공범인 공동피고인의 법정진술의 증거능력과 증명력

Abstract

The criminal procedure commonly provide for the joinder of defendants, whereby two or more persons may together be prosecuted in a single trial. Assume a case in which defendants A and B have been lawfully joined for trial, but at that trial the prosecution intends to offer against A a confession by him stating, in effect, that he and B committed the crime. That right of an accused in a criminal case to confront the witnesses against him would be violated if A, by his confession, was a witness against B but could not be cross-examined. So to speak, where the powerfully incriminating judicial statements of a codefendant, who stands accused sideby- side with the defendant, are deliberately spread before the judge in a joint trial. In fact, it seems to me that “interlocking” bears a positively inverse relationship to devastation. A codefendant' confession will be relatively harmless if the incriminating story it tells is different from that which the defendant himself is alleged to have told, but enormously damaging if it confirms, in all essential respects, the defendant' alleged confession. It might be otherwise if the defendant were standing by his confession, in which case it could be said that the codefendant' confession does no more than support the defendant' very own case as corroborating evidence. But it might be otherwise if the defendant denies about his confession, in which case it could be said that the codefendant' confession is required as corroborating evidence that supports the defendant' very own case.