I’ve seen this scenario in TV shows and movies many times, and I was wondering what would happen in real life.
For example: Jane Doe kills John Smith. The police are fairly certain that Jane is the killer, and she had means, motive, and opportunity. While investigating, the cops question Jane’s father Mike Johnson about the murder, and Mike confesses to it. Everyone is fairly certain he’s just doing it to protect his daughter, and while there’s much more evidence that Jane was the killer, it’s not impossible that Mike committed the murder. What do the cops and prosecutors do?
I’ve just laid out just one scenario, but in various stories I’ve seen it be a dad, mom, brother, sister, husband, wife, or really close friend confessing to the crime a loved one did. Sometimes it’s just to protect the loved one, sometimes because he’s already going to jail for one crime so might as well take the extra time instead of his daughter taking it.
So I’ve wondered, how would this play out in real life? Mike is a plausible suspect, and has confessed, so would he be prosecuted instead of Jane who’s a more likely suspect but insisted she didn’t do it? Would the fact that Jane was the primary suspect and Mike only confessed when the cops were investigating Jane be reasonable doubt that would let Mike go free? I realize that there’s a lot of variables that would change the outcome, but I’m just curious.
I don’t have any real-life legal experience, but I’m interested in the question, and I hope you don’t mine me throwing in some wild-ass guesses.
The first big variable is probably whether the prosecutor (or lead detective?) cares about getting to the truth/nailing Jane, or just wants to close the case. If they want to dig a bit further, they might ask Mike for more details about exactly how he did the deed, to see if what he says matches up with the other evidence. They could also use Mike’s confession in interrogating Jane again, trying to get her to confess out of love for her father - or possibly give her a chance to talk to Mike and see if she tries to get him to take back his confession.
If Mike does get prosecuted, I don’t see much chance of reasonable doubt - if he’s sticking with his confession, then it’ll probably be a guilty plea, and nothing that would cast doubt on the veracity of the confession will be entered as evidence unless one side or the other wants to enter it. If Mike wants to take the fall and the prosecutor wants to close the case, then neither of them want reasonable doubt.
This is more of a Hollywood cliche than something that happens much IRL.
That said, a prosecutor’s ethical duty is to see that justice is done. If the prosecutor believed, as you suggest, that Mike was confessing just to shield Jane, he could still choose to charge Jane. (Mike could be questioned to see if he knew things about the murder that only the killer would know, but presumably Jane and Mike would have discussed it, so that probably wouldn’t help much). Mike’s confession, if believed by the jury, could easily create reasonable doubt and lead to Jane’s acquittal. Mike could then be charged for the murder, or the prosecutor, if convinced of Mike’s innocence, could choose not to charge him.
People try and cover up for others all the time, don’t they? And don’t prosecutors (when possible) go after them for perjury and assorted associated crimes? I imagine a false confession would be treated similarly.
That makes sense. I guess the reasonable doubt would come in if he retracts his confession and pleads not guilty, which I’m pretty sure I’ve seen some variation of on Law & Order.
I’d wondered how common this was in real life. Maybe it happens all the time with smaller crimes and lesser sentences, but not as common in murder trials, and just the murder trials are more dramatic for TV and movies. I hadn’t thought about the perjury. It makes sense that after Mike’s confession that there would be further investigation and if they proved the confession was false they could prosecute that.
A recent “news”'article was claiming that OJ Simpson was trying to take the fall for his oldest son who they claim was the actual murderer. If that was the case, then OJ can call off his search for the real killer.
I know a guy who took a charge for his brother. The brother would have faced a much longer stint in prison. They were both in the area but he claimed to be the owner of the stuff that really belonged to his brother. I don’t imagine the cops gave a shit either way.
I hear a few stories from time to time of someone who takes the fall for a minor crime that would otherwise cause the guilty one to fall under the “3 strikes” rule. In the above scenario - 2 people in the vincinity of illegal substance or stolen property - no prosecutor or police are going to go all Columbo on a guy who wants to confess and fits the bill well enough.
But what is the prosecutors legal duty? Isn’t he legally obliged to simply get a conviction? After all, most crimes today don’t even come up to trial, but are instead done by plea bargain - with the prosecutor threatening the accused with a high charge that could result in high sentence if convicted, to get them to agree to a lower charge with lower bargain, all because evidence is sketchy and or the outcome of a trial vey chancy.
And prosecutors don’t even have the legal duty to know and keep to their obligations - when they neglect to turn over exculpating evidence to the defense, nothing happens because they weren’t told to do that.
So in real life, it seems their only duty is to get a conviction. If a conviction is easy to get - because there’s a confession- they will follow it; if the evidence is shaky, they will offer a plea bargain instead.
After all, failure to get a conviction means they loose a case, which will look bad on their record when re-election comes.
By the way, anyone else getting a kick out of the OP being posted by Sam Lowry? Whether it’s bizarre and convoluted prosecutorial scenarios or mentions of ‘three strikes’ the OP/topic match is pretty cool.
“A larger convinctions % looks better come election/promotion time*” does not equal “the DA has a legal obligation to toss as many people as possible in jail, regardless of whether they commited any kind of crime or not”. Marketing <> the law. Also, one who produced enough false convinctions to embarrass the profession might find his own pattootie fired/disbarred or even imprisoned.
depending on the country’s method to choose the people representing the government’s side
(you meant lose. A wide skirt is loose around your legs, a skirt that you lose becomes lost)
Yes, it’s not the obligation, but it’s surely a stronger factor than hypothetical ethical obligations.
Other factors are also “taxpayers money wasted on a lenghty trial” vs. a quick deal, or “the courts are tied up way beyond, so waiting a long time vs. a quick deal”.
Making a quick deal is not about getting justice done, after all, yet today up to 75% of cases are decided by deals, not trials.
Under the US system, the public will not punish a prosecutor who goes too harsh on criminals, only for being too soft.
Yes, not all states elect their prosecutors. But enough do, and even those where it’s not the population, but the judiskative who chooses them, there’s no penalty attached to false accusations. If even withholding evidence from the defense, which is supposedly against the rules, is not punished in any way on the prosecution, then false convictions are for practical purposes accepted by the system as no big deal.
Joe Smith may not, but that’s what the ACLU is for, when you’re talking about a prosecutor who consistently puts people who are not criminals in jail. Get enough cases built up and Mr More Tuff Than Thou can, and should, be in trouble.
The pressure to “perform” exists in every country, whether “DAs” are elected or not. Some countries have better control mechanisms than others, some have different criteria than others (how’s that for two truths which should be evident?), so? Maybe Germany’s control mechanisms are better than American ones, but that doesn’t mean there is no controls in the US, or that their election-based system equals the law. Again, marketing <> law.
Got any cites for that - that the ACLU causes trouble for prosecturs? After all, under the US system, neither the ACLU nor anybody else can sue a state official for doing their job wrong, unless the state agrees to be sued beforehand.
Pressure to perform is something quite different from whether the duty of a prosecutor is “getting a conviction” or “finding the truth”
Et tu Brute? Why are you too following that route of insinuations and twisting words?
Just for the record, show me where I mentioned anything about the German system or other countries systems? (You can’t because I didn’t). Yet it’s legitimate for you to attack me and insinuate false claims of me that the German system is better, when all I did was talk about the current US one.
So facts being reported in newspapers of actual cases, studies done by law centers and advocacy groups are “Marketing”?
Do you consider that 75% of cases are decided by plea bargain instead of a trial today to lead to justice, or not? Because to me it is one sign that the system is broken and justice not achieved.
