter people and companies collectively the injured parties). Additionally, the court in session consists of one or two legally trained judges, one of which presides, and three or four lay judges. They all sit behind the bench along with the court reporter and sometimes additional court clerks. I'll use the male pronoun of them all, but it should be understood that any and all of them could be female.
The courtroom layout differs from that which we are all familiar from US-based trial stories. The following picture models the Jyväskylä courthouse courtroom 3, where I have often sat as a lay judge. The basic layout has some small variations among the courtrooms.
When a main hearing starts, all the judges, the court reporter and a clerk, if any, are sitting in their seats, as is the prosecutor. The presiding judge uses the intercom to announce the hearing to the public lobby and calls for all the parties and witnesses for the case to enter the room. He verifies that all those who are needed are present, and then instructs the parties to sit down and the witnesses to return to the lobby to wait. In certain very simple and not very serious cases, nobody bessides the prosecutor is required, but usually the defendant must be present, as well as those of the injured parties who have been named as witnesses, and any additional witnesses. Audience also enters at this time, unless the proceedings are secret.
At the start, the prosecutor reads the charge, mostly reading it from the paper all the parties have in front of them. A typical formula would be roughly as follows:
I demand punishment to John Everett Doe for aggravated assault. On the fifteenth of October this year, John Everett Doe hit and kicked Anna Erika Doe several times to the head, to the body and to the feet causing the latter to suffer concussion leading to loss of consciousness for approximately five minutes, open wounds to the head, one broken rib and several bruises in several parts of her body and feet. The offense is to be considered aggravated even as considered as a whole. John Everett Doe must be imprisoned immediately.
(Don't bother to examine that in detail, I made it up just now and the injuries may certainly be inconsistent.)
The formula is mainly following the requirements of the penal code specified for the crime in question. It also establishes the date of the offense and the identity of the defendant and the injured parties, and specifies the additional demands of the prosecutor (in this case, the demand of immediate imprisonment).
The injured parties then may or may not second the charge (this is not required in the more serious cases) and present any civil claims against the defendant related to the charge.
The defendant, or his attorney, if he has one, will then respond briefly to the charge. Either it is conceded fully, or parts or all of it is challenged. This response also specifies briefly the reasons for the challenge. In serious cases (like the one specified above), he will always have an attorney, paid by the state if necessary, but in less serious cases, the defendant often lacks an attorney, either because they think they don't need one or they cannot afford one and the charge is not serious enough to warrant a state-paid attorney. The defendant will also respond to the civil claims of the injured parties, responding separately to the cause (whether the defendant is responsible for the damage) and to the claimed amount (whether the amount claimed is a reasonable restitution to the claimed damage, independent of whether the defendant is responsible or not).
The prosecutor will then take time to lay out the events and circumstances related to the charge. Usually at this time he also presents any written documents supporting his case, which usually include a doctor's report on the injuries sustained by the victim. The injured parties are given an opportunity to add or correct the prosecutor's version of the events and circumstances.
The defense then responds to the prosecutor's presentation and the injured parties' amendments, either conceding them correct or challenging it by declaring that some or all of them is not factual. In the latter case, the defense presents its own view of the events and circumstances.
If, after this, there are points of disagreement between prosecution, injured parties and defense, evidence is introduced by calling forth the witnesses.
The hearing of a witness has the following structure. The presiding judge first asks the witness some questions to establish neutrality and whether the witness is required to testify under oath (or the equivalent solemn affirmation). The oath or affirmation is then taken by the presiding judge, if required; it is required of everyone who is not a party in the case and is not related closely to one of the parties in the case. The defendant and his relatives are not required to testify, and the defendant himself is not required to be truthful. All other witnesses are bound by law to tell the truth, regardless of whether they have given the oath or affirmation.
The witness is first asked if he knows what he has been called to testify about. He is then asked to tell the court, in his own words and without waiting for specific questions, everything he knows about the issue. The party who called the witness will then ask further questions, and the other parties are allowed to cross-examine the witness. These questioning rounds, the calling party first and the others then, continue until nobody has further questions. The witness is then excused.
It should be noted that testimony is the only part of a trial that is recorded to tape. All other parts of the hearing are merely summarised formulaicly in the minutes.
After all witnesses have been examined, the parties present their closing arguments, prosecutor first, followed by the injured parties and concluded by the defense. Finally, a similar round of stating each party's opinion on the consequences, should the charges be sustained, is held.
Finally, all parties, the audience, and the prosecutor, leave the room. The judges deliberate (see the earlier post) in the presence of the court reporter and any clerks. In a typical not too complicated case, this takes from twenty minutes to a hour, after which the parties including the prosecutor are called back in, and the audience is admitted again. The presiding judge either reads the verdict, or informs the present parties that the verdict will be issued later in office. Along with the verdict, the parties are given instructions as to how the verdict can be challenged. The verdict will also decide on the claimed damages. The trial is concluded.
In a complex case, the verdict will not be immediately ready. In such a case the parties are dismissed, after the presiding judge announces when the verdict will be available at the office of the court (typically a week or two later). The panel of judges will meet later to continue deliberation.
Typically, the same panel of judges and the same prosecutor handle more than one case during a single court day.
I will probably post one or more fictitious cases in dramatized form later.
09:56 - /en/judicial/finland - 4 comments
