When a police officer or a witness cannot recall the exact words, the court does not necessarily deny them from testifying. Instead, the court assesses the witnesses’ knowledge of the facts or testimony. This in light of the fact that it is often difficult to remember exact words said by a person, especially when they are witnessing a fast-moving crime scene. In most cases, the court strives to capture a pattern of words and phrases gathered from many witnesses. The Jencks Act requires a prosecutor or the government to provide the verbatim report or statement made by a government witness after the testimony of a witness is received. The report or statement becomes the material used for the course of federal criminal prosecution (Solan & Tiersma, 2005) . Since the prosecutor is required to produce the verbatim report or statement after a witness has testified, they often attempt to play down the credibility of the witness’ testimony to get around the Jencks Act. Research by psychologist Alan Baddeley shows that verbatim remains in the memory for two seconds. Baddeley indicates that this short term storage of verbatim is referred to as phonological effect. Other researchers demonstrate that the length of time that verbatim is stored in the memory depends on several factors, such as language (Solan & Tiersma, 2005) . However, lengthy statements are harder to recall especially in terms of full verbatim. In that regard, it is very difficult to recall exact words when testifying in a court. To determine whether a suspect has given consent to a search or waiving the Right to a Counsel, the Court faces complicated situation especially when the evidence is police testimony. In such cases, the Court relies on the police verbatim that should be provided in writing. The case is complicated in the event that there are claims or charges of resistance against a search. For this reason, the process of providing a verbatim should involve other witnesses. Hearsay incorporates all statements that are made out of court whether oral, written, or otherwise. The Federal Rules of Evidence determine the process of collecting evidence by outlining procedures leading to acceptance of evidence in court. For example, in terms of confessions, a witness is subjected to procedures such as swearing, demeanor, and emphasis on the hearsay rule. The rule is used to determine the acceptance or dismissal of a confession. The dismissal or acceptance depends on the cross-examination of the witnesses’ testimony (Solan & Tiersma, 2005) . This is different from eye-witness identification since the confessor may be forced to confess or is not mentally stable. The legal systems often resists efforts to reconsider cases that have been officially closed for several reasons. These reasons includes the benefits of finality for the criminal justice system. It is not that the criminal justice system intends to impose finality on every case, but its attempts to stamp authority is ever case is mandatory. Jailhouse confessions cannot be trusted to form the basis case reconsideration, since most inmates might just confess to test the criminal justice system. On the other hand, some cases would require going back to DNA tests and evidence recollection since the criminal justice system cannot make judgments without going back to the trial process.
In language crimes, the government cannot depend on the testimony of a witness. However, a witness’ testimony can be accepted if it is in form of a recording (Solan & Tiersma, 2005) . In that regard, language cases are very hard to prosecute if the evidence is not tangible. Most cases involving language are only prosecuted where other forms of crime are attached to the case such as physical assault.
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References
Solan, L., & Tiersma, P. (2005). Speaking of Crime: The Language of Criminal Justice . Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
