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In the law of criminal evidence, a confession is a statement by a suspect in crime which is adverse to that person. Some secondary authorities, such as Black's Law Dictionary, define a confession in more narrow terms, e.g. as "a statement admitting or acknowledging all facts necessary for conviction of a crime", which would be distinct from a mere admission of certain facts that, if true ...
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The solicitor-general argued that religious confession was not protected from disclosure. He also took the point that in this case "the confession was not to the church nor required by any known ecclesiastical rule", but was made voluntarily to friends and neighbours. The court held that the evidence was rightly received (not protected).
Confession evidence therefore tends to define the case against a defendant, usually overriding any contradictory information or evidence of innocence. A suspect's confession sets in motion a seemingly irrefutable presumption of guilt among justice officials, the media, the public, and lay jurors.
In U.S. law, a confession must be voluntary in order to be admissible. [8] Confessions (whether forced or otherwise) may feature in formal or informal show trials. [9] In India sections 24 to 30 of Indian Evidence Act, 1872 deals with confession, but the word confession has not been defined in any statute.
As a result, there is no way to know whether or not the resulting statement is actually correct. If any court relies on any evidence obtained from torture regardless of validity, it provides an incentive for state officials to force a confession, creating a marketplace for torture, both domestically and overseas. [2]
In these circumstances, it would be open to the trial judge to exclude the evidence of the confession under Section 78(1) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE), or under Section 73 PACE, or under common law, although in practice the confession would be excluded under section 76 PACE. [14]
The Supreme Court reversed the Colorado Supreme Court's decision to suppress the evidence, stating that there was no violation of the due process clause. In the words of the Supreme Court: Coercive police activity is a necessary predicate to finding that a confession is not "voluntary" within the meaning of the Due Process Clause.