부산대학교 도서관

This chapter discusses a paternity case in 1950s Scotland where a mother attempted to have her daughter declared legally illegitimate in order to gain custody from her former husband whom she claimed was not the child’s biological father; this claim was confirmed by blood group evidence. Legal commentators regard this case as unusual in that seemingly incontrovertible scientific evidence was rejected by the court. Blood group evidence which demonstrated conclusively that the putative father was not the child’s biological father, although accepted in the initial case, was subsequently rejected by the judges in the appeal hearing. In order to understand why apparently conclusive scientific evidence was rejected, the chapter considers broader cultural concerns alongside particular legal matters. These include the requirement for the mother to produce a high standard of proof (illegitimacy cases in mid-twentieth-century Scotland required proof beyond reasonable doubt) that the putative father was not the biological father and the strong presumption in Scots law that a man who married a woman after a child’s birth must be the child’s father. There was considerable variation in the acceptance of scientific findings in mid-twentieth-century Scottish civil and criminal courts. The closure which was apparently offered by forensic evidence was contingent on legal and cultural circumstances. The scientific objectivity of forensic evidence in paternity cases related to the use of blood grouping and views on marriage, the proper way to raise children, the moral character of the mother and legal standards for evidence. The role of gender is significant.
This edited volume examines the performance of physicians, psychiatrists and other scientists as expert witnesses in modern European courts of law and police investigations. Its chapters discuss cases from criminal, civil and international law to parse the impact of forensic evidence and expertise in different European countries (Scotland, England, Germany, Spain, Italy, Russia, Portugal, Norway and the Netherlands) in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They show how modern forensic science and technology was inextricably entangled with political ideology, gender norms, changes in the law and legal systems. New scientific ideas and technology, such as blood tests and DNA, helped develop forensic science, but did not necessarily lead to a straightforward acceptance of expertise in the courtroom. Discussing fascinating case studies, the chapters in this book highlight how the ideology of authoritarian and liberal regimes affected the practical enactment of forensic expertise. They also emphasise the influence of images of masculinity and femininity on the performance of experts and their assessment of evidence, victims and perpetrators, for example in cases of rape, infanticide and crimes of passion. This book is an important contribution to our knowledge of modern European forensic practices, which, as several chapters underline, sometimes surprisingly diverge from institutional regulations.