Whatever you think of Drew Peterson \u2013 and I have a sense that I wouldn\u2019t want him to marry a woman I cared about \u2013 I see something disturbing in his conviction this past week in Illinois. Hearsay was a cornerstone of the verdict, allowed in under a law recently passed in that state. I had occasion today to discuss it with a law professor from Illinois who\u2019s taking my class. \u201cMy big concern,\u201d he said, \u201cis that it was ex post facto. It looks as if the law was passed solely so they could convict Drew Peterson.\u201d
\nThis one is definitely gonna be appealed. Smart money is saying that the conviction may survive the Illinois State Supreme Court, but that the inclusion of hearsay will absolutely get it thrown out by the time it has been reviewed by the Supreme Court of the United States.
\nMeanwhile, a few weeks ago the Connecticut State Supreme Court said that it would allow experts to testify as to the unreliability of eyewitness testimony. This has been the invisible elephant in the courtroom in many cases over many years. Judges have, historically, jealously guarded the credibility of the supposedly objective, impartial eyewitness. There have been so many convictions later determined to have been unmerited because the witnesses were honestly confused, that the highest court in Connecticut now approves expert testimony explaining how that happens.
\nI have some serious concerns about hearsay allowed at the level it was in Illinois v. Peterson. There are already dozens of exceptions to the rules of evidence that keep hearsay out, and it seems to me those should be enough. On the other hand, I agree with giving juries a better filter through which to sift the eyewitness testimony with which they are confronted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Whatever you think of Drew Peterson \u2013 and I have a sense that I wouldn\u2019t want him to marry a woman I cared about \u2013 I see something disturbing in his conviction this past week in Illinois. Hearsay was a cornerstone of the verdict, allowed in under a law recently passed in that state. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1892","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}