Fewer maxims have greater resonance in United States common law jurisprudence than the presumption of innocence. Fused at the interpretative hip with reasonable doubt, it is more than an assumption and remains sacrosanct in American legal doctrine. Established in the US justice system via a Supreme Court ruling Coffin v US 156 U.S. 432 (1895), the presumption of innocence pervades criminal justice systems across the globe and can even be found in countries with disparate legal regimes. Further SCOTUS decisions reinforced the maxim including Estelle v Williams (1976), Taylor v Kentucky (1978) and Kentucky v Wharton (1979). The United Nations incorporated the principle in its Declaration of Hu
It was a vague and apathetic silence that consigned Brendan Dassey’s fight for justice among the 99% of cert petitions denied by the justices of the United States Supreme Court. The jaunt from docketing to distribution to denial was breathtaking. The indisputable realisation that Brendan’s egregious miscarriage of justice had been unceremoniously overlooked by the American legal process was unfathomable to the thousands of supporters both scholarly and civilian and it wore like a bruise. Is Brendan’s case one that polarises and divides? Did Brendan’s petition for certiorari address an issue of law in need of reiteration across the circuits? What did the cert memo feature? How could a rule o
After listening to hours of Brendan Dassey’s interrogations, multiple times, there are many issues to highlight but there is one segment among them that plays on repeat in my mind. Hearing Brendan’s curious and genuine concern if he is going to get back to “6th hour” in school after just “confessing” to a violent rape and homicide. Clearly, Brendan had no idea that his life was about to take a drastic turn based off of what he just discussed with investigators. He had faith in the system, a belief that authority figures wouldn’t steer him wrong. The power of influence that words and circumstances can have on a person during an interview or interrogation is vastly underestimated. While in
