The Importance Of Evidence In Jordan Graham's Trial

A man named Gerald Williams was arrested a week after the crime for an unrelated burglary, however Williams told police that he had information about the murder of Carter. Telling officers that he heard screaming from the park and saw a man swinging his arm over a body and stated that he saw a man with a crutch but later retracted this

The case that I will be discussing is the cold murder case of Lucille Johnson from Salt Lake City, Utah. Unfortunately, at the time of the murder the investigators didn’t take certain evidence serious in the case. The investigators thought that it was just evidence that had no meaning. None the less, it ended up convicting the murderer, John Sansing.

Whether one particular person happens to be a defendant, a witness, a friend, or even just an acquaintance, murder cases weigh heavily on everyone involved. Huge amounts of evidence must be analyzed, people must be interviewed, research must be done, and a case must be made. Ultimately, all this work comes down to one decision: convict or acquit. The case of Adnan Syed v. State of Maryland is no exception. Syed, at the age of nineteen, was convicted of the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee. He was sentenced to life in prison, plus thirty years. However, from the day the case ended, people have had doubts about the verdict. Holes in the state’s argument slowly became more apparent. For example, the state placed a massive amount of trust

``In criminal law, confession evidence is a prosecutor’s most potent weapon’’ (Kassin, 1997)—“the ‘queen of proofs’ in the law” (Brooks, 2000). Regardless of when in the legal process they occur, statements of confession often provide the most incriminating form of evidence and have been shown to significantly increase the rate of conviction. Legal scholars even argue that a defendant’s confession may be the sole piece of evidence considered during a trial and often guides jurors’ perception of the case (McCormick, 1972). The admission of a false confession can be the deciding point between a suspect’s freedom and their death sentence. To this end, research and analysis of the false confessions-filled Norfolk Four case reveals the

Although governments have debated the death penalty since the beginning of time, the advent of mass media and Hollywood has increased the scrutiny that the death penalty has faced. Many movies were produced that followed the lives of people on death row.

Miscarriages of justices occur due to many variables including faulty or wrong confessions, faulty identifications, wrongful DNA evidence, and the police’s overreach of power. On February 9, 1978, a student from the College of William and Mary, located in Williamsburg, Virginia was sexually assaulted at gunpoint. When the police arrived at the scene, she described her assailant as an African-American male about 5’6 in height and weighing around 145. Having gathered this information, the victim agreed to identify her assailant through photo arrays at the police station. Bennett Barbour was identified arrested and in the span of about two months was charged with rape on April 14, 1978. Despite having an alibi, not matching the victim’s description, and having brittle bone disease Barbour was declared guilty by a jury. Barbour’s case is representative of the many cases in which wrongful eyewitness testimony produces miscarriages of justice. Bennett Barbour served 5 years in prison and 29 years of parole until he was cleared of his charges due to DNA evidence when the Virginia Supreme Court cleared his charges.

Many death row inmates were convicted while being defended by a court appointed lawyer who are often the worst paid and most inexperienced and least skillful lawyers. The Bar Association published guidelines for a good defense in a death penalty case”. Anti-death Penalty ( 2010)

In 1987 in Texas, a prosecutor was faced with this dilemma. Michael Morton was convicted of murdering his wife based on circumstantial evidence. Morton’s defense attorney was never told about, or given access to, the police report in which Morton’s three year old son had told police that his daddy had not killed his mommy. After serving 25 years for murdering his wife, Morton was exonerated after attorneys were finally given access to the police report and DNA testing of a bloody bandana found at the scene of the murder matched a man who was serving a sentence for the murder of another woman.

Did texting change the world we live in today for better and for worse? It has its ups and downs just like any invention created by the mankind and its pros and cons vary just like opinions and beliefs of every human being. The world’s first text message “Merry Christmas" sent by Neil Papworth in 1992 has brought a significant impact on our daily lives and they have not been the same since. The purpose of text messaging and its effect on people varies but is not limited to be known as an announcement maker, relationship breaker, fundraising tool, cry for help, implication of one’s boredom or craziness and admissibility as evidence. Text messages and their admissibility as evidence can play a major role in one’s trial; such evidence can help acquit the accused or prove their guilty nature. There a lot of factors that can contribute to inadmissibility of such evidence when it has violated one’s rights, sent by error, without consent, anonymous and part of forgery or fraud. It is important to keep in mind that its authenticity, relevance, consented copies and prejudicial factors would have to be taken into consideration and serve as evidence for both living and the deceased individuals. One of the first factors to be considered for admissibility of any type of evidence is to ensure that the way it has been obtained does not violate any of the Charter Rights and Freedoms. The most common reason for inadmissibility of evidence in regards to the Charter is a violation of its

There are many uses of physical evidence and why it is so vital in a criminal investigation. For one physical evidence is found to be more reliable than a witness as there are numerous variables which can make witness evidence unreliable, bad view or sight, emotional involvement, what can be gained by lying, and not having a good recollection or believable one. Additionally, physical evidence can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that a crime has been committed with science which can be tested and will still have the same outcome. It can also prove a story or testimony to be true or false and can identify the persons involved and what their involvement was. For example, if someone were to testify that they did not see the murdered person in

Considering that texting is a broad and controversial topic, there is a lot of research to look

The death penalty negatively impacts those who are involved in the trial jurors, justices. Earlier this year The Capital Jury Project was designed to interview “1198 jurors from 353 capital trials” to get a sense of how they are reacting and dealing with the subject of capital punishment. The results showed that “81% of female jurors and 18% of male jurors regretted their decisions, and 62.5% of female jurors and 37.5% of male jurors sought counseling after the trial” (New York Times). Brad J. Bushman not only covers the psychological effect of the death penalty but the contradictory topic of the death penalty. This allows a broad perspective on the subject. In the article titled “I COMMITTED MURDER” Givens informs the readers that his job as an executioner has a short-term effect on him. Givens explained that "[he] had to transform me into a person who would [takes] a life," then later going on to say that

Evidence of text messages are primarily used by prosecutors to discredit the defendant(s) even though “prior discreditable conduct is generally inadmissible,” however, exceptions are made (R v SM, 2012 [8]). In the case of R v SM, the judge concluded that the text messages are admissible evidence for two reasons, both on the basis that the messages provided direct evidence to the defendant’s involvement in the crime. Therefore, the exception under the exclusionary rule applies because the evidence is “highly relevant and cogent that its probative value in the search for truth outweighs any potential for misuse” (R v SM, 2012 [6]).

Mead Shumway of Nebraska, was convicted of the first degree murder of his employer’s wife on circumstantial evidence and sentenced to death by jury. His last words before his execution were: “I am an innocent man. May God forgive everyone who said anything against me.” The next year, the victim’s husband confessed on his deathbed that he [the husband] had murdered his [own] wife (Radelet, Bedau, Putnam 347).

Guilt is a powerful feeling. It often shapes our character and actions. It is human instinct to fear being judged, and denial is an inherent tendency. Franz Kafka’s The Trial opens with an idea of guilt and innocence. “Someone must have slandered Joseph K., for one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested” (Kafka 3). This introduction initially implies to the reader that Joseph K. is innocent. However, as the novel unfolds, and we are given more, yet unlimited information, the reader’s concept of K.’s innocence shifts. Though we never find out what he did wrong, K.’s guilt becomes more present with each succeeding chapter.