How funny. As I predicted Obama has baptized the Bush Military Tribunals. A major talking point I have seen on the major networks there shall be no HEARSAY
What is funny is this
99 percent of Americans could not give the definition of Hearsay
99 percent of American are not aware that most of a Law student's time in evidence class is learning the 30 odd EXCEPTIONS TO THE HEARSAY RULE (Some how I don't think Obama is getting rid of these exceptions)
99 percent of Americans use the "well that is hearsay" in conversations and apparently have no idea what they are talking about .
It might work though for Obama since most people just want this to go away and go to business as usual
Friday, May 15, 2009
Military Tribunals Are Going to Get Rid of Hearsay- What the Hell
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2 comments:
"99 percent of Americans use the "well that is hearsay" in conversations and apparently have no idea what they are talking about"
LMAOOOOOOOOOOOO
You are right, too much Law and Order or Court TV/Truth TV, LOL...
Most Americans don't understand hearsay. I know. The problem is that hearsay evidence is not allowed because it is unreliable. The fact that there are a number of exceptions to the rule is irrelevant, because those exceptions are crafted for situations where we deem the out of court statement as reliable. And maybe hearsay is used in other nations and at other international trials.
However, there is a problem here. My understanding is that a number of the detainees at Guantanamo are there on the uncoroborated statements of various informants. These informants were paid to provide us with this information. Then we tortured (or used "enhanced interrogation or whatever you want to call it) in order to get these people to confess. This is not reliable and it is not corroboration.
Either hearsay statements and statements provided under coercion are reliable or they aren't. Either they should be used in courts of law or they shouldn't be used against anyone. You can't argue that the rules of evidence should apply against most suspected criminals, but not against the ones we think are really really scary.
Mike Enright
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