Interesting. It never occurred to me until I read this response that you were talking about suppression in the original trial.
In other words, Abby is on trial for the murder of her Great-aunt Bertha. During her trial, Cecilia stands up at a dramatic moment and confesses that she, not Abby, killed Bertha.
Are we talking about the admissibility of Cecilia’s statement in Abby’s trial, or in the presumably subsequent trial of Cecilia?
That is either:
(a) absolutely incorrect, or
(b) an incredible coincidence: David Dowaliby of Cook County, Illinois, was convicted of murder for the 1988 death of his daughter, but you meant some OTHER David Dowaliby whose case I am unable to locate
The David Dowaliby in Cook County, Illinois did not lose an appeal, and his conviction was not reversed for any reason similar to what you describe above.
The case is People v. Dowaliby, 582 NE 2d 1243 (Ill. App Ct 1991). Dowabily and his wife Cynthia were co-defendants, and at the conclusion of the trial the judge ruled that as to Cynthia, the prosecution had simply not presented enough evidence as a matter of law to support a conviction. He let David’s case go to the jury, and they convicted. David’s first and only appeal was to the Illinois Appellate Court, First Division. In 1991 that court reversed his conviction on the grounds that the only evidence against him that was not also present against Cynthia was the identification of a photograph of David by witness Everett Mann:
I checked because I knew your story of an impeached jury verdict was not correct – jury verdicts generally cannot be impeached by the method you describe.
By the way, if your story had been correct the prosecution would have been free to re-try Dowaliby. But as events actually occurred, the appellate court reversed the conviction for lack of evidence, which meant the prosecution was unable to retry him.
I was actually assuming that the suppression would come in the new trial for the guy who confessed, not in the original trial where it might taint the prosecution
I thought he did get a new trial, and the second time, the photos were not used, and he was acquitted. I read it in a book about people wrongly convicted that I got from the public library back when people used to get books from the public library, and I could have sworn I had a clear memory of the photo of the door. I guess I just remembered it incorrectly.
**I do think I’m correct that the jury is charged with not considering information other than what is presented by one side or the other during the trial.
**
Something else I remember, which I suppose I could be wrong about, was that there was once a trial where the defendant, who was accused of rape, had a bad stutter, and the victim said the rapist did not stutter. Apparently one jurist gave the jury a long lecture on how he stuttered, but could overcome it by force of will for a certain amount of time if it was important, causing another jurist to ask the judge if they could consider that jurist’s “testimony” (for lack of a better word) as evidence. The answer was an unequivocal “No,” and IIRC, the defense may have asked for a mistrial.
This seems to be talking about the evidentiary effect of the spontaneous outburst on the current trial.
If that’s the question, then the answer is: it depends on whether the outburst comes from a witness or a bystander.
A bystander’s outburst is not evidence. The jury must be instructed to ignore it, and it may require a mistrial.
A non-defendant witness who confesses on the stand is a trickier question. If the confession is responsive to a proper question, then it’s admissible. If. It’s an evidentiary harpoon, it’s not.
Something that happened on Law & Order, and was supposedly based on a real case, albeit, which parts, I don’t know, was that a guy who had immunity for his testimony against the defendant suddenly confessed to three other serious, unrelated crimes, including a hit, because he had immunity.
Nope. One trial, conviction, followed by one appeal, conviction reversed for insufficiency of the evidence.
Yes, sorta.
By that I mean: the jury may not consider extrinsic evidence. But they are certainly allowed to use their common experience and understanding to reach inferences.
For example, a jury’s deliberation might include the following exchange:
JUROR 1: C’mon, he obviously did it. Remember the 911 call? He was completely unemotional.
JUROR 2: That doesn’t prove anything. My uncle called 911 when my aunt was having a heart attack and he was as cool as could be. He only broke down after she went into surgery.
That’s absolutely proper jury discussion.
Here, though, you’re probably right.
So what’s the difference?
It’s not always a bright-line obvious answer. But the aspirational rule is that juries may share their common sense observations and life experiences – such as how people respond under stress – because that’s the role of the jury: to bring to the court their common sense and life experiences.
What they can’t do is learn new, specific facts about issues that relate to the case from any source other than the trial. So the physiologic and behavioral aspects of a stutter is not something that would be in the common ken of the population … It’s one juror leveraging his supposed expertise in stuttering to a source of authority.
The sudden confession must be responsive to a question. This wouldn’t work:
Q: What is your name?
A: Jeremy Jones.
Q: And what do you do for a living, Mr. Jones?
A: I’m a hit man, a hired killer, and last month I killed Anderson, Baker, and Carlson.
But if there’s a legitimate question, and the witness has immunity, then the immunity applies.
There are two types of immunity: use and transactional. Typically “use immunity” is granted in order to compel testimony. This means that what you say can’t be used against you, but you can still be prosecuted for the crimes if independent evidence is developed implicating you.