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[Sir Pseudonymous]

I can't imagine there are more than a handful of countries where saying "hey I committed a misdemeanor a few years back, for which there is and was no evidence", especially in an informal setting, is prosecutable.

[Kogan Loloklam]

I can't imagine there are more than a handful of countries where saying "hey I committed a misdemeanor a few years back, for which there is and was no evidence", especially in an informal setting, is prosecutable.

One of which just happens to be the United States of America.

Sad, but true.

Remember, we prosecute Underage drinking based on facebook profiles!

[Retro]

I can't imagine there are more than a handful of countries where saying "hey I committed a misdemeanor a few years back, for which there is and was no evidence", especially in an informal setting, is prosecutable.

One of which just happens to be the United States of America.

Sad, but true.

Remember, we prosecute Underage drinking based on facebook profiles!

That story is based in photographic pseudo-evidence, though. If you walk around saying "yeah, I'm 30 but when I was in high school I got hammered all the time" nobody's going to lock you up. Hell, some people talk about their pot use in interviews. The act of saying it isn't a crime.

[Kogan Loloklam]

That story is based in photographic pseudo-evidence, though. If you walk around saying "yeah, I'm 30 but when I was in high school I got hammered all the time" nobody's going to lock you up. Hell, some people talk about their pot use in interviews. The act of saying it isn't a crime.

Actually, no. It counts as a confession in the public record. They don't need evidence.

Evidence helps, but not needed if they chose to prosecute. It just needs to be enough to convince a judge that it is probably true. This is why I am probably going to jail myself in a little under 2 months.

[Retro]

I was under the impression we were discussing misdemeanors, not "hey, I killed some people once and didn't get caught." They're hardly on the same level of crime.

Here's an example of what I mean, from this GQ interview. It's cool for Jason Segel to say that he has smoked a lot of pot, likes smoking a lot of pot, and that if he gets less work he'll probably start doing it a lot again, and it's cool for GQ to publish it.

"I miss smoking a ton of pot," Segel says, genuinely wistful. "I can't do it anymore. I've got too much work."

[Armok]

That story is based in photographic pseudo-evidence, though. If you walk around saying "yeah, I'm 30 but when I was in high school I got hammered all the time" nobody's going to lock you up. Hell, some people talk about their pot use in interviews. The act of saying it isn't a crime.

Actually, no. It counts as a confession in the public record. They don't need evidence.

Evidence helps, but not needed if they chose to prosecute. It just needs to be enough to convince a judge that it is probably true. This is why I am probably going to jail myself in a little under 2 months.

That's insane, what if you were joking, or lied?

[Kogan Loloklam]

Smoking it isn't illegal. Possession of it is, and you used a celebrity as an example. Celebs get off easier as a general rule, and that is without counting the millions they have in defensive budget.

Alcohol is a much better source, and there is no proof that they even drank the alcohol contained in the bottles they are holding.  Sometimes the pictures don't even demonstrate that the bottle contained alcohol at all.

I have demonstrated that text alone works, and that some idiots are prosecuting on misdemeanors on self-incriminating evidence. I don't think I need to show anything else to encourage people to show a little caution. If they choose not to and they end up in jail for it, well that's not my problem

That's insane, what if you were joking, or lied?

Then you better pray that the judge believes you when you claimed it was a lie or joke more than when you claimed it was what you did. The moral of the story is, be careful what you say, for it can and WILL be used against you in a court of law... eventually.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

The crucial element in the murder conviction on an informal confession is that there's evidence the crime actually happened. I can't see someone being charged for claiming to have committed a crime that can't even be proven to have happened. Perhaps a severity analogue would be someone in the US claiming to have killed a vagrant in an unspecified third world country: not only is there no evidence that they actually did, there's nothing linking them to any given case. The charging people with underaged possession of alcohol based on private photographic evidence is, however, antisocial and insane.

[ILikePie]

That's insane, what if you were joking, or lied?

Then you better pray that the judge believes you when you claimed it was a lie or joke more than when you claimed it was what you did. The moral of the story is, be careful what you say, for it can and WILL be used against you in a court of law... eventually.

There's this guy, Tom Horn, he was tricked into confessing about a murder in what he though was a job interview. He said, he was drunk and that he was exaggerating, but unfortunately, the poor guy was hanged.

[Grakelin]

People 'confess' to things they didn't do every once in a while, too. Remember that guy who tried to confess to the murder of the child beauty queen around five years ago, but it turned out the semen on the body wasn't his?

In a photograph of a person drinking underage, there is evidence because there is a picture. In a murder case, there is a body somewhere.

If I try confessing to somebody's murder, but nobody knows where the body (or even the crime scene) is, the Crown won't prosecute me because its a waste of his time.

There's a difference between being prosecuted and being convicted, incidentally. District Attorneys (I call them Crown Attorneys a lot, because I am Canadian, and they work for the government and by extension the British monarchy. We call government owned corporations Crown Corporations, too) decide what they do and don't try to prosecute. If a jury (the people who get to make the verdict in criminal court, not the judge) can't figure out what you did, it will look bad for the CA/DA who wasted money trying to charge you.

Why is this in the Confessions thread, anyways?

EDIT: In Mullen's case, the police will now be able to connect him to premeditated murder through his 'confession', because there are two bodies.

But if I say

Hey, everybody, I killed John Lennon

I won't be prosecuted or convicted, because it is clear I could not have done so.

[Huesoo]

I killed someguy in central park in the 1990's in newyork. I then smoked weed and set fire to houses.

[Kogan Loloklam]

Vidale McDowell's case is interesting
In an age where most cases are solved with Plea Agreements, and the court systems as a general rule make more money than spend, you'd be surprised what a DA will take on, and how many "false" confessions you get (a plea agreement is basically you are saying you are guilty of x crime in lieu of being prosecuted for the original crime.)
You'd also be surprised how many innocent people are convicted. If it's a choice between a possible 1-3 years in jail and 1000-10000 fine versus a confirmed 6 months Probation (no jail time) and your record being "expunged" after 2 years and only 250$ fine, wouldn't you take it?
The answer to a lot of people is yes.

Oh, and if you want to be prosecuted for something you didn't do, you need to find a body where there wasn't someone already convicted for it, or there wasn't witnesses for.
It also helps if they aren't famous.
Google 'Murder "No Suspects"' and pick one of those names and you might actually have a problem if you confessed to it.
If I said that I shot Dennis Ronald Ross, a cop might actually look my way and say "hey, he might have done it" and bust me based on my 'confession'. "John F Kennedy"? Not unless I can prove it.

[Huesoo]

I like the Scissor Sisters.

[Rakonas]

I love elves, and my biggest fantasy would be to be an elf living in some forest with other elves frolicking around for eternity. I try to live out my fantasy in real life and succeed, minus the whole forest thing and actually being an elf.
I think dwarves are rather repulsive, work too hard, and lack emotion. 

[Karnewarrior]

I love elves, and my biggest fantasy would be to be an elf living in some forest with other elves frolicking around for eternity. I try to live out my fantasy in real life and succeed, minus the whole forest thing and actually being an elf.
I think dwarves are rather repulsive, work too hard, and lack emotion.

You disgust me.