Under what circumstances may a confession be deemed unconstitutional? Discuss each circumstance you identify
In the court of law, confessions are very important. Not only could it crack a case, but also result in a fair trial as well. The type of confession consist of, but not limited to the following: coerced and compliant false confession (Hritz, Blau and Tomezsko, 2010). Both confessions are different in their own ways and have the ability to affect the overall outcome of a case. Coerced confessions, for example, is when a confession is forced by the law enforcement and force a person to confess for a crime he or she didn’t do with intention to inflict harm (“False and Coerced Confessions,” 2016). A police officer who is involved with
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When it comes to children, however, hearsay is dealt with differently. Since the crime against children is taken more serious than an adult, the law will allow the notion of hearsay to be accepted if only the child is 11 years old or younger (Nicewander, 2015). If, for example, a nine year old boy overheard a group say that John, a ten year old friend, will get beat up if he doesn’t stop talking too loud in the movie theater and John was assaulted by the perpetrator, the individual will have to suffer the consequences. Robert, in this case, would have the authority to testify as a witness since the offense resulted in an intrusion that emotionally distressed a child (Nicewander, 2015). Just because of a child is less than 11 years old, it doesn’t mean the court will always believe them. The fact and the matter is that there are a few things taken into consideration. That being said, the idea of believing an adult hearsay statement versus a child’s hearsay statement all comes with the mentality, the nature of the offense and the reliability of the testimony as well (Nicewander, 2015) When it comes to the mentality of a child, I feel that it’s underestimated and taken advantage of in our society in a daily basis. Many of the times, when a child tells an adult something, there’s a tendency of being ignored. In this case, a child who becomes a victim of a crime has the ability to write a statement and submit it to the district attorney for possible charges (Nicewander, 2015) I believe that when a child accuses an adult there’s more credibility and reliability than if an adult accuses a child for a crime. That being said, the mentality determines the reliability in children’s statement. In addition to the mentality, the nature of the offense helps build reliability as well (Nicewander, 2015). Children could only defend themselves so much. Unfortunately ,
The Supreme Court ruled that due to the coercive nature of the custodial interrogation by police, no confession could be admissible under the Fifth Amendment self-incrimination Clause and Sixth Amendment right to an attorney unless a suspect has been made aware to his rights and the suspect had then waived them
Even if a suspect initially waives his rights, during an interrogation he can halt the process at any time by asking for a lawyer or taking back the waiver. The police, from that moment on, are not allowed to suggest that he or she reconsider (ncpa.org). Because of this, many people feel that this has had a harmful effect on law enforcement. Police have found it much more difficult to get a confession. According to the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), the fraction of suspects questioned who confessed dropped from 49% to 14% in New York and from 48% to 29% in Pittsburg.
The Central Park Jogger case is one of false confessions to a crime, with a little help from police, which the defendants did not commit. Evidence taken at the crime scene did exclude the defendants, however, because of videotaped confessions they were sentenced to prison for a crime they admitted to committing even though they did not. It was not until many years later did the original perpetrator step forward from prison to admit he was the one who committed the crime with evidence (DNA) and firsthand knowledge of the scene. The five original defendants were released from prison but until serving a lengthy term. There are cues that can be noticed when investigators are conducting preliminary interviews that have a very high rate of success in determining the guilt or innocence of an individual. Some of these cues may be verbal such as a rehearsed response (Kassin, 2005). Other types of cues may be nonverbal body language such as a slouching (Kassin, 2005).
“Police throughout the United States have been caught fabricating, planting, and manipulating evidence to obtain convictions where cases would otherwise be very weak. Some authorities regard police perjury as so rampant that it can be considered a "subcultural norm rather than an individual aberration" of police officers. Large-scale investigations of police units in almost every major American city have documented massive evidence of tampering, abuse of the arresting power, and discriminatory enforcement of laws. There also appears to be widespread police perjury in the preparation of reports because police know these reports will be used in plea bargaining. Officers often justify false and embellished reports on the grounds that it metes out a rough justice to defendants who are guilty of wrongdoing but may be exonerated on technicalities.”
In more extreme cases, officers may obstruct justice and lie under the oath to save themselves or a fellow officer from discipline and prosecution (Holbert & Rosa 69). Despite police not taking fault in their actions and going against the oath, it gives government official a bad reputation in the moto of protecting and serving their
Depending on what study is read, the incidence of false confession is less than 35 per year, up to 600 per year. That is a significant variance in range, but no matter how it is evaluated or what numbers are calculated, the fact remains that false confessions are a reality. Why would an innocent person confess to a crime that she did not commit? Are personal factors, such as age, education, and mental state, the primary reason for a suspect to confess? Are law enforcement officers and their interrogation techniques to blame for eliciting false confessions? Regardless of the stimuli that lead to false confessions, society and the justice system need to find a solution to prevent the subsequent aftermath.
After reviewing the article “Inside Interrogation: The Lie, The Bluff, and False Confessions”, it became very evident the huge problem with interrogations and false confessions in the criminal justice system is with false confession. Jennifer T. Perillo and Saul M. Kassin crafted three distinct experiments to try and better understand false confessions and how trues the actual numbers in real life are. What Perillo and Kassin were trying to prove is that “the bluff technique should elicit confessions from perpetrators but not from innocents” (Perillo, Kassin 2010). What is called the “Bluff Technique” is an interrogation technique that uses a sort of threat or hint that there is certain proof that a person will think is more of a promise for
The reliability of children’s eyewitness testimony is a controversial issue. Opinions range from proponents believing that children are virtuous in every detail to those who are more skeptical. In actuality, child testimony falls somewhere in between the two divergent views. Though children may not intend to intentionally distort the truth, they do seem to be very vulnerable to suggestibility. Therefore, certain comments and the form of questions can influence testimonials.
Garrett, B. L. (n.d.). The Substance of False Confessions. Criminal Justice Collection. Retrieved November 23, 2010, from find.galegroup.com.uproxy.library.dc-uoit.ca/gtx/retrieve.do?contentSet=IAC-Documents&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&qrySerId=Locale%28en%2C%2C%29%3AFQE%3D%28su%2CNone%2C28%29%22Wrongful+Convictions+%28Law%29%22%3AAnd%3ALQE%3D%28RE%2CNone%2C3%29ref%24&sgHitCo
Every day a child is called on to testify in a courtroom. Children who have to testify in open court are easily influenced by outside sources. This paper will show the reasons children should not be used as witnesses in a courtroom. I will show all the different influences that a child receives and prove them uncredible. The interview process can influence a child greatly. Ceci and Bruck (1995) found a study that shows that child witnesses may be questioned up to12 times during the course of an investigation. The questioning process can take up to a year and a half to be completed. Children are not capable of remembering exact details for that period. Their answers to questions will change each time he or she is asked. This is because they do not retain information in the same way as an adult. Most studies have shown that children start to lose their ability to recall an event accurately only 10 days after the original event has happened. Another factor in a child’s ability to recall an event is stress. A child can go into a shock stage and repress all memories of what has happened to them. These memories may not resurface for many years. This affects a child’s ability to identify the suspect in photo and live line-ups. The amount of stress a child goes through affects their ability to answer questions in an interview, if they cannot remember what has happened, how are they supposed to answer the myriad of questions the interviewer will ask them.
The child advocacy center model incorporates several different approaches to create one that has been more beneficial compared to other Forensic interviews (Hebert et al, 2016). It combines multidisciplinary teams, evidence-informed Forensic interviewing practices, and victim advocacy (Herbert et al, 2016). This is similar to what has been found to be beneficial when working with victims of human trafficking. Child advocacy centers also offer child-friendly settings in how people interact and how the building looks. Children could be intimidated by certain settings like a police station, a hospital, school, or CPS office and could feel like they are the ones in trouble (Herbert et al, 2016; Jones et al, 2007). A child advocacy center aims to be comforting and be inviting to the child, so they aren’t afraid. It also works to limit the amount of interviews the child undergoes by being multidisciplinary. If a child is constantly having to repeat their story, it increases the likelihood they will change pieces to please the interviewer or will recant altogether (Herbert et al,
Miranda also protects suspects from overzealous police officers. Although most law-enforcement agents in the United States are decent men and women, some abuse their power. They may try to coerce suspects into giving false confessions. Time and time again, we read of cases where suspects were forced to make confessions because an overzealous or prejudiced police officers want to close a case. The story of Rubin Hurricane Carter, made popular by the motion picture of the same name, demonstrated how lives could be destroyed when vindictive and manipulating detectives abuse their power. The Miranda Warning helps keep abuses in check. If the law is used correctly, the guilty would receive their due punishment. When police officers inform suspects of their rights before interrogation, it is very unlikely that the judge presiding over any case would throw out statements made during questioning.
These numbers demand the public’s attention. The pain of just one child should be more than enough to cause a person to jump up and help, much less the pain of more than six thousand children. The U.S. Department of Justice calls children the “perfect victim” for six major reasons. Firstly, since children are typically not emotionally or physically mature, they will try to avoid talking about the abuse. The second reason that they provide is that often times the child does not want to betray the person who is abusing them due to the fact that, many times, the abuser is someone close to them or even related to them. Thirdly, many times there is not enough medical evidence or reliable eye witness accounts for the police to persecute a sexual predator. Unfortunately, the child’s testimony is easy for most any defense attorney to strike down. Two more reas...
Evidence provided in many courtroom cases can range from DNA samples, eyewitness testimony and video-recordings, to name a few. What happens when one of the main sources of information in a case comes from a child? Even worse, what if the child is the victim in the case? The topic of children participating and providing testimony in courtroom settings is an image that, presumably, most would not associate as a “usual” place for children. Yet in cases such as sexual abuse or violence towards a child or within the child’s family, it is not impossible to have cases where children are the predominant source of information provided for judges and jurors. Ref It is then important to consider the reliability of children’s testimonial accounts much like how adult testimonies are examined. The question of focus is then, to what extent can we rely on child eyewitnesses? Specifically, what factors influence the veracity of their testimonies?
Leo, R and Ofshe R. The Social Psychology of Police Interrogation: The Theory and Classification of True and False Confessions. 16 Studies in Law, Politics and Society 189,