Essay On Hearsay

In Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 98 (1977), the Supreme Court elaborated on the standards to use in determining the procedure for a motion to suppress due to suggestive pre-trial identification. The Court held that “reliability is the linchpin” in determining the admissibility of identification testimony, and applied the “totality of the circumstances” standard of Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293 (1967).

Claiming that the witness wrongly identified him, Perry files a motion to suppress the identification, which he terms as "unnecessarily suggestive." He files the motion believing that the witness picked him after seeing him handcuffed by police officers and that he could not afterwards in a photo lineup or clearly describe him to the police before the arrest.

“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).

ISSUE: (1) The police department continued with the interrogations process that led to incriminating statements without reading the defendant’s rights.

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.

The hearsay rule is based inherently on the concise definition of hearsay. In this regard, hearsay can be defined as any statement other than that made by an individual in the process of testifying at a hearing or trial, which is offered for purposes of affording evidence of truth pertaining to a particular matter. According to the Cornell University Law School (2014), the hearsay rue is the rule that prohibits out of court statements from being admitted as evidence at a trial. B and large, the hearsay rule is motivated intrinsically by the understanding in the belief that hearsay is unreliable. For example, if a witnessed stopped at a scene of a car accident and a survivor intimated to him or her that the driver caused the accident, this statement cannot be admitted as evidence to prove the same. It is imperative to understand that the hearsay rule, according to the Cornell University Law School, bars all such evidence, whether oral or written.

Eyewitness identification, for the most part, is considered reliable eyewitness identification by the courts as excellent evidence to proof crimes at trial. Yet, Bennett Barbour’s arrest revealed these inaccuracies as he was wrongly arrested due to an over-reliance on eyewitness identification. Barbour’s physique, specifically his

The rational for the present sense impression exception for hearsay stem from the notion that statement is reliable because the contemporaneity of the event observed and the hearsay statement describing it leaves no time for reflection. Thus, the likelihood of deliberate misrepresentation or faulty recollection is eliminated. People v. Brown 80 N.Y.2d 729, 734, 610 N.E.2d 369, 594 N.Y.S.2d 696 (1993); People v. Vasquez 88 N.Y. 2d. 561, 575, 670 N.E.2d. 1328, N.Y.S.2d 697 (1996); People v. Melendez 296 A.D.2d 424, 426, 744 N.Y.S.2d 485 (App. Div. 2d Dept. 2002). In People v. Semple the audio tape of the radio communication between the police officers during the police high speed chase provide no opportunity for any of the officer to reflect and to fabricate the statement. People v. Semple 174 Misc.2d 879, 882, 666 N.Y.S.2d 900 (Sup. Ct. 2d Dept. 1997). In People v. Melendez, the defendant made a 911 call shortly made after stabbing her boyfriend claiming that it was an accidental stabbing. The Appellant Division deem that the defendant does not appear to have sufficient time to fabricate anything on the 911 tape. People v. Melendez 296 A.D.2d 242, 244, 744 N.Y.S.2d 485 (App. Div. 2d Dept. 2002). In Jerkson case following the reasoning from People v. Semple and People v. Melendez when the unidentified woman saw that the police was apprehending the wrong man she dialed 911 to inform the police

Police conduct is unnecessarily suggestive when there is no good reason to conduct the a show up in the circumstances. Commonwealth v. Figueroa, 9 N.E.3d 812, 823 (Mass. 2014). To determine whether an identification lacked good reason, the court examines the nature of the crime and whether there are any corresponding ongoing public safety concerns. Commonwealth v. Bresilla, 23 N.E.3d 75, 86 (Mass. 2015). Additionally, the need to promote and quick and efficient investigation and validate information in the immediate aftermath of a crime can justify the

In Canada, the leading cause of wrongful conviction is due to the factor of eyewitness account. It has been proven that individual’s minds are not like tape recorders because everyone cannot precisely and accurately remember the description of what another person or object looks like. The courts looks at eyewitness accounts as a great factor to nab perpetrators because they believe that the witness should know what they are taking about and seen what occurred on the crime scene. On the other hand, eyewitness accounts lead to a 70 percent chance of wrongful conviction, where witnesses would substantially change their description of a perpetrator.

The Reliability of Eyewitness Testimony Part 1 - How reliable is Eyewitness testimony? The Reconstructive nature of memory - Schemas and Stereotypes The reconstructive nature of memory is related to the schema theory. A schema is a package of memory that is organized and developed throughout our lives.

In the past few years several cases have enforced a more comprehensive meaning to the confrontation clause. Such cases are Crawford v. Washington, Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, and Davis v. Washington. In 2004, the landmark case Crawford v. Washington, involved an assault where the defendant Michael Crawford, got into an altercation involving a knife with another male over his wife. During the arrest, the police taped both Michael and his wife statements. The prosecution used his wife’s damaging statement, as she was unwilling to testify against her husband, during his trial and Crawford was convicted (Friedman, p. 440). Subsequently, the case made it to the United States Supreme Court and they overturned the 1980 decision in Ohio v. Roberts. Justice Scalia wrote, “Out-of-court statements were admissible only when the witness was unavailable to testify and the defendant had been able to cross-examine the witness on a previous occasion” (Supreme Court: Right to Confront Witnesses Strengthened, 2004). Under the Crawford ruling

Eyewitness identification and testimony play a huge role in the criminal justice system today, but skepticism of eyewitnesses has been growing. Forensic evidence has been used to undermine the reliability of eyewitness testimony, and the leading cause of false convictions in the United States is due to misidentifications by eyewitnesses. The role of eyewitness testimony in producing false confessions and the factors that contribute to the unreliability of these eyewitness testimonies are sending innocent people to prison, and changes are being made in order to reform these faulty identification procedures.

In the past decade, eyewitness testimonies have cast a shadow on what is wrong with the justice system in today’s society. Before we had the advanced technology, we have today, eyewitness testimonies were solid cold-hard facts when it came to proving the defendant was guilty. However, time has changed and eyewitness testimonies have proven to be the leading causes of wrongful convictions due to misidentification. The Thompson and Cotton case is a perfect example of how eyewitness testimonies can put an innocent man behind bars.

Neil Simon's farce, Rumors, gives readers an in-depth look at the lives of ten wealthy individuals attending a dinner party. In an attempt to stay within the social crown, the characters start unsubstantiated rumors about their friends in an attempt to make themselves look better. The hosts of the party, Ken Gorman, and his wife Chris must cover up the fact that a friend of theirs, Charley Brock, has been shot in the ear lobe. They do not know how he got shot, but they decide that he must have tried to commit suicide, and thereby proceed to spread rumors about what they have heard in an attempt to avoid a possible attempted suicide scandal. They first lie to Charley's personal doctor, they lie about what happened to all of the servants,