r/law • u/bendubberley_ • 15h ago

Legal News The judge in the Lindsay Clancy case is admonishing jurors who are refusing to follow his instructions

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u/Odd_Ninja5801 13h ago

I was on a jury once where some of the jurors ignored the fact that the defendant was guilty based purely on their own testimony during the trial. But because they didn't trust the evidence of the victims, they refused to find them guilty.

Mind boggling.

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u/Coolgrnmen 12h ago

It’s better to let a guilty person go free than imprison an innocent person.

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u/el-mago2 13h ago

Have you never heard of faulty self incrimination? There are loads of cases of people admitting to crimes they didnt commit. Admission of guilt cannot be used alone as evidence of a crime

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u/jonniezombie 13h ago

He is saying the opposite of that. The jury believed the person on trial, when they gave witness testimony that they didn’t do it. They believed this more than the evidence against them.

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u/gh0stwriter1234 12h ago

Depends on what the evidence is... if its merely circumstantial evidence that might not be enough. Because it comes down their word vs the other person's.

I know someone that nullified a drug charges case, because they could not prove the person had put them shrooms in their backpack themselves and it wasn't just stashed there during a party by someone else.

There was no video of them putting the shrooms in there or having them in their possession only they were found in their backpack which was not with them at the time. Basically there was not 100% certainty that they put them there.

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u/Odd_Ninja5801 13h ago

Can't really go into details too much. Suffice to say, one of the victims said they did x and y, and the defendant basically admitted that they did x and y. There was physical evidence to support it as well. Only x and y was needed for a conviction, but there was also evidence they did a, b, c, d and e as well. They didn't admit to any of the rest.

Jurors ignored that x and y was enough to convict, because they didn't believe the victims about a, b, c, d and e.

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u/UncleBlanc 12h ago

What was the outcome? Did you follow or did they switch?

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u/SoylentRox 12h ago

Note that if "a, b, c, d, e" included obvious lies disproven by evidence, and there was no physical evidence for x and y, and the defendant didn't actually admit to x or y, then it's fair to not believe the alleged victims.

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u/TIMPA9678 12h ago

Yes a completely different scenario would in fact be different

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u/sundalius 10h ago

You’re assuming that this person is honestly relaying the Defendant’s testimony for no reason. Clearly the jury split over it. The jurors that disagree with the commenter who shared their opinion would say “obviously the defendant didn’t confess.”

It’s uncritical acceptance of a juror who was one half of a group that saw the same trial and came to diametrically opposed conclusions.

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u/TIMPA9678 9h ago

What?

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u/sundalius 9h ago

It’s not a completely different scenario. It is the scenario as described from the perspective of the other juror.

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u/triangle60 13h ago

Please tell me where in the rules of evidence or under what case it says that a person's testimony by itself can't be used alone as evidence of a crime.

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u/grap112ler 12h ago

When the testimony is made under duress or torture. Also if that person is clinically insane or developmentally disabled, etc etc.

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u/Loud-Competition6995 12h ago

You forget the third equally likely option, the defendant is an idiot and misunderstands that their actions don’t actually meet the definition of the crime they’re accused of.

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u/Gloomy-Cover7669 12h ago

In that case it wouldn't even be admitted into evidence.

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u/grap112ler 12h ago

It shouldn't be, but sometimes does. There are loads of very low IQ developmentally delayed folk that have been sentenced for crimes they did not commit because they just go along with the suggestions of investigators.

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u/Gloomy-Cover7669 12h ago

Oh I know about the studies. Modern police interrogation techniques are too good and produce false confessions at an alarming rate. People of normal cognitive ability are not immune.

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u/Immediate_Gain_9480 11h ago edited 11h ago

Unus testis, nullus testis. Its a rather old legal rule from roman law that i think is abolished in most of the US if it ever applied. But is still used in a few countries. I think thats were the confusion is from.

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u/Legal-Literature-696 12h ago

It’s called prima facia evidence. In order to go forward with a charge against a defendant there must be prima facia evidence that the defendant committed the crime without the defendant’s admissions used to establish that fact. This is a motion brought before trial commences. NYL and not giving legal advice.

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u/piscina_de_la_muerte 12h ago

To add on to this, as an example, consider if someone walks into a police station and admits to killing John Doe. Without police establishing that John Doe exists, and is in fact dead, how could you charge the person who confessed to the "killing".

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u/OldBrownShoe22 12h ago

A proper admission to all elements of a crime is prima facie evidence of the crime though.

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u/VaATC 12h ago

Then they just need to collect the physical evidence to ground the case in the physical realm.

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u/OldBrownShoe22 12h ago

No, thats not required.

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u/VaATC 11h ago

So where is the corpus delecti coming from?

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u/OldBrownShoe22 11h ago

From people who dont admit to crimes, lol.

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u/VaATC 11h ago

OK, so you don't have a clue what you are talking about. Got it!

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u/sundalius 12h ago

Well yeah. That’s the point of juries. To determine credibility and weigh evidence to determine what the facts will be.

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u/legal_stylist 10h ago

That’s entirely legitimate, though. A juror is entitled to believe some, none or all of anyone’s testimony, or any combination thereof. A juror is perfectly entitled to credit the testimony of the defendant over any number of purported victims’ testimony, or anyone else’s for that matter. A juror is even entitled to disbelieve all the testimony given, and base their determination on the rest of the evidence
Weighing the credibility of conflicting testimony is the heart of what the trier pf fact (ie, the jury) is charged to do.

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u/Ambitious-Pirate-505 13h ago

Was thr defendant black or white