The Scenario Theory about Evidence in Criminal Law

In this chapter the Dutch scenario theory is presented, which was developed in the 1990s by Peter van Koppen in collaboration with Willem Wagenaar and Hans Crombag. The scenario theory builds on the descriptive psychological account featuring factfinders who think in terms of a story when they are reasoning about evidence to develop a normative theory of adjudicative factfinding. The theory claims that factfinders ought to assess the strength of the scenario underlying the indictment by reference to alternative scenarios, the evidence, and their general knowledge of the world. The theory ascribes a piece of evidence the status of a discriminating fact when one scenario explains it better than another competing scenario