On Oral Confessions

Presently oral confession is still used as one of the important criminal evidences in our criminal law. Oral confession, which indirectly reveals the fact with the aid of subjective activities of the accused, has special significance in criminal testimonial. It is human instinct that causes oral confession have such characters as one-sided and easy to be changed. That's why our criminal procedure law emphasizes on abiding by the rules of relying on evidence and investigations but not oral confessions. Verdicts of guilty or not guilty on the accused depend on enough truly evidence but not guilty confessions. But in judicial practice of our country, confessions are actually used as king of evidence to give convictions. Oral confession becomes one of the prior choices of evidence forms of the agents. Oral confessions obtained in antecedent trial can be directly handed over to the court, without any burdens of evidential capacity. The evidence capacity and weight of proof of such out-court oral confessions depends wholly on personal judgment of the judge and is different from case to case.Although our scholars have done a lot of researches on rules of oral confessions, who recommend to establish institutions of right of silence, to perfect exclusionary rules of illegal evidence and rules of corroborative evidence, etc, systematic studies on how to use rules of oral confession to check admissibility of evidence and how to use rules of corroborative evidence are still lacked. The author tries to give tentative discussion on the issue, hoping to benefit the judicial practice.The article extends the discussion in four aspects. The first is basic concept of oral confession, generally introducing the meaning of confession of the accused in our criminal procedure law and the concept and categories of oral confessions in foreign evidence law, identifying the forms and characters of confessions of the accused in our criminal procedure law. Secondly, the author discusses the evidence values of oral confession. Analyses on evidence qualification of oral confessions have been given on subjectivity and legality, and ways of authentication of oral confessions have been recommended. After introducing exclusionary rules of illegal oral confessions of the US and our judicial explanation in same area, the author holds that necessary institutions should be established before perfection of our exclusionary evidence institutions. Analyses also have been given on objective of proof, sphere of proof and level of proof of corroborative rules of oral confession. Thirdly, the article discusses withdraw of confessions, which are widely seen in judicial practice. After that suggestions are rendered on how to prevent withdraw of confessions. Finally, several viewpoints on characters of oral confessions of the accused have been reviewed and commented.