Would a Texas court rule the same way? An accused’s statement may be used in evidence against him if it appears that the same was freely and voluntarily made, without compulsion or persuasion, under the rules prescribed.1 Those rules include the Miranda warnings plus the extra Texas warning that the defendant can terminate the interview at any time as well as a requirement that the defendant knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily waived his rights.2 In addition, a confession must not be taken under circumstances condemned by the decisions of the U.S. The silence is broken when the detective leaps over the stand and dives at the defendant, whose statement to police is eventually ruled inadmissible. There is a moment of ominous silence while all faces, especially the prosecutor’s, turn to the detective on the witness stand. The defendant, who is representing himself (and doing a pretty fine job of playing somewhat naïve in the ways of law), stands up and, before asking the detective a single question on cross, asks the judge what the legal term is when a detective is having sexual relations with your wife and that same detective coerces and threatens you into giving a confession to her murder. One of the defining moments in the plot of Fracture occurs when the case detective is on the witness stand and has just completed direct testimony about responding to the murder scene, hearing the defendant make a res gestae statement that he had shot his wife, and obtaining a videotaped confession. Question 1: Admissibility of the defendant’s confession If you can’t find the movie at a theater, don’t worry: The DVD is due out August 14. I started digging through caselaw, but after several hours of research, I still couldn’t find definitive answers for every question the movie raised, so I enlisted the aid of my daughter Allison, a second-year law student, as she can access more than just Texas cases.Ĭaveat: If you really want to watch the movie without me spoiling it for you, stop reading here. It was a good watch, and I highly recommend it.Īnd I have to say that even after 16 years of practicing criminal law as a prosecutor, I walked out of the theater thinking that I knew what aspects of the trial, as portrayed on screen, were realistic in Texas … but after more thought, I wasn’t so sure. The usual one-dimensional portrayal of our prosecutorial community began with our hero asking to try this one last case and assuring his boss, the district attorney, “If you give me a chance and there’s a way, I’ll put him away.” But the plot quickly thickens with a multitude of twists and turns, and the black and white images all begin to gray. The prosecutor, played by Ryan Gosling, is a young, hot-shot Los Angeles deputy district attorney who has just accepted a megabucks job with a civil firm and is on his way out of the office with a 97-percent conviction rate. Anthony Hopkins plays a devious, evil protagonist who executes the meticulously planned and super-creative murder of his cheating wife. It was tagged as “diabolically fun and beautifully intricate” by Rolling Stone magazine and “genuinely smart, pulsing with energy and sly wit” by The Wall Street Journal, and I have to agree. I will try not to spoil the movie if you haven’t seen it yet. So going to see Fracture, a movie about a murder and prosecution, was a TDCAA assignment that my husband found most amusing because I was going to have to control myself at least while we were in the theater. Quite frankly, I get so disgusted at the blatantly incorrect portrayal of the process that I can’t stay quiet, and my family is tired of hearing my tirades. I’d like to tell you that it is an attempt to draw the line between work and leisure time, but that would be a lie. In my household we try not to watch television shows about crime detection and law enforcement, especially the courtroom dramas. Law Student at the University of Houston Law Center A recent film starring Anthony Hopkins as a devious murderer and Ryan Gosling as a hot-shot prosecutor begs the question: Could this onscreen trial happen in real life? How about in Texas?
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |