The Research On The Admissibility Of Confessions Obtained By Police Interrogations Against Procedural Rules

This thesis includes four parts except for introduction and conclusion.Part I explains the arising of the problem. There are a variety of legal interrogation procedures, and the breach of any of them belongs to the cases that confessions are gathered by violating legal interrogation procedures. People may not pay attention to the violation of interrogation procedures, but the dangers cannot be ignored. Once the investigation personnel violate the procedure to collect confessions, it not only hurt the the justice of procedure, and reduces the legal authority, but also may result in false confession and even lead to miscarriages of justice. For this reason, the explanatory document published by the Supreme Court in 2013, clearly stipulates that the confession gathered by violation of the video and audio recording system or not in the specified place in addition to the emergency situation should be excluded, so as to curb illegal interrogation and prevent miscarriages of justice. But the legislation and the relevant judicial interpretation do not make clear provisions, and there is a lack of unified criteria to identify in practice, which needs further theoretical study to explore.Part II shows the practical situation concerning the identification of the admissibility of confessions gathered by violating legal interrogation procedure. Through the analysis of more than 800 copies of the judgment documents, we can see that, the operation of illegal evidence exclusion is not optimistic in practice, and both parties do not pay enough attention on the confession which gathered by violating legal interrogation procedure. The main issue of both parties remains the inquisition by torture or other substantive illegal acts. When identifying illegal evidence, the court mainly accords to Article 54 of the Criminal Procedure Law, treating the existence of tortures, disguised forms of torture, or other illegal acts as the identification criteria of illegal evidence. And in many people's view, the violation of interrogation procedure behavior is difficult to be put into the same framework to discuss with the “suffering” or “pain” brought by tortures or other illegal behavior. As the result, difficulties in practice cannot be ignored,and how to identify needs further research.Part III tries to take four kinds of violation of legal interrogation procedure as an example, and probes into the admissibility of confessions under different circumstances. As to the admissibility of confessions gathered by violating video and audio recording system, not in the specified place, without appropriate adults, and by violating the right to counsel of suspects, most scholars have different views and haven't reached consensus about them. According to the experience of foreign countries, the main basis of an illegal confession is the confession's lack of voluntary, not the “pain” or “suffering” that the suspect suffers. As to the admissibility of confessions gathered by these four kinds of violation of legal interrogation procedure, maybe we can draw lessons from foreign experience, putting these confessions in the scope of the exclusion of illegal evidence. We should make a comprehensive review of the subjective and objective reasons of the violation of procedure and the extent of injury, making different treatments according to different cases, and no longer take the “pain rule” as a yardstick.Part IV tries to set a unified identification mode and standard of proof. There are many cases of the violation of legal interrogation procedure, although there are some limitations when we take these four kinds of procedures as an example, it is practicable to find a unified model via individual analysis. We can divide the acts violating interrogation procedure into three levels to study: legal interrogation, objective illegal interrogation, subjective illegal interrogation. When identifying, the court should investigate the consequences of violating the procedure, and the confession's voluntary comprehensively. If the investigative organ violates interrogation procedure with malice, the confession gathered without voluntary should be excluded. In addition, for the burden and standards of proof of confessions gathered legally, existing legislation is reasonable and feasible. And bearing strict burden of proof by the prosecutor is benefit to the determination of facts and the smooth process of the proceedings.