The Role of the Expertises in Making Adequate Judical Decisions in Case of Sex Crimes Like Part of Violence's Offences

Abstract

There is only few offenses in practice that are so dependent on physical evidence, such as violent offenses, primarily sexual assaults, identified in the criminal laws as crimes against sexual freedom and morality. Due to lack of physical evidence only option left to the authority which is responsible for the proceedings is to objectively determine the facts, based on the expertise of material traces and state of subjects. Expertise as an operation of proving provides objectivity of the proceedings with subjective elements of the procedure. However, it is not possible to conduct traseological expertise if there is not enough material collected during the process of crime scene investigation that is suitable for expert investigation. This paper will not be focused on crime scene investigation and on the collection of material traces, but on the expertises that are conducted in judicial and investigative practice in solving the cases of sexual assaults. The fact is that the expertises are in many cases crucial for the court in making adequate decision. In the first part of this paper author elaborates basic characteristics of expertise that is applied in investigation of sexual offenses and in the second part he presents the results of empirical research regarding the above mentioned issues.