voir dire

The Dangers of False Confessions
by Dahn Batchelor
March 25, 2009

"A false confession is an admission of guilt in a crime in which the confessor is not responsible for the crime. False confessions can be induced through coercion or by the mental incompetency of the accused. Even though false confessions might appear to be an exceptional and an unlikely event, they occur on a regular basis in case law, which is one of the reasons why jurisprudence has established a series of rules to detect, and subsequently reject, false confessions obtained by someone in authority...

A variety of factors can contribute to a false confession during a police interrogation. Many cases have included a combination of several of these causes. They include:• duress• coercion• intoxication• diminished capacity• mental impairment• ignorance of the law• fear of violence• the actual infliction of harm• the threat of a harsh sentence • Misunderstanding the situation...

John Mark Karr confessed to the murder of JonBenét Ramsey. He had become obsessed with the details of her murder and was extradited from Thailand. His story did not match details of the case, and his DNA did not match that found at the crime scene. His wife and brother said he was home in another state at the time of the murder, and had never been to Colorado...

In Canada, we have what is called, a ‘In Canada, we have what is called, a ‘voir dire’ a hearing within a trial to determine the authenticity of a confession. It is at that hearing that the defendant must prove that his confession was obtained illegally. If he is successful, then his confession cannot be entered as evidence at his trial.If the police conduct their investigations thoroughly, there is no need to seek a confession from the suspect.

Unfortunately, asking the police officers to conduct criminal investigations thoroughly is akin to asking a child to wash behind his ears. You get the same negative results. There are exceptions obviously but it is the failure on the part of some police investigators in securing evidence and witnesses that result in coerced confessions being extracted from innocent persons.As a result, many innocent people are imprisoned for many years and the taxpayers are stuck with billions of dollars unnecessarily wasted...'