Abstract
Judicial litigation cases often rely on experts to testify to solve the professional problems of the case. Acknowledge, technology, or other know-how that experts possess can help factual judges understand the evidence and determine the facts of the dispute, and play the role of expert witnesses in the court. Investigation opinions on road traffic accidents, with admissibility, help the factual judges in the court to determine: driving behavior, collision process, speed and reaction time, etc. As for whether other items related to the accident are used by the court and play the role of evidence, it depends on the free evaluation of evidence. The case locomotive rider died on the 4th day after the accident. Microbus driver declared to the family of the victim, the rider fell to the ground due to loss of control, crashed into the left side of the car, and should be responsible for his own responsibilities. After 4 months, the prosecutor has not yet sued the driver. The driver’s family and the researchers analyzed the evidence and found that: In addition to the driver’s responsibility for the car, there is another car in front of the car, which should also be responsible. The family has filed petition pleadings to the Public Prosecutor’s Office with the evidence, facts, and reasons. After the procurator requesting, the investigation committee determined that the behavior of the front car also had an impact on the rider, but did not state on the appraisal opinion. The prosecutor sued the driver of the rear vehicle with an appraisal opinion, but did not use the appraisal opinion about the front car. Eventually, the victim’s family complained with the judgment result of this traffic accident. After analyzing the litigation process, this study found that using accident reconstruction can confirm this special causal factor, which can be used as a reference for reconstruction experts. We hope that factual judges can attach importance to all evidence and strengthen the free evaluation of evidence to avoid disputes.
Keywords
Road Traffic accident(RTA), Testimony by Expert Witnesses, Reconstruction, Evidence
Citation information
Wu Chun Liang, Wang Wei-Jie, Liu Bin, Exploring the role of expert testimony in court – taking a death accident investigation opinion as an example, The Traffic Safety and Law Enforcement Conference in 2018. (in Chinese)
Authors’ information
Corresponding author at: Summerhill RTA Research Foundation, No.96, Wufuxincun, Zhunan Township, Miaoli County 350, Taiwan (R.O.C.)
E-mail addresses: summerhill.org@gmail.com (Wu CL)
Tel: +886 37 582514