Here is the scenario, during a conversation, a person was tricked or induced and unknowingly revealed the truth. A third party was in charged of recording the conversation while the person who revealed the truth did not know of that party's presence. Can such evidence be admitted in court?
I have included some lectures on this topic which might be of interest.
In general, a statement made involuntarily will not be admissible in courts. However, many jurisdictions that practice the common law legal system apply the principle that an illegally obtained evidence may be admissible if it is relevant to the case in question as per decided in the case of Kuruma Son of Kaniu (Appeal No. 35 of 1954) v The Queen (Eastern Africa) [1954] UKPC 43 (8 December 1954). The test that normally to be adopted before admitting such an evidence is whether the probative value of admitting the evidence outweighed the prejudicial effect to the accused.
There are many factors that determines if evidence is admissible.Paramount of these factors is: Relevant, and Reliable.
In general though, evidence is more likely to be inadmissible if the evidence is:
Hearsay
Unfairly Prejudicial
Misleading
Expert Testimony
I have written some commentaries on the admissibility of expert opinion in court and they can be found at:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/278674906_Civil_Judicial_Experts_in_Cross-Border_Litigation_The_Common_Law_Perspective
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259475321_Expert_Opinion_in_Court_A_Comparison_of_Approaches
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259461174_Expert_Witness_Evidence_in_Adversarial_Jurisdictions
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230305103_Expert_Opinion_in_Court_Civil_Law_Jurisdictions_France_Germany_Italy_and_Spain
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259469283_Expert_Opinion_United_Kingdom_Canada_and_Australia
Chapter Expert Opinion in Court: A Comparison of Approaches
Data Expert Witness Evidence in Adversarial Jurisdictions
Book Expert Opinion: United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia
Chapter Expert Opinion in Court: A Comparison of Approaches
Conference Paper Civil Judicial Experts in Cross-Border Litigation: The Commo...
Generally yes...but it depends. It really depends on the circumstances of the informant that "tricked"/"induced" the subject and the circumstances of their contact itself. As for the 3rd party, that really becomes a distract after that.
An oversimplified example would be US v. White; 401 US 745 (1971). This case deals with a government informant and government eavesdropping.
PS. this is the 3rd attempt to post here, sorry if the other 2 attempts show up.
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