A Hostile Witness On The Indian Evidence Act

In some circumstances the statement can be used as evidence without the support of the victim and the final decision in regards to continue with the prosecution will depend on the CPS and police seriousness of the crime and available evidence. It may be decided it’s in the public interest despite the wishes of the victim.

• The accused/accusers will be given the opportunity to respond by a meeting or put their response in writing to the claims made against them and speak about any relevant evidence.

“Testimonials during court hearings are performed under oath, hence the statements of an individual being examined are assumed to be true and no other statement should be falsified or forged. When the officer does not pronounce the truth in court, he or she is still capable of providing a reason for his deception, based on a substitute arrangement, such as when he or she is operating as a witness to the prosecution and is not considered as the defendant in a court case. However, it is also required that the officer is conscious of the rules of the court system that he or she has sworn to tell the truth during examination” (Chevigny , 1969).

This is the basic rule that spouses should not be compellable to testify against their husbands, that the preservation of the matrimonial harmony of husband and wife is very important as two souls in one flesh. Marriage is a fundamental institution of the society and it’s the utmost respect, the institution of marriage has a greater importance to public interest rather than the outcome of judicial result . The New Zealand Commission noted that distress will be caused if a wife is compel to give evidence against her husband and this was supported by Lord Salmon were he comments that “it seems to me altogether inconsistent with the common law’s attitude towards marriage that it should compel a wife to give evidence against her husband and thereby destroy the marriage.” Allowing a wife to give evidence may incriminate her husband and furthermore it might put her in a state of risk in there matrimonial home, and it will also create a greater function of perjury in criminal proceedings. A wife is only compellable if the ‘offence is specified.’ PAEC s. 80 lays down further rules under the criminal charges related to specified offences as fellows.

e Report, for Resource Utilisation, Witness Accuracy and Psychological Methods for Detection and Successful Prosecution.

Thus, any out of court statements made by witnesses and/or victims to law enforcement must be excluded unless the defendant had prior opportunity to cross-examine the unavailable witnesses (Byrom, 2005). The only non-testimonial statements that would be utilized in court, without direct testimony from the witness and/or complainant, were the taped 911 phone calls reporting the incident. If the victim testified, their previous statements would be allowed as evidence without limitation because the witness was subjected to cross-examination. However, if the victim refused to testify, any testimonials made to law enforcement were not allowed as evidence in the court proceedings.

Turning to the case of Guy Paul Morin, one will see that the witness account played a great deal in the conviction of Morin. Mr. X falsely testified against Morin because he did not like Morin. The crown also used evidence from undercover officers where statements of Morin were recorded on a 60 minute tape recorder, which the officers believed to be 90 minutes. This made the case interesting because the crown used this instance for saying that Morin confessed to the crime after 60 minutes. This showed false accusation that was made both by the police officers and crown attorneys.

2. The witness must be reminded of the time, place, and circumstances of the statement in a specific manner, although some states prohibit this.

Eyewitness misidentification can pose a serious threat in forensic evidence. Eye witness testimony can easily be tampered with due to words or phrases used. Bias is a major issue in identification especially if the police officer uses suggestive tones to portray whom they believe is the suspect. Some witnesses will change their opinion when they hear new information of the suspect. A study has shown that words can play a major impact in the witness' mind and cause them to recall false information. False information can also stem from human memory, age, distance, and how long it took before a witness could recall the information. It has been shown that due to the confidence that a witness may have, it could impact the court systems' reliability on the witness; however, there are several solutions that can be done to prevent misidentification in the court of law. Some examples that can be done are blind administration, lineup composition, instructions, confidence statements, and

made a mistake on the officer sworn statement (DS-367) (Exhibit 1) and the officer completed the Arrest and Supplemental Report (Exhibit 2) 6 days after the arrest, which does not fall within the public employee records exception to the hearsay rule, Section 1280 of the Evidence Code. In addition, officer signed the second page of the DS-367 (Exhibit 1) after 6 days of the arrest, therefore, the DS-367 is altered. In addition, the DS-367 (Exhibit 1) and the Arrest and Supplemental Report (Exhibit 2) are not credible, not trustworthy and not admissible. Officer notes are destroyed after he completed his report and memory of the officer is questionable.. Counsel cited the Glatman, MacDonald, Manny cases to support his

Accordingly, while hearsay statements are generally inadmissable in a judicial proceeding, hearsay statements are “not necessarily inadmissible in an administrative proceeding.” Travers v. Balt. Police Dep’t, 115 Md. App. 395, 408 (1997) (citing Md. Dep’t of Human Res. v. Bo Peep Day Nursery, 317 Md. 573, 595 (1989)). Indeed, if hearsay statements are sufficiently credible and probative, they may even form the sole basis for the agency’s finding. Travers, supra, 115 Md. App. at 411-13; Kade v. Hickey Sch., 80 Md. App. 721, 725

Where a witness statement or a witness summary is not served, the party will not be able to call that witness to give oral evidence unless the Court allows it.

Common law also permitted the prosecution to adduce evidence that was relevant to the accused’s guilt of the offence charged,

May and Powles view evidence as ‘something’ which tends to prove or disprove something else. In the context of a trial this consists of information placed before the court for the purpose of proving or disproving facts in issue. Beecher-Monas states that in a system based on the rule of law and which aspires to ‘truth’, the accuracy and reliability of such information is essential. The mechanisms available to the court to determine the latter, centre on the presentation of evidence under oath, cross-examination and the observation of witness demeanour .

Under section 191, of the Indian Penal Code, perjury is defined as “giving false evidence”. The person is prosecuted to have given false statement at some point, but hardly anyone, including legal experts, can recall a single case before Best Bakery Case and the Jessica Lal murder case in which a person was prosecuted for making a false statement before the court.