Role of Suspects' Confessions - Coursework Example

?LAW Law In earlier times, confessions that were made by suspects in settings other than court of law were considered as weak evidence. The issue of coercion being used by police officials in order to obtain confession of being guilty of crime have existed for several years. During the period of 1930s coercive tactics used by the police officials to obtain confession was taken into account by the courts. The term assigned to use of coercion in interrogation was recognized as third degree torture by the Wickersham Commission. The commission’s report brought about various alterations in the way police was functioning and courts even used the report while giving verdicts. During the Bram v United States case, the judge gave his verdict in accordance to the rules of the 5th Amendment and stated that if a confession is to be used in the court, it has to be obtained on voluntary basis (Scheb, 2010, 497). During the third quarter of the 20th century, criminal cases in which confession was obtained through coercion were not admitted into the court of law on the basis of the due process. Confession is referred to an individual’s acceptance of being guilty of committing a crime after he has been interrogated and questioned by the law enforcement officers. In contrast to confession, admission refers to an individual’s acceptance of being guilty of committing a crime or being a part of a criminal activity without any interrogating questions or behaviour exercised by the law enforcing officers. During the Brown v Mississippi case, the judge stated that a confession should be examined to identify whether the confession was made voluntarily or involuntarily and whether the confession was reliable enough (Scheb, 2010, 497). The ruling in this case was reversed because the police had brutally interrogated the suspect due to this the suspect had confessed to commit the crime. One way of approaching any confession and/or admission made by a suspect s referred to as due process voluntariness approach. According to this approach if a suspect confesses to be guilty if police officials have used coercion while interrogation, the suspect’s statement of being guilty is not accepted during the proceedings of his case. For example: in Arizona v Fulminante case, it was found that an undercover federal law enforcer coerced Fulminate and then he confessed to being guilty of first degree murder (McCord, 2012, 419). In this case coercion was not physical in nature; rather the coercion was emotional in nature as the undercover federal agent assured to protect Fulminate in prison as there was threat to his life in prison. The undercover agent made the promise to protect while asking for a confession in return. This case was treated under the 14th amendment clause of due process and the court ruled in Fulminate’s favour, accepting that coercion was applied to obtain a confession. When law enforcing agents apply unlawful method to obtain a confession from a suspect, this act conducted by the police officials is regarded as violation of an individual’s Miranda rights. The process of selection of a jury starts with the compiling of probable jurors, the compilation of to be jurors need to be unbiased and this compilation is of utmost importance. After the creation of the list of to be jurors, the body of jurors for a particular criminal case are selected. Selection of a body of jury out of the compiled potential jury list is recognized as selecting jurors for jury duty. Jury is said to be selected in three different stages. Firstly a list of to be jurors is compiled, next the jurors expected to be on jury duty in a case are selected and lastly the selection of final jury members is conducted. The numbers of people who fall in the category of probable jury list are recognized as jury pool or list. This list is created through various sources and the best source is the list of registered voters (Neubauer, 2013, p.77). Other sources through which this list can be compiled includes telephone directory, registered driver licence list. The individual who is given the responsibility of compiling the list is recognized as jury commissioner, this task is assigned to him by the judge. If an individual has wants to be a part of the jury list, he/she has to be at least 18 years old, should not have prior felonies and should be a citizen of the US. Once the list of plausible jurors is created, individuals are chosen from that list and these individuals add up to be referred as jury panel. Those who are selected to perform jury duty have been a member of the jury panel once in his/her life. Individuals that become a part of the jury panel can be excused due to various reasons. Reasons include: less than the eligibility age, have no command over English language, who have been priory charged for conducting a crime, and people who may experience difficulty due to jury duty. People working in defence forces and law enforcing agencies are even exempted from the panel of jury. Once the panel of jurors is created, next the process of voir dire takes place, in this process; the jury is selected from the jurors who are on the panel of jury. The process of voir dire is conducted to ensure that the jury selected for any case is not biased, this process is conducted through questioning and the process of questioning is conducted by the prosecutor, defence lawyer and judge. During the process, the attorney of the victim and the criminal side have an unrestricted number of challenges of cause, this means that the attorneys can exclude any individual from the panel if the attorneys believe that the individuals are biased (Frederick, 2005, p.217). Attorneys even have certain amount of peremptory challenges; this means that the attorneys can exclude any individual from the jury panel without giving any reason. After the answers to the defendants, prosecutors and the judges’ questions are evaluated by the judge, the final jury is selected. The jury of any case comprises of 12 jurors and 2 alternates who are assigned jury duty if any of the other jurors cannot sit for a hearing. A plea bargain, a suspect or criminal has different rights as compared to the rights; he/she has during a criminal trial. This is because plea bargaining is one way avoiding the case from entering into a trial. Plea bargaining takes place outside the court, the criminal or the suspect has some rights provided by the constitution. These rights include; right to gain assistance from a counsellor and right to be updated about any evidence that is exculpatory in nature (McCoy, 1993, p.57). In case of plea bargaining, the person who is defending is not entitled with right of being available at significant levels of the process of bargaining. Under the 6th amendment a bargaining prosecutor has the right to obtain services from counsel; this is because the charges have been levied on the criminal before the process of plea bargaining starts. For example in case of Montejo v. Louisiana, the court held that the letter written by Montejo to the family of the victim was a valid evidence as he himself waived his right to obtaining counselling services that were available to his disposal under the Sixth Amendment (Barton, 2011, p.285). The second right that a defendant has in case of plea bargaining is right to be updated about any evidence in the possession of the prosecutor that can prove that the defendant might not be guilty. Only that evidence should be shown to the defendant that can alter the outcome of the case. In Brady v. Maryland case the judge in his decision stated that if the prosecution is in possession of evidence that can change the course of the case, he should not withheld them as by doing so he is acting against the due process approach. In case of a guilty plea, certain rights of the defendant or the criminal are waived off, rights including: right to have a trial through jury, right to tackle a negative witness and the dispensation against self incrimination. This means that if an individual pleads to be guilty of a crime he accepts to waive of his right to trial in a court, he even accepts to counter argue with a witness who is blaming the defendant of the crime and he accepts to not be prosecuted when he accepts committing a crime. According to US law, if the plea of guilt has been made voluntarily and intelligently by the defendant then only that plea can be accepted. Due to this a judge has a right to ensure that the guilty plea was made voluntarily and intelligently by the defendant. A guilty plea has to be voluntary means that the suspect was not coerced into pleading guilty and his rights according to the 14th amendment were not breached. Secondly, the guilty plea has to be made intelligently, this means that the defendant was informed about the rights that will be waived off and the punishment he will be subjected to before help made the guilty plea and then he made the plea. Any confession that is obtained while amendments of the constitution are being violated is not acceptable during a trial of criminal activity. This means that evidence or confessions that are obtained through unlawful ways of obtaining confession such as coercion are excluded from being admitted in a criminal trial. The exclusionary rule is not only applied in the case of violation of fourth amendment, it is even applied in the case of the Fifth Amendment. This means that confessions that are obtained while Miranda Rights or any provision in the constitution are being violated, cannot be used as evidence during the trial of a criminal case. In event of illegal practices used during interrogation, confessions are not admitted in the court of law, but various other confessions are admitted and accepted as evidence during a trial and in certain cases and situations, the confessions that are obtained in unlawful ways are even used as evidence. Confessions that are valid and used during a criminal trial are accepted in following cases: cases of impeachment and standing and cases that include fruit of the poisonous tree. Defendants can only appeal to exclude those confessions that have a standing, this means that if the confession was obtained from a third person and this confession is even admitted if the police officials have not exercised the duty of informing an individual about his/her Miranda rights. In case of Jones v. United States it was held that exclusionary rule can only be used by the person whose Miranda rights are being violated and other individual cannot use the exclusionary rule for the person whose Miranda rights were manipulated (Melton, 1987, p.364). Confessions that are obtained by breaking the law can even be used in a trial if these statements are being utilized with the aim of impeachment. This rule is only applied while excluding a statement if the statement has been obtained in the due process sense of voluntariness. The application of this rule is even dependant on whether the case is of Miranda rights or the right to take assistance from counsel under the Sixth Amendment. For example: in Kansas v. Ventris case, Ventris being charged for murder, confessed his crime to a cell mate under the conditions of human listening device (Del, 2012, p.245). His confession was used in his trial as the statement was used to impeach. It should be noted that if a confession is obtained in violation of the Miranda rights, it is to be obtained in oral form and in the case of Kansas v. Ventris, the case was obtained orally. In the same case, the defendant’s right to counsel was breached; still the confession was admitted because it was for impeachment purposes. Lastly, those confessions that are obtained unlawfully are even admitted as evidence of the evidence is physical in nature and secondly, the evidence was acquired according to the due process approach of voluntary confession. In Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States case, the evidence was not admitted into the court because the evidence was obtained involuntarily by the police officials (Del, 1995, p.91). References Barton, B. H. (2011). The lawyer-judge bias in the American legal system. New York: Cambridge University Press. Del, C. R. V., & Walker, J. T. (2012). Briefs of leading cases in law enforcement. Boston: Anderson Pub. Del, C. R. V. (1995). Criminal procedure: Law and practice. Belmont, Calif: Wadsworth Pub. Co. Frederick, J. T., & American Bar Association. (2005). Mastering voir dire and jury selection: Gain an edge in questioning and selecting your jury. Chicago, Ill: GP/Solo, ABA General Practice, Solo & Small Firm Section. McCord, J. W. H., McCord, S. L., & Bailey, C. S. (2012). Criminal law and procedure for the paralegal: A systems approach. Clifton Park, NY: Delmar Cengage Learning. McCoy, C. (1993). Politics and plea bargaining: Victims' rights in California. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Melton, G. B. (1987). Psychological evaluations for the courts: A handbook for mental health professionals and lawyers. New York: Guilford Press. Neubauer, D. W., & Meinhold, S. S. (2013). Judicial process: Law, courts, and politics in the United States. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Scheb, J. M., & Scheb, J. M. (2010). Criminal law and procedure. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Read More