Can we prosecute a person who confesses but there is no hard evidence? If there is an individual who has acted in a gruesome manner and murdered another individual, can he be prosecuted even if he confesses to the crime but there is no evidence whatsoever, not even circumstantial? The individual provides vivid details of the crime but prosecution team fails to get any evidence to prove it in court of law. Since I am not aware of the differences in justice system across nations, my question is very general. How would each court of a nation perceives such cases when there is an ABSOLUTE lack of evidence but there is confession!
united-states This is not a question that is controlled by a federal statute or by U.S. Constitutional criminal procedure (arising mostly under the 4th, 5th and 6th Amendments to the Bill of Rights, most provisions of which other than the grand jury requirement, are also applicable to state court proceedings). No Contest And Alford Pleas In The U.S. In U.S. district court federal criminal prosecutions (with court permission) and in some U.S. states, there is a special process by which one can, in substance, plead guilty, without admitting the facts of the case against you, sometimes called a &quot;no contest plea.&quot; (The Latin phrase used to describe such a plea is a nolo contendere plea). Many states reserve this option for relatively minor offense like traffic misdemeanors. For example: In Michigan, &quot;A nolo contendere plea does not admit guilt, it merely communicates to the court that the criminal defendant does not wish to contest the state's accusations and will acquiesce in the imposition of punishment.&quot; A nolo contendere plea may be appropriate &quot;where the defendant would not be able to supply a sufficient factual basis for a guilty plea because he or she was intoxicated on the night of the incident, where there is the possibility of future civil litigation resulting from the offense, or where a defendant cannot remember the events which led to his or her being charged with a crime&quot; 1A Gillespie Michigan Criminal Law &amp; Procedure, § 16:15. Closely related to a &quot;no contest&quot; plea is an Alford plea: In United States law, an Alford plea, also called a Kennedy plea in West Virginia, an Alford guilty plea, and the Alford doctrine, is a guilty plea in criminal court, whereby a defendant in a criminal case does not admit to the criminal act and asserts innocence, but admits that the evidence presented by the prosecution would be likely to persuade a judge or jury to find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. . . . Alford pleas are legally permissible in nearly all U.S. federal and state courts, except in the state courts of Indiana, Michigan, and New Jersey, or in the courts of the United States Armed Forces. In some Alford plea cases, the evidence that makes a conviction likely is a confession. Of course, when there is a &quot;no contest&quot; or &quot;guilty&quot; plea in a case, no trial is ever held, ands the plea amounts to a confession. In Cases Where There Is A Not Guilty Or No Contest Plea In The U.S. The requirements are likewise not uniform across the United States when there is a not guilty plea and the defendant disputes the sufficiency of the confession alone. Of course, in practice, it doesn't come up very often, because it is rare for prosecutors to prosecute a case in which there is a not guilty plea in the absence of evidence other than a confession that a crime was committed, or that it was committed by the person who allegedly confessed. Usually, a confession is obtained in an investigation of a reported crime, and uncorroborated confessions of inmates in prison with no prospects of release ever or until there are very old are often not taken very seriously by law enforcement. This is a question of state law in state criminal cases, it is a question of federal law in cases arising under Title 18 of the United States Code (the federal criminal code), it is a question of different federal laws in military justice courts-marital prosecutions which are quasi-criminal in nature, and it is a case of district or territorial law in most areas of the U.S. that are outside a U.S. state that are not prosecuted under Title 18 of the United States Code. In U.S. military court-martial cases, corroboration of a confession is required to convict. In U.S. law, in many state and in federal court civilian criminal prosecutions, a validly obtained confession alone is sufficient evidence to convict. A criminal defendant who does not plead guilty may offer evidence at trial to rebut the validity of a confession at trial. And, if the evidence is sufficient to create a reasonable doubt, an appellate court could overturn a conviction based upon the sufficiently rebutted confession alone. But, a confession alone that is not adequately rebutted at trial with other evidence can support a criminal conviction in most civilian U.S. criminal justice systems. Also, frequently, a confession made prior to trial is challenged on the ground that it was obtained in violation of a defendant's Miranda rights or was not a voluntary confession that was obtained in violation of more general constitutional due process rights of a defendant (mostly under the 5th Amendment). In those cases, if the challenge is successful, the confession never comes into evidence at all, and thus, can't be used to support a conviction. In other cases where there is doubt that a confession is to a crime that was actually committed, the matter is often resolved for practical purposes with a forensic psychiatrist's determination affirmed by a judge, that the defendant is not mentally competent to stand trial. Post-Conviction Relief In The U.S. In U.S. law, another way that a case can present itself is when a guilty plea is entered, or a conviction is reached following a trial, and someone subsequently comes to the court after the conviction alleging that the conviction should be set aside because the crime in question was not committed. In practice, if it is clear that the crime in question didn't happen (e.g. a murder conviction of someone who shows up in court alive who pranked the confessing defendant into thinking he was killed), courts usually vacate the conviction without objection from the prosecutor's office. This is a form of a &quot;collateral attack&quot; on a conviction, and it is sometimes successful. But it is not always successful, even if the evidence that the crime was not committed is overwhelming. There is dispute in the case law and jurisprudence, in particular, in a federal collateral attack on a conviction, called a habeas corpus petition, if &quot;actual innocence&quot; is available as a defense to a conviction in the absence of any procedural violations of a defendant's rights in the court process. Very few convictions are set aside on that ground, but it is very frequently raised in habeas corpus petitions. united-kingdom In the United Kingdom, corroboration of a confession where there is not a guilty plea is required to convict (but this is not required in all cases Canada and in some other Commonwealth countries). In the Commonwealth countries — such as England and Wales, Scotland, Canada, and Australia — the plea of nolo contendere is not permitted. The defendant must enter a plea of &quot;guilty&quot; or &quot;not guilty&quot;. If a defendant refuses to enter a plea, the court will record a plea of &quot;not guilty&quot;. (Source) These shorthand descriptions only roughly state the situation in English law. For a more nuanced, but somewhat dated, analysis of the situation under the law of England and Wales that also traces the history of the relevant law there, see Raymond K. Berg, &quot;Criminal Procedure: France, England, and the United States&quot; 8(2) DePaul Law Review pages 256, 325-330 (1959). As noted there prior to 1660, confessions in or out of court were considered guilty pleas in English law, but major reforms were adopted in the 1800s. The departures of American law from English law in this area, in part, flows from the fact that the reforms of English law post-dated the American Revolution. france Most civil law legal systems are based on the legal codes of France, Germany, or Spain. France's legal system is examined in this post as representative of this type of system, as it was the original civil code legal system. France does not have a legal system rooted in the English common law, although it did heavily imitate English criminal procedure from 1791 to 1808. The structure and most of the principal doctrines of French criminal procedure are traceable to a legal code called the Code d'Instruction Criminelle adopted there in 1808, and then significantly overhauled and reformed in multiple installments the first of which was adopted in 1958, which is the event that prompted Professor Berg to write Raymond K. Berg, &quot;Criminal Procedure: France, England, and the United States&quot; 8(2) DePaul Law Review pages 256, 283-295 (1959). As of 1959, in France, the investigatory phase of a criminal investigation was more formalized than under English or American law and more cleanly separates investigative and deliberative parts of the criminal justice process with different personnel assigned to each function (all quotations below are from Berg, some spellings may be incorrect due to incorrect OCR translations): The first stage is the preliminary investigation wherein the offence is verified, the circumstances under which it occurred are determined and evidence is gathered. In the second stage all the evidence is weighed in order to decide whether or not the accused should be held for trial. The third stage is the trial itself. The investigation of offences preliminary to trial is carried on by a group known as the police judiciare and by the juge d'instruction who, until the new code, was considered a member of the police judiciaire. The police judiciaire is operated under the direction of the procureur de la Republique and is under the supervision of the procureur general in each Cour d'Appel district. The police judiciaire is, with certain exceptions, in charge of investigating violations of penal law, gathering evidence and finding suspected parties until investigation is begun. When the investigation is begun, it performs tasks assigned to it by investigating officials. This formal body can interview suspects and witnesses: If it is necessary to hold a person more than 24 hours, he must be taken before the procureur de la RWpublique who can authorize a further 24 hour period. During this period of detention, the suspect may be interrogated, though the length and details of the interrogation must be noted by the officer of the police judiciaire in a written report. A medical examination of the suspect can be ordered by the procureur de la Republique or by the suspect if he demands it after 24 hours. It is provided that the procureur general can instruct the police judiciaire to gather any information which he thinks will help him to administer justice. The procureur de la Republique also has the power to direct their investigations. The juge d'instruction as well, may delegate his duties to the police judiciaire so that they have all the powers of the juge d'instruction when acting within the limits of that investigation. They are not allowed however, when acting in this capacity, to interrogate or confront the accused. If it is necessary to detain a suspect, they must bring him before the judge d'instruction within 24 hours. . . .If the offence is a &quot;flagrant&quot; crime, the procureur de la Republique may examine the suspect at once. If the suspect brings counsel he cannot be questioned except in the presence of that counsel. If the offence is a &quot;flagrant&quot; d6lit, the procureur may place the suspect in custody after interrogation. If the juge d'instruction is present, the procureur de la Ripublique and the officers of the police judiciaire hand the case over to him and he proceeds with the investigation. Thus, the police judiciaire can make investigations and interrogate the suspect upon delegation or instructions from the procureur general, the procureur de la R6publique, the juge d'instruction, the prefet, or by virtue of their own office. They also have additional powers in the case of a &quot;flagrant&quot; crime or delit . . . It is the duty of the juge d'instruction to conduct an investigation known as the preliminary examination (instruction priparatoire). The judge may make such an investigation in three cases only: when directed by the procureur; when the person injured by a crime or delit complains to the judge and constitutes himself a partie civile; when the offense is considered a &quot;flagrant&quot; delit, in which case the judge on his own initiative may conduct an investigation. It must be emphasized that the purpose of this investigation is to determine whether there is enough evidence to hold the suspect for trial. . . The most ancient feature of this investigation is the interrogation (interrogatoire) of the suspect. It is also the most characteristic and probably the most important part of the investigation since it may lead to a confession and because the judge cannot order the committal for trial until he has heard the suspect. The theoretical purpose of the interrogatoire is the ascertainment of truth. It is necessary to consider it (the interrogatoire) as being at the same time a means of defense and a means of investigation; its object is to hear the explanations of the suspect for the purpose of verifying them, to record his denials or his admissions, to search for the truth of the facts in his convincing or contradictory statements. The interrogatoire is conducted secretly in either the cabinet of the judge or in the jail. The number of the interrogatoires is left entirely to the discretion of the judge. All that occurs during the proceedings is noted though the suspect is not under oath. The suspect cannot be questioned by anyone except the judge. The Code provides for at least two appearances of the suspect before the judge d'instruction. At his first appearance, the judge will verify the identity of the suspect, tell him expressly each charge against him and warn him that he is free not to make a declaration. If the suspect wishes to make a declaration the judge takes it at once. If the judge is of the opinion that the accused should be examined, he must inform the suspect of his right to counsel. If the suspect wishes, he will have one officially chosen for him. The judge may carry out an immediate interrogation if the matter is urgent,&quot; but other than this, the first appearance is regarded as a preliminary proceeding in order to inform the suspect of his rights and give him an opportunity to explain away the charge. Thus, as a general rule, the judge may not question the suspect at his first appearance. At least two days before the interrogation, counsel for the suspect is summoned by a registered letter. The proceedings must also be placed at the disposition of the counsel for the suspect at least 24 hours before each interrogation. The procureur may also be present at the interrogatoire.&quot;I During the interrogatoire, the procureur and counsel for the suspect can only ask questions after receiving the permission of the judge. Counsel for the suspect listens to the interrogatoire and makes notes. His role is to keep a check on the judge. If the suspect refuses to answer, the judge is provided with no means of compulsion. If the suspect persists, mention of this must be made in the proces verbal and if the suspect is brought to trial, the court may draw an unfavourable inference from the fact of such refusal. As soon as the judge d'instruction considers the investigation completed he sends the dossier to the procureur de la Republique, who must return his order within 3 days. If the judge feels the facts do not constitute a crime, delit or contravention, he declares a non-suit by decree. If he thinks the facts constitute a contravention, he decrees that the case be remitted to the Tribunal de Simple Police. If he thinks the facts constitute a delit, he decrees that the case be remitted to the Tribunal Correctionnel. If he thinks the facts constitute a crime, he decrees that the dossier and statement of evidence be sent by the procureur de la Republique to the procureur giniral at the Cour d'Appel so that the Chambre d'Accusation can decide whether the suspect should be held for trial.&quot;&quot; Thus, if the offence charged is a crime, there has probably been an investigation by the police judiciaire under the procureur de la Republique and an independent examination by the judge d'instruction. The suspect has probably been interrogated by the police judiciaire and by the judge d'instruction. The result of these investigations is all contained in one dossier which is now sent up to the Chambre d'Accusation which will decide if the suspect should be tried in the Cour d'Assise. The bottom line is that in France and most other civil law legal systems, while there is not a category prohibition on conviction of someone for a crime when there is a confession but no corroborating evidence that the crime was committed by the defendant, the task of the investigative stage judicial officials in the preliminary investigation phase of the process is to determine whether a crime was committed and what it was from a pro-active review of all of the evidence available or that can be obtained including a statement from a defendant with a right to counsel. The investigative judicial officials must be convinced from all of the evidence that is available to them that a crime was committed by the defendant. A confession might be critical in that evaluation, but the official's duties are to not accept that blindly and instead evaluate the defendant's statements in light of the totality of the evidence. It also bears noting that in the civil law system, following a first trial, an appeal on issues of both fact and law, including the issue of whether a crime was committed, is allowed, unlike in common law systems, where the findings of fact made at trial are final and binding on all appellate courts reviewing the case.
No. As the defendant's lawyer, they will have been privy to privileged communications. As such, it would be unfair to the defendant if they now started prosecuting. Also note that a victim very rarely has their own lawyer in a criminal case. The prosecution lawyer is acting for "the Crown" (essentially, "society as a whole"). (There are exceptions, if the victim is bringing a private prosecution - but this is very rare for serious cases such as rape).
The concept is known as lesser included offense. The prosecution believed that they have a chance to prove murder, so they charged murder, but they understood that the judge and jury might not convict on murder. So they said in effect, &quot;and if you won't find him guilty of murder, at least convict for manslaughter.&quot;
Murder is one of the few cases where the intention and not just the act is relevant. The act – killing a person – is the same for Mord and Totschlag, whereas fahrlässige Tötung covers acts that have caused the death of a person. The language of the Stgb labels the perpetrator who killed someone as a murderer or manslaughterer depending on their intention. That a person and not an act is punished is often criticized, but it has no practical consequence. Clearly, the intention isn't that the second one is free. Courts are able to interpret the law reasonably. However, the distinction between two kinds of killings seems to have no basis in reality and robs courts from flexibility to find a just sentence. There are occasional attempts at reform, but none will be successful while CDU/CSU is part of the government.
No. It means the existence of reasonable doubt is in doubt... One cannot conclude the question of guilt in either direction, so one must try again to see if a different jury can answer the meta-question, to then answer the legal question of guilt. ... or is not being addressed If only one person is voting against the consensus, or as many as are allowed by the jurisdiction, they are overruled. That's the allowance made for bias that has somehow reached the jury despite the filtering done beforehand. If more people are voting against the majority so that consensus is not possible, it is potentially because someone has made up their mind on the question of guilt regardless of what (some significant part or the weight of) the evidence indicates, defeating the purpose of the trial and providing all the evidence. A person not accounting for all the evidence can't be said to have reasonable doubt of guilt, since the doubt may be excluded by the remaining evidence. Similarly, guilt beyond reasonable doubt cannot be supported by only partial evidence, as exculpatory evidence may be among the part not accounted for. ... or cannot be addressed by that jury at all. Finally, a jury split on the decision of how to weigh the evidence cannot claim either to have or to have dismissed reasonable doubt, because they cannot agree on what a reasonable doubt is, in the first place.
I'd imagine that testimony from the defendant is rare enough that in the majority of cases, prosecutors do not meaningfully prepare for a cross examination. To the extent they do, I'd expect the preparation is similar to that for basically any other witness. So I wouldn't expect complicated flowcharts, because the general rule at trial is that you only ask questions whose answers are both known and helpful. So if I need to place the defendant at the OK Corral at 3 p.m., I'm only going to ask him where he was at 3 p.m. if I have evidence showing that fact is true -- maybe he gave a written statement to the sheriff, maybe he posed for a daguerrotype, whatever. I expect him to deny it, so I don't ask the question unless I have evidence more convincing than his denial. In this way, a defendant -- like any hostile witness -- is used less to provide any facts of their own, but rather as an involuntary narrator of my own story, authenticating evidence and validating the facts consistent with my theory of the case.
united-states I am answering this in the case of a criminal jury trial (given the context of the previous question). It is my understanding that the judge must accept (almost?) all evidence admitted into court. So, this leaves me with three questions: What happens if an official shows evidence that the judge hadn't agreed to feature in the trial? . . . What happens if the evidence happens to be inadmissible? A trial in a criminal case takes place in a courtroom at a predetermined date and time, with the prosecutor physically sitting at one table in front of a judge and the defendant and the defendant's lawyer physically sitting at another table in front of the judge, and a jury physically sitting in a seating area to the side of the judge, and a witness (usually) physically sitting in a chair on the other side of the judge (in rare circumstances, for minor witnesses, testimony is provided by telephone with the phone put on speaker in the courtroom for all to hear), and a court reporter or tape recorder keeping track of what happens verbatim. In a trial, essentially all evidence comes in through witnesses sitting on a special the chair in front of the judge designated for witnesses (called the witness stand) at the request of either the prosecuting attorney, or the defense attorney. This is the only way the evidence is introduced (other than by stipulations of both side's lawyers). Prosecutors and defense attorneys don't testify or provide evidence themselves. The judge is usually not told what evidence will be offered at trial in advance, although sometimes a pre-trial hearing is held to consider a particularly important piece of evidence's admissibility prior to trial, in a hearing on what is called a &quot;motion in limine&quot; or a &quot;motion to suppress&quot;. If that happens, the judge's decision made in advance will be honored by the judge when anyone tries to introduce the evidence at trial. But those are the exception and not the rule. Usually, any witnesses can be asked any questions at trial and the judge does not consider the admissibility of the answer to the question until it is asked and objected to by the other side's lawyer at trial. A defendant can choose to be, but is not required to be, a witness in his or her own case. In a trial, when it is their turn, the prosecution and defense, respectively, ask witnesses to sit at the witness stand one by one and ask them questions, which the witness answers under oath, absent an evidence objection from the other side's attorney. While a witness is on the stand, exhibits such as documents or physical objects can also be introduced into evidence in connection with the authenticating testimony of the witness (except in cases where both sides stipulate to the admission of the documents or other non-testimonial evidence). As the lawyers try to introduce evidence by asking a question to a witness on the stand, or by asking the judge for permission to introduce non-testimonial evidence, the other side's attorney can say, &quot;I object&quot;. If that happens, the witness on the stand is not allowed to answer the question and the non-testimonial evidence (e.g. documents, or a knife allegedly used in a crime) is not made available to the jury until the judge rules on whether it is admissible or not in accordance with the rules of evidence. Usually, the judge rules on the evidence objection immediately in the moment, although in rare cases, the judge will let the jury have a break for a few minutes while hearing arguments from the lawyers for both sides on about the relevant evidence rules and/or researching the legal issue, before ruling on the evidence issue. Once the judge rules on the evidence issue, the trial continues immediately. If the judge &quot;sustains&quot; the objection to the evidence, then the question doesn't get asked and/or the jury doesn't get to see the non-testimonial evidence. The lawyer whose question or offer to introduce evidence was successfully objected to moves on to their next question (if any) for the witness instead. If the judge &quot;overrules&quot; the objection to the evidence, then the witness answer the question and/or the jury gets to see the non-testimonial evidence which is &quot;received&quot; into evidence by the judge. This process continues continuously, for as many business days as it takes, until all witness testimony and all non-testimonial evidence has been presented to the court and both sides have told the court that they have presented all of their evidence. Then each side makes closing arguments to the jury, the judge reads the jury instructions of law on how to resolve the case, and the jury is sent to closed room to discuss the case and decide whether to say &quot;guilty&quot; or &quot;not guilty&quot; with respect to each charge brought by the prosecution in the trial. This decision is called a &quot;verdict&quot; and when the jury has made up its mind on all charges present to it, the jury lets the judge know that it has made up its mind, and the judge calls everyone back to the courtroom, and the jury tells the judge what they decided in open court. If the verdict is &quot;not guilty&quot; on all criminal charges in the case, then the case is over, with no post-trial motions and no appeals. If the verdict is &quot;guilty&quot; the defendant is convicted, subject to post-trial motions to declare a mistrial and appeals by the convicted defendant. If the convicted defendant appeals the case, and the judge abused his discretion in overruling an objection to the evidence that is made by the lawyer for the defendant (or the defendant personally if the defendant is not represented by a lawyer), because no reasonable judge could have found that the evidence was admissible under the circumstances, then the appellate court rules that the judge has made an &quot;error&quot;. The appellate court will not find that the judge's ruling is an &quot;error&quot; if the judge made the correct decision for the wrong reason. If it is reasonably possible that &quot;error&quot; possibly in combination with other errors made by the trial court judge could have caused a convicted criminal defendant to have been acquitted by the jury if the errors weren't made by the judge, then the defendant gets a new trial. The new trial usually before the same judge with a new jury. But the new trial is before a different judge and a new jury if the judge is no longer a judge on the court for any reason, or if the judge has been so defiant of the appellate court (typically ignoring its instructions in a retrial after a first appeal) that the appellate court decides it must remove the judge from the case. A criminal defendant is only acquitted by an appellate court if the appellate court finds that it would be impossible under any circumstances for the defendant to be convicted in a new trial, possibly with different evidence presented by the prosecution. What happens if a private citizen does the above? This doesn't make sense. Private citizens don't rule on the admissibility of evidence in a criminal trial, and can't introduce evidence in a criminal trial except at the request of a prosecuting attorney or defendant's attorney by being called as a witness and asking the questions that the lawyers (and sometimes the judge as well) asks the witness. Witnesses are not allowed to volunteer testimony or provide documents to a jury unless asked to do so by a lawyer in the case. What happens if someone provides evidence in court without the knowledge of the judge? As the process described above should make clear, this is basically impossible absent some extremely irregular event on the same level of irregularity as someone bribing a jury or threatening a jury with harm if he votes the wrong way.
Even before the police have any idea who did it, Bob is guilty of whatever wrong he did. However, if you want this to be a legal question and not a moral one, we should assume that you really want to know "Can Bob be convicted of murder, if the evidence proves that he did do it?". Yes, he can. See Morris v. State, 214 S.W.3d 159. The critical question was whether the defendant understood the charges (he did) and whether he could assist in his defense (he could). The desideratum of being able to assist in your own defense only goes so far. On the other hand, maybe no, per Wilson v. US. A government expert witness "testified that appellant had permanent retrograde amnesia and would not be able to aid in his own defense in terms of remembering any of the acts alleged in the indictment". The crucial difference seems to be whether one just has loss of memory, vs. loss of memory connected with some other mental disorder. [Addendum] Per Dusky v. United States 362 U.S. 402, competence to stand trial depends on whether the accused has sufficient present ability to consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding -- and whether he has a rational as well as factual understanding of the proceedings against him. I am not aware of any exceptions e.g. whether this is not the case with strict liability crimes like statutory rape, and since it is generally held that "competency" is a requirement mandated by the due process clause, I don't think there could be an exception.