The Confessional Statement Utility In Criminal Trials (PDF/DOC)
The confessional statement of an accused person is of great evidential value in the dispensation of justice. It represents the most important and most frequently encountered exception to the rule against hearsay in criminal cases.
This piece of work is propelled toward examining the fundamental conditions of the admissibility in evidence against any person equally of any oral answer given by that person to a question put by a police officer and of any statement made by that person, that it shall have been voluntary in the sense that it has not been obtained from him by fear of prejudice or hope of advantage, exercise or held out by a person in authority.
In this work, we will summarize the most important aspects of the common law rules and proceed to examine the statutory definition and rules of admissibility of confessions.
Chapter one of this work gives an insight into nature, scope and relevance of confessional statement; and the judge’s rule and their application in Nigeria. Chapter two focuses on utility of confessional statement in criminal trials; circumstances in which confessional statement are admissible and circumstances in which confessional statements may be vitiated and application in decided cases.
Chapter three predominantly dwelled on retracted confessional statement and its effect on criminal trials in Nigeria. This chapter also examines whether retraction of previous confessional statements affects it’s admissibility and reasons why accused persons resiles from earlier statements.
Lastly, Chapter four solely focused on certain factors which must be taken into consideration before the confessional statement of an accused person is admitted in evidence.
1.1 Introduction
An adverse admission relevant to the issues of guilt in a criminal case is known at Common Law as confession, and the same terminology is employed by the Evidence Act 1990. As indicated above, confessions represent the most important and most frequently encountered exception to the rule against hearsay in criminal cases, fundamental changes in the law pertaining to confessions were introduced by the Evidence Act 1990, but in order to understand the principles of admissibility of confessions, it is necessary to understand the principles of admissibility developed at common law to govern the admissibility of confessions. Apparently, we will summarize the most important aspects of the common law rules, we will then proceed to examine the new statutory definition and rules of admissibility of confessions.
…chapter one continues
Click the button below to INSTANTLY subscribe and download the COMPLETE MATERIAL (PDF/DOC)!