March 11, 2005
THEY WERE ONLY SHEILAS:
Court rejects murder confession (Lisa Davies, March 12, 2005, news.com.au)
A MAN who confessed to killing two women walked free from court yesterday when a judge ruled the evidence too damning.Father-of-two Lyle Simpson admitted being a killer, DNA evidence proved he was at the scene of one murder and he tried to commit suicide a day later.
Yet after three days of legal argument in the NSW Supreme Court, Judge Anthony Whealy ruled some evidence was just too damning and ran the risk of "unfair prejudice" to the accused.
I stopped attending Criminal Law due to a difference of opinion with the professor, a notorious criminal rights advocate and anti-death penalty activist, but I swear I don't remember anything in the book about the possibility of a confession being too likely to prove you guilty. Is your confession supposed to be opaque and dubious? Posted by Orrin Judd at March 11, 2005 5:03 PM
The stupidity of that judge is mindboggling. I attach a quote from a New York Court of Appeals case:
"Finally, it is pertinent to note that evidence of guilt (for example, of a documentary type as here, or an eyewitness identification or a confession) is always prejudicial in a familiar sense of that word; it is expected and supposed to be so. Merely invoking the word "prejudice" does not, in and of itself, preclude admission of relevant evidence unless some evidentiary prohibition is violated (see, e.g., People v Buie, 86 NY2d 501, 509; People v Lewis, 69 NY2d 321, 325; Prince, Richardson on Evidence, § 4-101, at 136 [Farrell 11th ed 1995]). Because no such prohibition exists or applies to these circumstances, the trial court properly admitted the money orders and the Appellate Division correctly affirmed the judgment of conviction." People v. Colavito, 87 N.Y.2d 423, 429.
In other words, of course the evidence is prejudicial. If it wasn't, it would be relevant and the state would not try to introduce it.
Oops. I meant that if it wasn't prejudicial, it would not be relevant.
Posted by: Morrie at March 13, 2005 7:56 AMI have always been puzzled by our courts' practice of denying use of photographs of crime scenes and the like as prejudicial if they depict, apparently accurately, that the crime was unusually horrible.
I gather the argument is that the jurors will be so emotionally that they will convict anyone.
This may be so, but it seems at the same time to impugn the concept of jury at its root.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 15, 2005 3:17 AMI have always been puzzled by our courts' practice of denying use of photographs of crime scenes and the like as prejudicial if they depict, apparently accurately, that the crime was unusually horrible.
I gather the argument is that the jurors will be so emotionally distraught and deranged that they will convict anyone.
This may be so, but it seems at the same time to impugn the concept of jury at its root.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 15, 2005 3:18 AMHarry:
You're puzzled that the elites don't trust the masses?
Posted by: oj at March 15, 2005 7:28 AM