Yes, I think it’s what was searching for, indeed. No clue how the french system could be called, perchance?
Inquisitorial system, I believe.
I found it by googling “adversary system”. Thanks.
Ah, if you found that cite, then you’ll have found a reference to the old joke about the adversary system –
Judge: “Shall I not hear the truth?”
Barrister: “No, My Lord, only the evidence.”
While GQ wasn’t a bad choice to start this one out, it seems more like a debate at this point.
Moved.
samclem
has nothing to do with the Police, has to do with the hearsay exception under both Georgia and Federal law to “statements against interest.”
Hearsay is the most misunderstood evidentiary objection I can think of. Georgia law and Federal law are distinctly different in the definitnon of hearsay, but they share a similar goal. For a cheat sheet on hearsay think of it as this – can the statement you’re really using be cross-examined? I’ll give you two examples:
1: Cop hears perp say she did it.
Cross examine cop. Is he reliable, trustworthy, etc.? If so, take his word that perp said she did it, for whatever that’s worth.
2: Cop hears perp’s friend say, “I heard perp say she did it.”
Can’t cross examine statement for that “perp did it.” Yeah, if the the cop is reliable then I might be able to say for sure that the friend said “perp did it,” but that doesn’t speak to the veracity of the declarent, i.e. the friend. So what if friend said that, we don’t care what friend says, we care what perp says. what if friend lies? (I know this uses a double hearsay example, and there are better examples, I just can’t think of any right now).
I’ll also point out that it’s an area of criminal law that’s very much in turmoil right now. Crawford v. Washington, a Supreme Court decision from the 2003-04 term, overruled Ohio v. Roberts, which had permitted a transcript of previous testimony to be read to the jury when the declarant was unavailable for trial. Crawford came along and split hearsay into “testimonial” and “nontestimonial” categories. Nontestimonial hearsay is permitted under traditional hearsay rules; testimonial hearsay requires witness unavailability and a prior opportunity for cross-examination before it may be admitted.
This term, I might point out, the Court is hearing two cases – Davis v. Washington and Hammond v. Indiana - that will likely further refine these rules.
I see your point, but I don’t think I agree with it. True, a large part of the function of the Miranda warning is to advise the individual of their rights, but another part of it is a constant reminder to both the police and the prosecutor of the rights of the detained individual. The police and the prosecutor have it drilled into them that as a condition of interogating a suspect, they must respect the suspect’s right to counsel, or risk losing whatever evidence they gained from the interogation.
The Miranda warning serves a function similar to the search warrant - when the cops break down the door of the local meth lab, I think the people inside it have a good idea why the cops are there - they don’t need to see the warrant. But the cops know that if they want to be able to use the evidence they gather in the raid, they better damn well have a warrant.
Miranda warnings serve the same role, and it’s not a technicality for a police officer to ignore that obligation to respect the detained person’s right to counsel.
I’m afraid I’m not following your argument. By your own admission, the truck you were driving looked unsafe:
My understanding of probable cause / articulable cause is that it is judged based on the information that the police officer had at the time of the stop, not on any subsequent information. That’s the only way to be fair to both the cop and the person stopped.
So, if you agree that the officer’s decision to stop you was reasonable, based on the appearence of the truck, then you are agreeing that he had probable cause. The fact that further investigation revealed that your truck was in fact licenced properly doesn’t change the fact that the officer had probable cause. And checking driver’s licence, outstanding warrants, and so on is a normal part of a road-side stop. So I’m not following why you think the stop was illegal.
Yes, but.
Having pulled me over, and checked, the inspection sticker was valid, and there was no obvious actual cause to assume otherwise. I assume that he was unsure, and called his supervisor. The supervisor evidently felt that he had insufficient reason (simply the ugly look of the car) and no specific inspection criteria related reason to pull me over. He hoped he could ticket me for improper equipment, but he had no specific observation of improper equipment to hang that hope on.
Anyway, the three cops, and whomever it was that they called on the radio must have decided that it was insufficient. I honestly think they were sure they could catch me in some minor infraction down the road a ways. But I went directly home, which was a very short trip. (I had been on my way home, in fact.)
Tris
He got off on a technicality, you lucked out in your choice of a lawyer, I had the law on my side.
“Getting off on a technicality”: when someone evades justice with legalism with intent to gratify sexual urges.
‘Getting off on a technicality’- being acquitted of a crime because of matters not directly related to your guilt or innocence.
If you are acquitted because you were deprived of your rights by police, lawyers, or courts, you may or may not be guilty. But because your acquittal isn’t directly related to the evidence for and against your innocence, your innocence may always be in question.
don’t ask mentioned the Michael Douglas movie “Star Chamber.” This is a really good reason why we shouldn’t try to learn law from Hollywood. The purpose of a movie or TV show is to manipulate our emotions. That’s what a movie is really all about. The director actively tries to elicit strong emotions from us. So when a slimey crook goes free “on a technicality,” you’re supposed to feel bad about that. If you stop and tell yourself at that moment, “Well, all of law is a series of technicalities,” then the director hasn’t done his/her job, and you’ve wasted your money.
My father, a cop for 30 years, and my younger brother, a cop for ten years, have both told me there is only one “technicality” that causes guilty people to go free – sloppy work by the cops or prosecutors or both (or, as my brother-the-cop put it, “Technicality – that’s a fancy word for ‘your cops suck.’”)
It’s OK to believe that “getting off on a technicality” is a miscarriage of justice, as long as you quit believing it as soon as the movie or the TV show is over. The problem is not that people pay to slip away from reality for a few hours – it’s that they forget to come back.