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Open research questions in Criminal Law and Evidence

58 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 3,011 Criminal Law and Evidence papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.

What the literature leaves open

  • To prevent the expansive discretion and overbreadth characteristic of general warrants, this Article proposes a tripartite standard requiring that geofence warrants be limited to the scope of probable cause, confined to a narrow temporal window, and restricted to a geographic area closely tied to the alleged crime.

    The Fourth Amendment and Geofence Warrants: Safeguarding Geofencing's Constitutionality Through Particularity and Reasonableness · 2026

  • The authorization process for covert surveillance and tracking measures by state authorities conducting intelligence operations requires specification of how authorization decisions differentiate between threats to national security versus counter-intelligence tasks in Slovenian practice. The paper does not clarify whether SOVA and other state intelligence agencies apply distinct authorization criteria or employ a unified standard.

    Similar, but Not the Same – Personal Perception and Covert Surveillance and Tracking Through The Prism of Legal Regulations, Practical Implementation And Case-Law in Slovenia · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper identifies that detectives' entitlements for personal perception are limited but does not enumerate the specific territorial, temporal, or technological restrictions that apply when multiple detectives conduct coordinated observation activities. The practical implementation framework for prolonged or repeated systematic personal perception across extended time periods in Slovenia remains undefined.

    Similar, but Not the Same – Personal Perception and Covert Surveillance and Tracking Through The Prism of Legal Regulations, Practical Implementation And Case-Law in Slovenia · 2026 · DOI

  • The distinction between personal perception and covert surveillance in terms of intrusion into private space requires empirical testing through analysis of Slovenian court decisions to determine the threshold at which observation from publicly accessible locations becomes impermissible surveillance. No specific guidance is provided on how courts assess the 'visibility from public space' criterion in contested cases.

    Similar, but Not the Same – Personal Perception and Covert Surveillance and Tracking Through The Prism of Legal Regulations, Practical Implementation And Case-Law in Slovenia · 2026 · DOI

  • The authorization framework for detective personal perception lacks specification regarding technical device limitations when recording in public versus publicly accessible spaces. The paper identifies that detectives may use image recording devices for personal perception but does not establish whether existing Slovenian case-law provides clear boundaries on device sophistication, duration of recording, or scope of image capture in different location categories.

    Similar, but Not the Same – Personal Perception and Covert Surveillance and Tracking Through The Prism of Legal Regulations, Practical Implementation And Case-Law in Slovenia · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper does not specify comparative analysis of how personal perception by detectives differs in practical application from covert surveillance by police in terms of evidence admissibility in Slovenian criminal proceedings. The legal distinction between these two methods needs empirical validation through case-law analysis to determine whether courts apply different evidentiary standards.

    Similar, but Not the Same – Personal Perception and Covert Surveillance and Tracking Through The Prism of Legal Regulations, Practical Implementation And Case-Law in Slovenia · 2026 · DOI

  • Although the practical benefits of forensic DNA phenotyping (FDP) in criminal investigations remain unclear, this emerging forensic technology is the subject of increasing interest from various European stakeholders.

    Forensic DNA phenotyping: Privacy breach, bias reification and the pitfalls of abstract assessments of rights · 2023 · DOI

  • Taking this gap in the literature as our starting point, and flagging an emerging debate in the ICC as to whether the ICC Statute envisages a ‘pre-preliminary examination’ stage at all, this article examines the law and policy which governs the opening of an ICC preliminary examination and makes the case for further critical discussion about how actions by the Prosecutor and the Court at this early stage of proceedings might affect perceptions of the legitimacy of the ICC.

    Lifting the Curtain · 2018 · DOI

  • To address this gap in the literature and to inform policy regarding rape kit testing, we randomly sampled 700 previously untested SAKs from Detroit, MI: 350 were presumed to be beyond the SOL for prosecution (based on the date the SAK was collected), and 350 were still within the SOL.

    Developing Empirically Informed Policies for Sexual Assault Kit DNA Testing: Is It Too Late to Test Kits Beyond the Statute of Limitations? · 2016 · DOI

  • Part II describes the problems stemming from the evolution of Daubert and how its application is insufficient to ensure reliability of expert testimony.

    Expert Testimony and the Quest for Reliability: The Case for a Methodology Questionnaire * · 2016

  • The institutional design of the prosecutorial organ varies across time and across countries, which raises an important, yet quite understudied question: Does institutional design matter for how states respond to human rights violations and, if so, how? In this article, I develop a theoretical framework that highlights the importance of prosecutorial independence and prosecutorial accountability.

    The role of prosecutorial independence and prosecutorial accountability in domestic human rights trials · 2015 · DOI

  • The Law Commission's Report left several issues concerning the admissibility of confessions in the context of its proposed hearsay regime unclear, some of which have not yet been clarified by the post-2003 Act jurisprudence.

    Confessions and the Criminal Justice Act 2003 · 2013 · DOI

  • (12) Finally, Part IV concludes that each of these alternatives is insufficient to cover the wrongfully acquitted in any meaningful way, and more importantly, are an end run around a historically valuable constitutional right enjoyed by defendants.

    The Double Jeopardy Clause, Newly Discovered Evidence, and an "Unofficial" Exception to Double Jeopardy: A Comparative International Perspective · 2013

  • Finding no standard, the author reviews survey results on what constitutes common practice among forensic evaluators as to when litigants should be retested with the MMPI-2.

    When are MMPI-2 Test Results Considered “Outdated” For Use in a Child Custody Case? · 2012 · DOI

  • 13 Furthermore, the Supreme Court's test for determining whether a law is criminal/prohibitory or civil/regulatory for purposes of Public Law 280 jurisdiction has proved to be unworkable, and has led to inconsistent results from state to state.

    The New Battleground for Public Law 280 Jurisdiction: Sex Offender Registration in Indian Country · 2007

  • 9 A prosecutor cannot reindict a defendant for the after an appellate finding of insufficient evidence,'10 but a prosecutor can reindict a defendant for the after a mistrial based upon manifest necessity when the evidence presented was equally insufficient.

    Successive Prosecutions and Compound Criminal Statutes: A Functional Test · 1998

  • After the fifth inquiry into the case, a Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) appeals panel concluded in June 1996 that the evidence against Imanishi-Kari was insufficient prove that she had intentionally and deliberately fabricated and falsified experimental data and results support a published paper whose scientific accuracy had been questioned.

    At Law: Giving Scientists Their Due The Imanishi-Kari Decision · 1997 · DOI

  • (3) While its precise wording and interpretation vary widely across jurisdictions,(4) the gist of the no-contact rule remains the same in virtually every state: unless permitted by opposing counsel or authorized by law, ex parte contact with a represented person about the subject of that representation is strictly forbidden.

    Prosecutorial ethics under the Reno rule: Authorized by law? · 1995 · DOI

  • ”48 appellant’s contention concerning self-incrimina- tion was limited to the failure of the juvenile court judge to warn of the privilege and, of course, his consideration of the self-implicating testimony in making his findings.

    THE PRIVILEGE AGAINST SELF‐INCRIMINATION IN JUVENILE PROCEEDINGS · 1964 · DOI

  • Policy Implications PRAIs were adopted on a massive scale with the understanding that they are evidence‐based and geared toward efficiently and equitably reducing pretrial populations; however, we are lacking the evaluative work to determine their impacts.

    Pretrial risk assessment instruments in practice: The role of judicial discretion in pretrial reform · 2022 · DOI

  • The Court argued that empirical evidence could not determine whether the exclusionary rule prevents future illegal searches and seizures because “it is never easy to prove a negative,” inappropriately conflating the philosophical and arithmetic definitions of the word negative .

    The Negative Effect Fallacy: A Case Study of Incorrect Statistical Reasoning by Federal Courts · 2017 · DOI

  • As more innocents are exonerated and researchers learn more about the causes of wrongful convictions, criminal justice practices have been altered to reduce the number of erroneous convictions, although reforms have varied widely in scope and substance throughout the nation.

    Preventing Wrongful Convictions: An Analysis of State Investigation Reforms · 2017 · DOI

  • The investigators may benefit from recent research showing that strategic evidence disclosure can be used as a means to elicit admissions about a phase of a crime for which information is lacking.

    Police officers' use of evidence to elicit admissions in a fictitious criminal case · 2016 · DOI

  • Legal scholars and politicians have already voiced concerns indicating the perception that current safeguards for protecting individual are insufficient, particularly from the use of drones by law enforcement.

    Drone Regulations and Fourth Amendment Rights: The Interaction of State Drone Statutes and the Reasonable Expectation of Privacy · 2015

  • While the range and non-uniformity of relevant factors preclude a simple answer to the question of when historic crimes should be investigated and call instead for case-by-case assessment, we find that the analysis does support some general conclusions that can guide such an assessment.

    Time and Crime: Which Cold-case Investigations Should Be Reheated? · 2015 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Criminal Law and Evidence

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58 open questions have been extracted from the limitations and future-work passages of 3,011 Criminal Law and Evidence papers in our library. Each one below links back to the study that raised it, so you can read the original claim in context.

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