Requirements for Admissible Statements Analysis - Assignment Example

Escobedo v. Illinois On the night of 19 January 1960, Danny Escobedo's brother-in-law was shot fatally. The next day, Escobedo was arrested by the police without a warrant. He was then taken into police custody and interrogated. Escobedo did not present the interrogating officers with any statement and he was released that same afternoon after his lawyer submitted a writ of habeas corpus in the state court suggesting that there was not enough evidence against his client. Based on the statement given by Benedict DiGerlando that it was Escobedo who had shot dead his brother-in-law, Escobedo, together with his sister, was re-arrested on 30 January. After arresting and handcuffing Escobedo, he was taken to the police station where the arresting officer told him again and again that he was the culprit and should confess of the crime he had committed (Anonymous, 2009). On arresting, Escobedo was not warned of his Fifth Amendment Right according to which he had the right to remain silent. On reaching the police station, the arrested repeatedly asked to consult his lawyer but was denied. Even when his attorney arrived at the station, he was not allowed to see or speak his client. His lawyer was told by a police officer that he would be allowed to talk to him once they were done with him. Escobedo was told by a police officer that he and his sister would be released if he submitted to DiGerlando’s statement. After hearing this, Escobedo did as he was told and on the basis of his statement he was tried in the court and found guilty of murder. His appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court of Illinois, and Escobedo then petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for review of his conviction. Arizona v. Fulminante In 1982, Oreste Fulminante’s 11-year-old stepdaughter was reported missing by him. After two days of the report, her body was found in Arizona. She had been shot twice in the head. After some tine, Fulminante was arrested for an unrelated crime. While his stay at the prison, Fulminante met a fellow inmate, Anthony Sarivola, who was also a secret informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. O hearing about the murder of his step daughter, Sarivola asked Fulminate about what had happened. But Fulminate did nit give any statement. Sarivola then offered Fulminante protection from "tough treatment" or in other words, torture in prison, in exchange for a confession to the murder of Fulminante's stepdaughter. Fulminante agreed to this and confessed that he had murdered his step daughter. Sarivola passed this information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. As a result of which, Fulminante was charged with first degree murder of her step daughter, and his confession to Sarivola was used against him at trial (Anonymous, 2009). Fulminante’s motion of coerced confession was denied by the trial court and was convicted and sentenced to death. He appealed to the Arizona Supreme Court, where he stated that he was in danger of violence in the prison, had he not confessed murdering his step daughter. The Court held that the confession was indeed coerced and reasoned that a harmless error analysis was inappropriate in the case of forced confessions on the basis of the Fifth and the Fourteenth Amendments. The court ordered a new trial for Fulminante. Legal Requirements for Admissibility of Statements and their Applicability In order for a statement to be admissible in the court the Fifth, Sixth and the Fourteenth Amendment in the United States Constitution need to be fulfilled. The Fourteenth Amendment suggests Rights Guaranteed Privileges and Immunities of Citizenship, Due Process and Equal Protection. According to the Section 1 of this Amendment “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws (Anonymous, 2009).” In the Arizona v. Fulminante the Fourteenth Amendment was violated when Fulminante was forced into a confession and the State has no right to enforce any law on the individuals of the United States which would infringe the privileges and rights provided by the State itself. The rights of the Fifth and the Sixth Amendment were violated in the Arizona v. Fulminante case when the petitioner was not granted the Right to counsel even after persistent requests. Furthermore, infringement of the rights took place when the arrested was not warned of his Right to remain silent according to the Fifth Amendment. In the Arizona v. Fulminante case, under the harmless error analysis, the Supreme Court had said that a trial procedure could be flawed, or some evidence could be illegally obtained, and a guilty verdict could still stand, if the mistake was merely a harmless error that did not outweigh all the other evidence of the case. This means that if the evidence is separated from the confession, then the evidence being strong enough to convict the defendant would still lead the verdict to stand. In the Escobedo v. Illinois case, a new movement to liberalize the court procedures took place. In this case, the confession proved to be completely inadmissible because the case was not just a general inquiry but focused on one suspect only. Furthermore, the interrogation in the police station without the petitioner’s right to remain silent and without the assistance of the counsel lead to incriminating statements. Escobedo v. Illinois Arizona v. Fulminante Petitioner Danny Escobedo State of Arizona Respondent State of Illinois Orestes C. Fulminante Petitioner's Claim That once a person detained by police for questioning about a crime becomes a suspect, his Sixth Amendment right to counsel becomes effective. That the Arizona Supreme Court had erred in awarding Fulminante a new trial for murder. Chief Lawyer for Petitioner Barry L. Kroll Barbara M. Jarrett Chief Lawyer for Respondent James R. Thompson Stephen R. Collins Justices for the Court Hugo Lafayette Black, William J. Brennan, Jr., William O. Douglas, Arthur Goldberg (writing for the Court), Earl Warren Anthony M. Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor, William H. Rehnquist (writing for the Court), Antonin Scalia, David H. Souter Justices Dissenting Tom C. Clark, John Marshall Harlan II, Potter Stewart, Byron R. White Harry A. Blackmun, Thurgood Marshall, John Paul Stevens, Byron R. White Place Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C. Date of Decision 22 June 1964 26 March 1991 Decision By a vote of 5-4, the Supreme Court ruled that because Escobedo's request to consult with his attorney had been denied and because he had not been warned of his constitutional right to remain silent, his confession was inadmissible and his conviction was reversed. Affirmed the lower court's decision to grant a new trial, on the basis that the state used an inadmissible, coerced confession to convict Fulminante. Reference: Anonymous (2009). The U. S. Supreme Court. Retrieved March 12, 2009 from http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=360&invol=315 Anonymous (2009). Arizona v. Fulminante. Retrieved March 12, 2009 from http://law.jrank.org/pages/12857/Arizona-v-Fulminante.html Anonymous (2009). Escobedo v. Illinois. Retrieved March 12, 2009 from http://law.jrank.org/pages/12857/Escobedo v. Illinois.html Read More