I was watching a YouTube video where an attorney exhorts people to never talk to the police because it never, ever, helps. He cites Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(2)(A) that anything you say can be used against you in court but anything you say that may be exculpatory cannot be. If someone tries it will be objected to as hearsay.
So, why is something a person says that hurts them evidence but something they say that helps them is hearsay? From the video it goes something like, “I hated the guy but I didn’t kill him.” The first part is evidence, the second part is not.
Yes, the defense attorney can get you to say you didn’t kill the guy but now the jury has heard a cop say he was told you hated the guy and you said, after that, that you didn’t kill him.
Why is one statement hearsay and the other is not?
(Note: I may have asked this before on the SDMB but I did a search and did not find it.)
A ‘Statement against interest’ is an exception to hearsay. All of your statements are hearsay except for statements that are ruled to be against your interest. IOW, anything you say that advantages you is not worth considering, but anything that helps convict you is worth considering because ‘why would you lie to make yourself look guilty’?
That should have said “All of your statements are hearsay except those ruled to be an exception to the hearsay rule, such as a statement against your interest”.
I think the rationale to disallow hearsay in general is clear, people’s statements can’t be taken on their face as the truth of a matter. But without an exception like this then confessions could never be heard at a trial. IANAL so I don’t know what other means there are for a defendant to counter the effect of such statements being introduced. You have to keep in mind that at most trials the defendant is pleading not guilty and has the opportunity to say directly to the jury “I didn’t do it”.
The basic rationale makes sense. But the problem is the implication that the suspect made self-incriminating statements to the police, and only later at trial professes innocence. It seems to me that this problem could be resolved by saying that the defense cannot introduce hearsay that is solely exculpatory; but if the prosecution seek to introduce a “statement against interest” as an exception, then the defendant’s concurrent statements to the police should be brought into evidence in their entirety.
If you can’t watch basically the officer provides one of the components of guilt for a murder (motivation) by cherry picking a few words out of a much longer statement.
Yes, I’ve watched the video before, and exactly the same thing struck me as grossly unfair. I was commenting on what I think should happen, not what does.
What is the context where “I never liked the guy” means anything else but what it seems on it’s face? There is no loss of context there, nothing else he said contradicted his statement that he didn’t like the guy.
Never the less, I do think the entire statement should be introduced so a jury can determine whether a statement against interests represents the truth of the matter or is simply a rambling from a poorly functioning brain.
We all have people we don’t like. I do not think saying that should be sufficient to convict me, especially when couched in a larger context proclaiming innocence. The lawyer giving the talk gives examples of this actually being sufficient in some prosecutions.
Certainly a guilty person will proclaim innocence too but a cherry picked statement should not be enough to tilt the scale.
More, why are the police and court on the side of getting a conviction? The police (and justice system overall) should be interested in putting the guilty in jail. This rule suggests they want to put the person they caught in jail. Those two things are not, necessarily, the same thing.
Yup, I don’t recall the example in the video, but imagine this:
What was your relationship with the victim?
“I never liked the guy” [full stop]
vs
“I never liked the guy, we didn’t hang out because all he ever wanted to do was talk about the intimate details of his latest conquest, often women at the office, and he’s married with three kids. But we didn’t have any beef or anything.”
Don’t tell the police who you don’t like. You are more motivated to do bad things to people you don’t like than to people you do like. If this seems like building one misguided principle on top of another, well it is. That’s why you don’t say anything to the police.
Don’t be confused by that ‘presumed innocent’ stuff. If you’re on trial you’re presumed guilty, we don’t try innocent people.
“I hated the guy” is not hearsay. It’s a simple statement that can be testified to by the cop in court. The cop can report on what he saw or heard and, of course, the defendant is allowed to testify to contradict her.
See section D.1
Note that any statement that exonerates you can also be used in court. “I didn’t kill him” could be used by the defense.
The advocates for each side decide what evidence to use, the judge decides what evidence the jury actually hears, and the jury decides what the evidence means. If you are ever a juror you will have the discretion to use the context (or lack of it) for evidence to discount it.
There is also a hearsay exception to show that a person made a statement, but not to consider the truth of the statement, can’t recall what this is called. Again, IANAL (unless you count Bird Law), but it sounds like a defendant could claim that he told the police he didn’t do it and use his prior statements to prove that he made that statement, and thus present the context of his statement against interest. That might even be done to disallow the statement against interest before the jury hears it.
The concept is simple - you have the right to remain silent, but if you want to tell your side of the story to the court, you must testify in full. You cannot simply say “I didn’t do it” and then leave the stand without answering why you were carrying a smoking gun and bloody knife. Once you agree to tell your side of the story, you must also answer cross exam about the story. But, if you don’t want to answer difficult questions, you can decline to testify and the court cannot read that as an indication of guilt.
Anything you tell the court must be under oath, under penalty of perjury. The “statement against interest” concept is that if you said something that didn’t help your case, then it’s probably true since if it makes you look guilty, why would you say it unless it was true? However, statements like “I didn’t do it” carry no weight as anyone will say that whether it’s true or not.
(IIRC, the French/Napoleonic code, which much of the rest of Europe follows - you must testify, but there is no perjury penalty for a defendant’s testimony; the logic is that a guilty person will lie to get off, and the “we got you either way” logic is also not fair.)
The problem is, as noted by the second speaker in the video (he’s a former police detective) is not all testimony is equal. If it is your word against the police officer the police officer will win in the jury’s mind almost always (video linked here takes you to that part).
The defendant is already in trouble just by virtue of being there. The jury sees the defendant and assumes he/she must’ve done something wrong to get there. Then they hear a police officer or detective say all the reason why that person might be guilty and none of the reasons why they might not be guilty and not the defendant is in a hole and has to dig themself out of it.
Based on my knowledge of British law; primarily gleaned from watching Luthor Their version of the Miranda warning contains the phrase:
But, it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court.
By this I assume that if you, for example don’t say you were playing cards with your cousin Frank on the night in question but use this defense in trial the question of why you didn’t mention it earlier would come into play.