338 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1954 



as they occurred and discover the perpetrator. What methods does 

 he employ, how have such methods been developed, and why do 

 the police resort more and more frequently to modern scientific 

 techniques ? 



METHODS OF JUDICIAL INQUIRY 



Methods of judicial inquiry differ considerably, both in tlieorj' and 

 practice, according to the legislation in force in each country ; they fall, 

 however, into two main categories, i. e., methods employed in Anglo- 

 Saxon countries, and those employed in Latin and Germanic countries. 



Accusatory procedure, which is the older, consists in bringing two 

 adversaries face to face. Defendant and plaintiff debate the case, 

 orally and publicly, in front of a judge or jury acting as an impartial 

 arbitrator. No proceedings can take place without an accuser, and, 

 when dealing with offenses under common law, the policeman is the 

 public prosecutor ; it is his duty to prove, resorting to all the means 

 in his power, that a breach of the law has been committed. 



Inquisitorial procedure, consisting of written and secret evidence, is 

 entirely different. In this case, it is the magistrate himself who seeks 

 for evidence and collects it in a file, which he then hands to the judge 

 or jury responsible, in the last resort, for deciding whether the ac- 

 cused is guilty and what penalty should be imposed. 



Accusatory procedure, most clearly described as a "judicial en- 

 counter," has, in almost every case, been the earliest to be adopted, 

 and is still the main feature of the judicial proceedings of African 

 tribes, where trial by ordeal, or "the judgment of God," still some- 

 times plays a vitally important part. In England, it remains 

 the foundation of criminal procedure and explains the very nature 

 of proceedings in English courts. Although it has reached a stage 

 of perfection in that country, the Latin peoples do not find it sufficiently 

 logical and, ever since the Roman Empire, they have preferred an 

 inquisitorial system. After a short period of revival in France dur- 

 ing the Middle Ages, accusatory procedure once again vanished and, 

 since that time, the inquisitorial method has been employed, except 

 in England, by all European countries. 



Whatever the procedure adopted, however, the detection of crime 

 is always based on the same principles. In order to punish an of- 

 fender, after proving that there has been a breach of the law, evidence 

 must be adduced, proving that a certain person is in fact the guilty 

 party. All criminal procedure, whatever its nature, is thus based on 

 a probative system; in administering justice, the truth is not dis- 

 covered — it is proved. 



For the collection of the necessary proof, the police officer relies on 

 two methods complementary to each other, differing widely in nature 

 and technique and whose relative importance has varied through the 



