Investigative Insight To Admissible Proof: Building A Reliability Framework For Behavioural Evidence In Criminal Courts
- IJLLR Journal
- 47 minutes ago
- 1 min read
Kashish Anand, MIT- World Peace University, Pune
ABSTRACT
Behavioural evidence, drawn from victim selection, offender approach, control, concealment, staging, escalation, communication, post offence conduct, deception, linkage, and risk, plays an increasingly visible role in criminal investigation. Its investigative value is well documented, yet its evidentiary value is far less settled, and the two are routinely conflated in practice. This article argues that behavioural evidence requires a distinct reliability framework before it can move from investigative hypothesis to courtroom proof. Drawing on evidence law, forensic psychology, and the empirical literature on profiling accuracy and cognitive bias, the article traces the movement from behavioural clue to source, method, inference, corroboration, reliability, admissibility, and proof. It identifies thirteen diagnostic questions that judges, prosecutors, and defence counsel can apply to test behavioural evidence before it reaches the trier of fact. The article cautions against profiling overreach, diagnosis without assessment, character reasoning, predictive claims, and guilt by behavioural similarity, and proposes that behavioural evidence should assist, rather than substitute for, the court's own fact-finding function.
Keywords: behavioural evidence, offender profiling, expert testimony, admissibility, corroboration, reliability framework, criminal proof
