Exclusion Rules Of Successive Confessions

Successive confessions refer to the confessions that the criminal suspect or defendant make with single legal interrogation,before which the criminal suspect or defendant have made guilty confession with illegal trial.The theoretical basis of eliminate successive confessions is the premise of this research.At present there are three main views,including the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine,directly apply rules of illegal evidence exclusion theory and the persistent influence theory.Unlike the first two,the persistent influence theory avoids the disadvantages of inconsistent relational structures and restrictive application.What is more,it reflects the essence of this issue and has the same legislative purpose with exclusion rules of illegal evidence.Therefore we should take the persistent influence theory as the theoretical basis of eliminating successive confessions.There are mainly three views for the issue of successive confessions elimination.The first one is that all the successive confessions should not be eliminated,because of the lack of legal basis,prevention of indulgence crime and the illegal interrogation should not be repeatable evaluated.But it damages the legal value of the safeguard human rights,deterring illegal investigation and finding out the reality.The second view is that all the successive confessions should be eliminated,on account of the persistent influence of illegal investigation and the judicial system and practical environment in our country.But it is unfavorable to punish crime and protect the victims' rights.The third view is that we should distinguish among different situations to determine whether eliminate successive confessions or not.There are also different opinions about how to distinguish.In order to weigh the multiple legal values all above,this article agrees with the third view.Most of theorists advocate eliminating successive confessions,in contrast,the common practice in the judicial practice is not to eliminate successive confessions.In practice,we find some phenomenon of the judges make a guilty verdict according to successive confessions after eliminating illegal confessions.It affects the function of the illegal evidence elimination rule,and it's bad for protecting human rights and deterring illegal investigation.The deeper reasons are difficulty of eliminating previous illegal confessions,confession's central position in evidences,and the lack of the court's independence.In order to solve the problem of successive confessions elimination,it's necessary to draw lessons from advanced experience of the countries and regions outside,and then build elimination rules of successive confessions of our country.We should determine whether excluding successive confessions or not by the connection between the illegal interrogation and successive confessions.And we can judge the connection by the severity of the illegal interrogations,the replacement of interrogate person and place,the time interval of interrogations,the correction of subsequent interrogations,the personal circumstances of the criminal suspect or defendant,and other diluted factors.The influential factors in the analysis should correspondingly represent a significant weight,and vice versa.It is allowed to obtain confessions again after excluding successive confessions.Before obtaining confessions again we should replace the person and place of interrogation,ensure the presence of defense lawyer and fully inform the criminal suspect or defendant that the previous confession is invalid.We can also ask psychologist for help if necessary.As for the procedure,we should directly start the successive confessions elimination procedure after excluding the previous illegally confessions.The accuser should bear the burden of proof.If the accuser can't prove that the successive confessions are not or only a little influenced by illegal interrogation,the successive confessions can't be used as evidence.In addition,we should strengthen cooperation and security with related systems to ensure the implementation of successive confessions exclusion rules.For example,change the judicial concepts of confession-centered and guilty presumption,improve the ability of detection,guarantee the implementation of the illegal evidence elimination rule,regulate the exercise of discretion and so on.Only if we solve the successive confessions problem fundamentally,can the judicial justice and advance the rule of law be guaranteed.