How do courts ascertain that a disputed confession is false?
What will be an ideal response?
Answers may vary.There are four reasons one can be certain that a disputed confession is false.First, a suspect could confess to a crime that never happened. For example, three intellectually disabled defendants (including Victoria Banks) were convicted by an Alabama jury of killing Ms. Banks's newborn child. Only after the three had served time in prison was it determined that Ms. Banks was incapable of giving birth to a child because she had had a tubal ligation operation that prevented her from getting pregnant.Confessions can be proved to be false in situations where it was physically impossible for a suspect to commit the crime, as, for example, when jail records show that the defendant was incarcerated at the time the crime was committed. Three men suspected of committing crimes in Chicago were actually in jail when those crimes were committed.A third way in which a disputed confession can be proved false is that the actual perpetrator is identified and guilt is objectively established. This happened in the case of Christopher Ochoa, a high school honor student, who confessed to robbing, raping, and murdering a woman in an Austin, Texas, Pizza Hut in 1988. Ochoa, who served 12 years in prison, claims that he confessed in order to avoid the possibility of a death sentence. He was released and exonerated only after the real perpetrator confessed to killing the woman and led authorities to the weapon and the bag in which he had placed the money.Finally, a confession is false when there is scientific evidence-most commonly DNA-that definitively establishes the defendant's innocence. For example, three teenagers (Michael Crowe, Joshua Treadway, and Aaron Houser) all falsely confessed to the 1998 murder of Michael's 12-year-old sister Stephanie in Escondido, California. Charges against the boys were dropped only after DNA testing proved that blood found on the sweatshirt of a mentally ill drifter who had been in the neighborhood on the night of the murder was Stephanie's.
You might also like to view...
Aislinn wonders if the attack on New York on September 11, 2001 will impact the career goals of individuals who were adolescents at the time of the attack. This kind of question is one that best reflects a(n) ____ perspective
a. cognitive-developmental b. life-course c. social cognitive d. operant conditioning
Answer the following statements true (T) or false (F)
1. Infant temperament is largely the result of biology. 2. It is common for temperament to change considerably over the first few years of life. 3. The quality of attachment between child and caregiver is dependent on both the caregiver's behaviour and the child's temperament. 4. Infants who formed secure attachments with their primary caregivers act as though they are certain their primary caregiver will respond when they feel insecure. 5. Spending more than 10 hours per week in nonmaternal day care impairs the formation of a secure attachment style between infant and mother, even if the mother is sensitive and responsive to the needs of her infant.
A study analyzing brain content has found that gray matter __________ and white matter __________ through the 20s and 30s.
A. decreases; increases B. decreases; decreases C. increase; decreases D. increases; increases
In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, safety needs are ______.
Fill in the blank(s) with the appropriate word(s).