On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 12:41, Kerim Aydin <ke...@u.washington.edu> wrote: > > On Thu, 26 Feb 2009, Charles Reiss wrote: >> And even if the above were not the better interpretation, surely the >> ambiguity on this matter would be sufficient to fail to satisfy >> R1504's condition (d) "the Accused could have reasonably believed that >> the alleged act did not violate the specified rule". > > My issue here is that the defendant specifically and directly confessed > to it. If e'd provided either a defense like yours or complete silence, > that would be fine - or at least enough for (d). I think we need to > take such confessions at face value, or do you think it's a judge's > burden to decide when a defendant really "meant it"? (And if so, isn't > that a matter for sentencing anyway?) We generally accept, prima facie, > that what people say about unconfirmable matters (e.g. what they were > thinking at the time) is true. And people should have the right to say > what they want, even self-damaging things; it's more harmful to the game > to say "I know you confessed, but we're going to ignore that". -G.
(d) deliberately does not care about what the defendent actually thinks, only what e could have thought. Therefore, there is no reason to consider the defendent's admission in deciding whether it is acceptable. -woggle
