Comparative approaches to criminal procedure: Transplants, translations, and adversarial-model reforms in european criminal process

This chapter discusses comparative approaches to criminal procedure, focusing on transplants, translations, and adversarial-model reforms in European criminal process. In particular, it examines the idea of “Americanization/adversarialization” of European criminal procedures-that is, the possible convergence between American common law and European civil law criminal procedure systems toward a common adversary core structure. The chapter also considers the implications of transplanting some American adversarial features into the non-adversary European soil, such as pretrial investigations conducted by the police and the public prosecutor in lieu of the investigating judge typical of the civilian tradition; exclusionary rules; cross-examination; and jury trial. It compares the so-called tango justice with rumba justice and analyzes the “revolutionary change of procedure” with respect to cross-examination of witnesses, jury trial in Spain, and plea bargaining in Europe.