Word: confessionalism
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Trial by Police. Clearly, the critical confrontation today is often reached in the station-house "squeal room," where police "make" cases by eliciting presumably voluntary confessions. Although the Fifth Amendment bars the use of any confession that police extract by even the most subtle threats or promises, and though no...
The Fifth Amendment guarantees that "no person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." It establishes a system of justice based on accusation, not inquisition; it commands the government to prove guilt by independent evidence, not by coercing proof out of the defendant'...
As a result: 90% of U.S. defendants plead guilty and are swiftly sentenced without a trial. In effect, most of them are convicted by the police-not by judges and juries. And since most police insist that interrogation must be secret, the courts have no way of knowing just what...
But is it always the truth? Quite often, the defendant later recants, forcing courts to determine the voluntariness of his confession. The issue becomes a "swearing contest" between the scruffy confessor and three or four detectives who swear they never coerced him. Understandably, most judges and juries prefer to believe...
With no lawyer to advise him, Danny fell into a well-laid legal trap. Confronted with Di Gerlando, Danny blurted: "You did it!"-thus indirectly admitting his own complicity. To shut the trap tighter, a detective then allegedly promised Danny that a full statement would free him, Grace and Chan...