The evidence of criminal cases includes physical evidence, documentary evidence, witness testimony, expert conclusion, etc. If the evidence of the crime is sufficient and the facts of the crime are clear, the court will convict. Methods of collecting criminal evidence:
1. Inquiry: Inquiry means that law enforcement agencies or lawyers ask the parties, witnesses or expert witnesses to state their understanding of the case.
2. Interrogation: Interrogation refers to the method by which law enforcement agencies ask violators, criminal suspects or criminal defendants to truthfully explain the case.
3. Identification: Identification requires the victim or witness to choose what he sees and hears from many similar objects, places or people.
4. Inspection: Inspection refers to a special activity in which law enforcement officers come to the scene to find and extract evidence. The subject of inspection is limited to law enforcement agencies, and lawyers have no right to conduct inspections.
5. Inspection: Inspection refers to the special activities of law enforcement agencies to inspect the personnel related to the case according to law.
6. Search: Search refers to the special activities of law enforcement agencies to conduct compulsory search, search and extract evidence materials from places or personnel related to the case according to their functions and powers.
7. Experiment; Experiment refers to the special activities of law enforcement agencies to simulate and reproduce the crime scene, criminal process or case process, which is mainly applicable to criminal cases.
8. Appraisal: Appraisal refers to the activities that specialized agencies or personnel use their professional technical knowledge and scientific and technological equipment to test related special issues and make appraisal conclusions.
It is precisely because of the great practical role of confession that it has a great negative impact on the investigation organs, and the hidden crisis will become more and more obvious. Mainly manifested in:
1, which makes the criminal investigation work mode rigid. Because confession has become a quick way to obtain evidence, in the minds of quite a few investigators, the working methods of criminal investigation have been simplified. They have long been accustomed to and rely on the case detection method of "finding the bottom of the queue-finding the suspect-surprise trial-solving the case". The infrastructure of criminal investigation has not attracted enough attention, criminal technology has been neglected, and the scientific and technological content in case detection is not high, which seriously restricts the development of criminal investigation operation mechanism and affects the formation of modern criminal investigation system.
2. The vision of investigation is influenced by confession. In the investigation of specific cases, due to over-reliance on confession to solve the case, the peripheral investigation and evidence collection work lags behind, which makes the investigation work easy to fall into endless verification of confession, and the investigation direction is extremely uncertain. In this regard, many investigators have a deep understanding that "pointing at rabbits to drive people away" often consumes a lot of manpower and material resources, delaying valuable investigation and evidence collection time, resulting in the permanent loss of key evidence in some cases due to untimely evidence collection, resulting in difficult cases that can neither be identified nor denied.
3. Inducing confessions by torture and other illegal evidence collection. There are many reasons for the repeated prohibition of extorting confessions by torture, but the most direct reason should be the over-reliance on confessions in the process of investigation and solving cases. It is self-evident that the use of confession improves the investigation efficiency and saves the investigation resources. However, it is an indisputable fact that confession is changeable and fragile, and it is not uncommon to retract confession in court, and there are also a few unjust, false and wrong cases caused by conviction only by confession.
To sum up, you can't convict just by confession. The defendant's confession is one of the legal types of evidence stipulated in China's criminal procedure law. A true confession, whether guilty or not, may become strong evidence. From this perspective, the role of confession is indeed unique and irreplaceable. But the confession itself may be false, and it needs to be combined with other evidence to determine whether the defendant constitutes a crime.
Legal basis:
Article 55 of the Criminal Procedure Law of People's Republic of China (PRC)
The principle of attaching importance to evidence, investigation and study, and not trusting confessions. No matter what the situation, we should attach importance to evidence, investigation and research, and don't trust confessions. If only the defendant confesses and there is no other evidence, the defendant cannot be found guilty and punished; If there is no confession from the defendant and the evidence is true and sufficient, the defendant may be found guilty and punished.
If the evidence is true and sufficient, the following conditions shall be met:
(1) There is evidence to prove the fact of conviction and sentencing;
(2) The evidence on which the final decision is based has been verified by legal procedures;
(3) According to the evidence of the whole case, the ascertained facts have been beyond reasonable doubt.