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Originally Posted by proudfootz
I'm just contrasting Brendan's freely given statements against the coerced statements used by the prosecution.
As the freely given statements are 100% consistent with the evidence and the coerced statements would seem to require some sort of forensic support which is lacking, Occam's Razor suggests the so-called 'confession' statements are less likely to be true.
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Originally Posted by lkasigh
What's all this harping on coerced vs. freely given statements?
Apparently, the courts frown on
coercing statements from witnesses.
You can read all about it in Duffin's decision.
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People don't always freely confess to committing crimes.
Sure. But as we know sometimes police get 'confessions' from people who are completely innocent.
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The whole point of police interviews is to coerce, i.e. persuade, them to reveal information.
I'd argue that legally and morally,
coercion and
persuasion are different things (hence the different names).
I could, for example, persuade someone to give me money from their wallet - let's say in exchange for something they want to buy.
On the other hand, if I 'persuade' them by holding them at gunpoint that is rather a different thing.
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The question we are talking about is whether Dassey's statement is true or false and the question of freely given vs. coerced is not directly relevant to that (freely given statements are not always true and coerced statements not always false).
True enough. However it would appear that in the United States coercion is not a legitimate way to force a witness to incriminate himself.
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Okay, let's apply Occam's razor to the case as a whole.
OK
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Known: Halbach was at Avery's residence on the day she disappeared. Avery was seen having a fire some time after she was known to be at his residence.
So far, so good.
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No one else saw her after the time she was known to be at Avery's and her phone records don't show her leaving the area.
These assertions are less secure. We have a sworn statement that indicate Bobby Dassey saw Teresa leave ASY. We have a witness who saw a vehicle that fits the description of Teresa's RAV4 leaving ASY at the time she would have left.
Teresa's phone pinged a cellular tower many miles away from ASY after witnesses saw her leave.
So these claims are not 'known facts' they are disputed claims.
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Her bones and personal items were later found burned in Avery's burn pit and burn barrels, her car keys in his house, her car on his property with drops of his blood inside it.
OK
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Hypothesis 1: Avery killed her. [Under this assumption, Dassey, who freely admitted to spending time with Avery that day, including at the bonfire, would be implicated as an accessory.]
You leave out the unsupported assumption that witnesses who saw Teresa leave (or her vehicle leave) must be lying or mistaken. Or if true, then assume she came back to ASY for some reason.
You would have to make the unsupported assumption that the pings from Teresa's phone on distant cellular towers must have somehow worked out that way by coincidence. Or she really did leave but returned for some unknown reason.
You forgot to include the unsupported assumptions that Steven and Brendan could erase all evidence of a violent gang rape, bloody murder, impromptu haircut, etc to such an extent that there was no evidence of any such cleanup at all.
You forget the unsupported assumption that somehow Teresa's key would not have any evidence she ever handled the key she supposedly had in her possession.
You left out the unsupported assumption that Earl Avery must be lying or mistaken when he reports that after Teresa's disappearance the RAV4 was not at the location where it was later 'found'. If Earl's report is true, then you must assume without evidence Steven hide the vehicle somewhere else and then later moved it there.
This is one of the problems with trying to use Occam's Razor as the be-all and end-all argument - people forget that
all the evidence must be accounted for. You can't simply ignore evidence that doesn't fit your 'theory'.
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Hypothesis 2: She left his property, someone else killed her, burnt her body and personal items, transferred them to Avery's property, transferred her car and car keys to Avery's property. The killer or someone else later planted Avery's blood in her car, planted her DNA on a bullet in Avery's garage.
As we can see, your preferred 'Avery somehow did it theory' is chock full of unsupported assumptions.
Much like the 1985 Beerntsen case - police made it 'simple' by ignoring witnesses to Steven's alibi then persuading the traumatized victim to identify the wrong guy.
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I'll let you work out which hypothesis contains a greater number of unsupported assumptions.
Another problem with using Occam's Razor is that unlike unthinking matter, human behavior can be complex and deceptive.
Framing someone (like cops have been caught on tape doing) is a complex behavior which can deceive people who think simply.