🚀 go-pugleaf

flamestar wrote:
>
> The purpose of a trial is to find the truth.  If a defendant wants to
> plead guilty and wants his confession admitted that is his right.  The
> prosecution should never be allowed to admit a confession because
> confessions are inherently untrustworthy. If the defendant is innocent
> then the confession is wrong. If he is guilty then the court is
> expected to take the word of a criminal.

Interesting idea--and eminently doable.

Because it was NOT the Miranda decision that restricted the use of
illegally obtained confessions.  It was the *earlier* ruling in the case
Escobedo v. Illinois.   The sequence of Warren Court rulings was as
follows:

Mapp v. Ohio (1960):  illegally obtained evidence must be tossed out
(exclusionary rule)
Gideon v. Wainwright (1963):  you always have a right to a lawyer
Escobedo v. Illinois (1964):  illegally obtained confessions must be
tossed out
Miranda v. Arizona (1966):  must free the suspect if you didn't read him
his rights

So Scalia could "roll back" this sequence in inverse order--modifying
Miranda but not touching these earlier rulings like Escobedo.


--
Steven D. Litvintchouk
Email:  sdlitvin@earthlink.net

  Before tossing out these rulings read about the outcome of the Central
Park jogger case. 13 years later the prosecution admits that they
convicted the wrong men who had somehow confessed with details not known
to the public.
  By the way, if New York had a death penalty in 1989 the wrong people
might have been executed.

--
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