The people answering themis's substantive law questions are terrible.
I asked this:
Why is C admissible? How is this not fruit of the poisonous tree? Is it because the evidence is being admitted against the accomplice and his rights were not violated? IF this is the case, could police just torture accomplices to get evidence against other principals?:
C. Stolen goods found in an accomplice's apartment, after the suspect involuntarily made a statement regarding the whereabouts of the stolen goods. The state seeks to introduce the stolen goods against the accomplice.
And I got literal nonsense:
After reviewing the outline, handout and final review, there seems to be three categories that the statement could fall into: voluntary, involuntary/coerced, or custody/interrogation. Evidence obtained as a result of a voluntary statement taken in violation of Miranda is admissible.Volunteered statements are not protected by Miranda, as they are, by definition, not the product of interrogation. An involuntarily obtained statement is never admissible against a defendant. Miranda applies to statements made while in custody to interrogation. I hope this helps!
After I pushed back, I got a straight up wrong answer. Note how the answer assumes that the confession was
voluntary:
Derivative physical evidence (e.g., a gun) obtained as a result of a non Mirandized confession (i.e., a confession that is inadmissible due to the police's failure to give Miranda warnings) is admissible, so long as that confession was not coerced. The question asks which evidence is least likely to be admissible. The stolen goods are derivative physical evidence obtained as a result of an uncoerced, non-mirandized confession. Thus they are admissible and therefore C cannot be the correct answer.
Pretty disappointed that they can't answer a straightforward question of law. do they even have real lawyers grading our essays and answering questions?
