This book treats problems in the epistemology of the law. Beginning with the premise that the principal function
of a criminal trial is to find out the truth about a crime, Larry Laudan examines the rules of evidence and procedure
that would be appropriate if the discovery of the truth were, as higher courts routinely claim, the overriding
aim of the criminal justice system. Laudan mounts a systematic critique of existing rules and procedures that are
obstacles to that quest. He also examines issues of error distribution by offering the first integrated analysis
of the various mechanisms-the standard of proof, the benefit of the doubt, the presumption of innocence and the
burden of proof-for implementing society's view about the relative importance of the errors that can occur in a
trial.