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15 Crim. L.Q. 88 (1972-1973)
Some Empirical Evidence on the Effect of s. 12 of the Canada Evidence Act upon an Accused

handle is hein.journals/clwqrty15 and id is 106 raw text is: Some Empirical Evidence on the Effect of s. 12 of the Canada Evidence Act Upon an Accused A. N. Doob and H. M. Kirshenbaum* According to s. 12 (1) of the Canada Evidence Act the criminal record of an accused person who testifies in his own behalf can be entered as evidence. It has been argued primarily from a legal point of view (Friedland, 1969; Teed, 1971) that even if the jury is instructed that the evidence of previous convictions should be used to deter- mine the credibility of the accused and not his guilt, the section is nonetheless unfair to the accused. The present paper will examine s. 12 from the point of view of existing research in psychology and will, in addition, provide experi- mental evidence concerning its effects on the disposition of criminal cases. Section 12 makes two distinct assumptions for which relevant psychological data exist. The first is the assumption that a person who has been found guilty of a criminal offence is more likely to give untrue testimony than is a person without a criminal record; the second is that the judge or jury will be able to use the information concern- ing previous convictions to determine credibility and not guilt. Implied in the first assumption is the notion that there is such a thing as a trait of honesty. Mischel (1968) has summarized a large amount of the data collected over the last thirty-five years on this question. In general, the fairest *Anthony N. Doob is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Centre of Criminology at the University of Toronto. Hershi M. Kirshenbaum is a graduate of the University of Toronto now doing research in the Department of Psychiatry at St. Joseph's Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario. This research was supported by a grant from the Canada Council to Professor Doob. The authors wish to thank the Ontario Science Centre for allowing them to do this research on their premises.

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