Iryna Kuzina, an attorney at Barristers Law Firm, spoke to students at Legal High School about the analytical work involved in handling evidence in criminal proceedings

Iryna Kuzina, an attorney at Barristers Law Firm, spoke to Legal High School students about analytical work with evidence in criminal proceedings. She emphasized that a lawyer’s work involves handling large volumes of information, so it is important to use specialized technologies that facilitate and simplify this intellectual work. At the same time, she stressed that simply reading through many volumes of a case file does not lead to success, and all results of the case analysis must be utilized.

The lecturer noted that, according to formal logic, proof is a set of logical techniques for substantiating the truth of a particular judgment using other true and related judgments. That is, when applied to criminal proceedings, the propositions must be interconnected, and the suspect’s guilt must follow from them. “The concept of the relevance of evidence is widely used in jurisprudence,” noted Iryna Kuzina, “but it is also important that the propositions be equally relevant.” Thus, the judgment regarding a person’s guilt is an inference drawn from other judgments, each of which must be verified for truth—separately—through evidence.

The court’s task in such a case is to determine whether the following judgment is true or false: “N. committed a crime under Article XXX of the Criminal Code of Ukraine”—this is an inference that must be based on the judgments set forth by the prosecutor in the indictment. Therefore, according to the lecturer, the indictment must be “broken down” into separate simple propositions—taking into account the elements of the alleged criminal offense and the circumstances that must be proven in criminal proceedings (Article 91 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine). She also demonstrated an algorithm for the logical analysis of a crime under Article 115 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

The lecturer divided the algorithm for working with information into several stages, the first of which is compiling a list of propositions to be tested by evidence. These can be grouped by incidents, individuals involved, and articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (classification). According to her, it is convenient to verify the prosecution’s assertions with evidence using a table. Due to its appearance and functional purpose, such a table is called a “checkerboard.”

After demonstrating what such a table looks like using the example of an analysis of a crime under Article 115 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, the lecturer emphasized that the evidence grid serves as a starting point for creating subsequent analytical tables and mind maps. “With its help, we can view the case ‘from above,’ so the evidence grid serves as a kind of ‘map’; moreover, it allows us to determine whether all the circumstances subject to proof are supported by evidence at all. We can also identify gaps in the positions of the prosecution and the defense and consider how to address them,” emphasized Iryna Kuzina.

Another advantage of the grid is that you can return to any aspect of the case at any time—even five years later—and still remember what evidence supports (or does not support) a particular fact. Most importantly, it’s immediately clear where we should actually focus our efforts, rather than trying to prove the inadmissibility of evidence that has no bearing on the case. In addition, when examining evidence in court, it is easy to search for a specific document using Microsoft Word’s search function and provide explanations regarding the document using prepared talking points.

The second stage of working with information using the “evidence grid,” according to the lecturer, is determining what aspects of the case require special attention. Next, the opponent’s procedural weaknesses are identified and addressed. For example, the legality of investigative actions is verified.

Iryna Kuzina advises tracking the path of physical evidence and data storage media using a tracking system. Thanks to this method, it is possible to determine what procedural actions were performed with the evidence, where it was located during a specific time period, in which packaging, and so on. To visualize the sequence of procedural actions, a timeline can be created. The lecturer advised Legal High School attendees to always create an evidence matrix, and to use other methods as needed. Thus, this analysis can be used during the examination of evidence—including witness examinations—in team-based work, for preparing an analytical report for a client, during preparation for court arguments, or when drafting an appeal.