Evidence Criminal Evidence in Order

Evidence

Criminal Evidence

In order to bring an accused person into Court, there must be evidence. Without evidence there can be no trial. Criminal evidence can be (1) physical and documentary; (2) testimony of witnesses, or (3) the accused person's confession. Physical evidence is things like fingerprints, the murder weapon, blood, footprints, tire marks, something left behind at the crime scene, or DNA. Documentary evidence could be a "paper trail," receipts, photographs, letters, diary, drawings, maps, taped telephone conversations, or video from an in-store camera. Witnesses can be eyewitnesses to the crime or expert witnesses, such as a coroner, psychiatrist, handwriting expert, or social worker.

A confession is only admissible as evidence if the prosecution can show that it was not obtained by any sort of coercion and that the accused person knew that anything he said could be used against him in a Court of law, was aware of his right not to speak, and knew he had a right to have a lawyer present during police questioning. The law requires that these rights be made known to the accused in order to offset the basically coercive and intimidating atmosphere surrounding a police interrogation when police officers suspect an individual of having committed a crime. If this "Miranda" requirement is not scrupulously adhered to, a waiver may be obtained at trial and the unwarned confession made inadmissible as evidence (Dix, 2002).

Evidence may be refutable, that is, it can be shown in court to be untrue, or it may be irrefutable. For instance, for many years fatherhood was irrefutable if the child was born during the marriage of the man to the child's mother. Such a man was not entitled to argue in Court, for example, that the child had blond hair and blue eyes and was 6'4" tall while he had black hair, brown eyes, and was only 5'3," and besides the child looked exactly like the next door neighbor. As long as the man was married to the child's mother when the child was born, he was legally the father of the child. In some cases, this has now changed and fatherhood has become refutable since the introduction of DNA testing where it can be proven that a man is not the father of a child. However, if the man raised the child for several years, and now because he is getting a divorce seeks to renounce his fatherhood because he'd like to get out of paying child support, the judge is less likely to see this person's fatherhood as refutable (Koenig, 2005).

The police must obtain criminal evidence legally. If evidence is illegally obtained, it will not be admissible in Court. For example, if the police were to enter and search a suspect's home without a legal warrant and find the murder weapon, for example, this evidence would not be admissible because the police had obtained it illegally. Suppose the police officer enters a person's home whom he suspects is selling phony telephone cards and finds a map which shows the location of the phone cards and then finds the cards in that location. Because the officer got the map through an illegal search, "the phone cards are the fruit of that unlawful search and are therefore inadmissible into evidence" (Understanding Search & Seizure Law web site). Similar laws apply when a police officer makes a traffic stop. In order to search the car the police must show probable cause, that is, compelling facts to believe the driver of car had committed a crime. In January of this year the Supreme Court ruled on a case where search and seizure was at issue.

Roy Caballes was stopped for going six miles per hour over the speed limit. The police officer told Caballes he was stopping him for speeding and asked to see his license, registration, and proof of insurance. The officer asked Caballes to pull his car over on the shoulder out of the way of traffic and then to sit in the squad car. The told Caballes he was going to issue a written warning. In the police car, the officer asked Caballes some questions -- where he was going and whether or not he could search Caballes vehicle, which Caballes did not agree to. The police officer then called the dispatcher to check Caballes' license and see if he had any outstanding warrants. As he was writing the warning ticket, he asked for a criminal background check from the dispatcher and asked Caballes if he had ever been arrested. Caballes said no, but the dispatcher told the officer that Caballes had been arrested twice for distribution of marijuana. While the officer was writing the warning ticket, another trooper arrived with a drug detection dog. The dog walked around Caballes' car and signaled alert. Marijuana was then found in the trunk.

Caballes was arrested and charged with trafficking cannabis.

Before the trial, Caballes' motion to suppress the evidence found in the trunk was denied. Caballes was convicted and sentenced to 12 years in prison and ordered to pay a fine of $256,136. Caballes' lawyers appealed, arguing that the police officer did not have probable cause to search the vehicle, given the unreliability of dog alerts and that he had deliberately prolonged "the business portion" of the stop by requesting a criminal history when he could have issued a verbal warning instead of a written one.

The Appelate Court ruled that the police office had a right to prolong the stop because he had noted certain factors that made him suspicious. Caballes was dressed up even though he did not have a job, the car smelled like air freshener, and Caballes was nervous even when the officer told him he was only getting a warning ticket. The State Supreme Court reversed on the grounds that using a drug-detecting dog violated Caballes' 4th Amendment rights: "The police impermissibly broadened the scope of the traffic stop into a drug investigation because there were no specific, articulable facts to support the use of a canine sniff."

The State took the case to the Supreme Court for review.

The Supreme Court reversed with a 6-2 vote. They held that the dog sniff, which was conducted during a lawful traffic stop, revealed no other information except the location of "a substance that no individual has any right to possess." This implies that a dog sniff is not a search. Therefore, Caballes rights were not violated. Justices Souter and Ginsburg dissented. Justice Ginsburg found it troubling that the dog sniff was not "reasonably related in scope to the circumstances [that would justify] the [initial] interference." She pointed out that the a drug detecting dog is an intimidating animal. Justice Souter pointed out that no dog is infallible.