Oh, the statement alone is not enough to exonerate you. But it can be used in court by your defense.
If you say, “Why are you stopping me? I just left work.” your statement can be used by the defense. They can ask the cop if the statement was made, and can then show evidence that they had indeed just left work.
If it’s your word vs the cops, it’s up the the jury to determine the truth. But your words can be used by either the prosecution or the defense, depending on how they might affect the case.
If the cop testifies that the defendant made a potentially incriminating statement, then the defense can ask about other statements the defendant made that could lead to reasonable doubt.
I just watched the pertinent part of the video, and it’s possibly a little hair splitting. If you simply deny killing the guy, the defense attorney can’t ask the police what you said because it’s hearsay and you are free to take the stand and deny killing him- which would not be hearsay but would subject you to cross-examination. That’s what the attorney is actually talking about. I didn’t ever hear the attorney specifically mention a two-part statement where only some of it is admissible- and it may well be that once the officer testifies that you said “I hated the guy” the defense can ask about whether you said anything else during that conversation. IANAL so I’m not sure , but I know I’ve seen defense attorneys ask similar questions when a witness testifies to part of a conversation.
Rule 106. Remainder of or Related Writings or Recorded Statements
If a party introduces all or part of a writing or recorded statement, an adverse party may require the introduction, at that time, of any other part — or any other writing or recorded statement — that in fairness ought to be considered at the same time.
Note that in many places, police are not required to sound record interrogations or to retain the recordings if they do. It’s quite common for a cop to record the conversation, make notes of the relevant portions of the testimony, then destroy the the recording, as it was just there to help his memory and the formal piece of evidence is the report. (I think the cop in the 2nd ‘don’t talk to the police’ interview mentions this). So even if The Rule of Completeness would apply if there was a recording, it’s quite possible that their either was no recording, or the recording was destroyed once notes were made.
That part is about how a completely innocent person telling the truth will always give the police some information that will help convict him - he doesn’t ever say that the defense is prohibited from asking about the rest of the conversation when the prosecutor asked the question that elicited the answer “He confessed to me that he never liked the guy”. IOW, he doesn’t actually say that the rest is not admissible, just that the prosecutor won’t bring it up.
Which doesn’t mean you should talk to the police if you’re a suspect, because you really can only talk yourself into being arrested, not out of it.
What is the rate? Wiki tells me just for Federal courts in 2012, the US Department of Justice reported a 93% conviction rate. The figures also get skewed one way by plea bargains, but the other way by charges being dropped. I can’t imagine anyone thinks the deck is not stacked against defendants in court.
This being GQ, let’s not go down the road of what is a “good” legal system, but stick to factual issues. If you want to explore this, start a new thread in Great Debates.
I think the police are supposed to consider both supportive and damaging evidence. But I’m no lawyer. You can’t control their interpretation. I think “right to silence” laws in Canada also differ slightly.
The conviction rate alone does not indicate prejudice against defendants. The prosecutors will not even bring a case to court unless they believe they have enough evidence to convict. What constitutes enough evidence to convict, and for what defendants, could certainly be unfair, but fairness can’t be proven solely by the conviction rate.
“presumed innocent” is a technical term in the legal system, like “resolution” in optics, or “discrimination” in radio engineering. For people who aren’t (radio engineers or print process workers) , It doesn’t mean that anyone presumes that you are innocent. or that the system presumes that you are innocent.
(Also, the idea that if 100% of the defendants were guilty, then 100% of the trials would result in a guilty verdict, implies a legalistic interpretation of the concept of “guilty”).
IANAL but the concept is that the prosecution must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. You cannot guarantee that all members of a jury have no predisposition to presume guilt, but that’s how they are instructed. Some individuals might not presume innocence, but isn’t the system supposed to do this? The system presumes you are innocent but sometimes the system doesn’t work.
I’m not sure what you mean here, because I do not know where this idea has been expressed. We know that in some cases where the defendant actually committed a crime, there is not enough evidence to convict and they are not tried or they are found not guilty. (For all the crimes Al Capone committed, the only way they could get him locked up was for tax evasion.) In fact that is a conscious tradeoff of our legal system, where we value letting innocent people go free at the expense of letting some guilty people go free.
However, we know that many innocent people have been convicted, and some of them have even been executed.
