Introduction

This week we move on to a specific category of exception to hearsay.

Imagine, for a moment, a driver on her way home from work. She rounds a bend, slightly too fast, and leans forward to press a button on her car stereo. Some instinct of horror makes her look up, and she sees a child on a skateboard, much too close. She brakes as hard as she can, but it is far too late. The car strikes the child, flinging the child to one side. She panics. Hitting the accelerator, she drives home as fast as she can. Inside her home, she breaks down in tears and tells her partner, ‘I think I just killed a little kid’. Later she is charged with driving offences and leaving the scene of an accident. She maintains her silence. Should the court be told about her confession to her partner?

Another situation: A person takes their car to an automotive repairer, and when they pick it up, they notice a dent in a side panel. They complain, only to be told ‘Yeah, one of our apprentices did that, but you can’t prove it and we’ll deny it if we have to’. If the car owner sues, should they be able to tell the court about the mechanic’s admission?

These statements are admissions or confessions. They are quite obviously hearsay – the partner did not see the accident, and the car owner did not see the dent being caused – but instinctively, they also seem sufficiently important that the court should be told about them.

The law recognises exceptions to the rule against hearsay in relation to admissions and confessions. However, in order to ensure the exception does not lead to injustice, there are a range of rules which apply to admissions and confessions. This week, we look at those rules.

Reading:

• Field Textbook, parts of Chapter 9 and parts of Chapter 12 (Required) NB: I indicate which parts exactly and when you should read them below.

Objectives

At the end of this week you should be able to:

• define admissions and confessions;
• state the rationale for excepting these statements from the hearsay rule;
• identify admissions by words, conduct and silence;
• describe the additional rules which apply to confessions in criminal law, specifically involuntariness;
• describe the police responsibilities around interviewing relevant persons; and
• identify the role of judicial discretion to exclude confessions.

Summary

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Tutorial

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Version

This unit was last updated on 28.10.2019