Defence lawyers’ views on and identification of suspect vulnerability in criminal proceedings

ABSTRACT Both case law of the European Court of Human Rights and EU legal instruments on the one hand, and academic legal psychological literature on the other, recognise the specific needs of so-called vulnerable suspects in criminal proceedings. In this regard, the important role of the criminal defence lawyer in compensating for a suspect’s vulnerability is emphasised, especially because vulnerable persons require special care to understand their legal rights and to improve the quality of their statements. Consequently, defence lawyers must be aware early on in proceedings whether their clients can be qualified as vulnerable in order to adequately deal with this presumed vulnerability. In practice, determining early on whether or not a client is vulnerable is a challenging task. Drawing from a legal theoretical and qualitative empirical analysis, this article outlines how Belgian defence lawyers perceive and identify suspect vulnerability in the early stages of a criminal investigation.