accused of essay meaning

So You’ve Been Accused Of Plagiarism: Now What?

Being accused of plagiarism is, in a word, frightening.

It’s a fear that’s shared by nearly all students, including those who are careful to not use unattributed work, largely because of the potentially severe consequences and stigma that can follow a plagiarism allegation.

However, if you find yourself accused of plagiarism, the most important thing to do is to not panic. As bleak as things may seem to be, it is likely not the end of the world or your academic career. This is especially true if the case is your first infraction and the allegations are not particularly serious.

What happens next depends on a variety of factors including the nature of the plagiarism allegation and the level of education you are in. Every situation is different.

The first thing to do is to speak frankly with your instructor. Ask them why they felt that you had plagiarized and what the next steps are in this particular case.

Many teachers, especially in relatively minor cases of plagiarism, don’t take the issue any higher. They simply address the issue within their classroom and hand out whatever punishment they see fit.

While this can be difficult, especially if it means failing or having to redo an assignment, it also means that the incident likely won’t have any long term consequences.

If your instructor has submitted the case for further disciplinary action, then it’s important to ask them what is next for you and to confer with your student handbook to learn what the next steps are.

In many cases, an administrator simply takes over the case and makes a decision unilaterally about what punishment, if any, should be handed out. Other times, the case may go before a tribunal that resembles a trial, giving you a chance to present a full defence.

However, regardless of what is next, it’s important to remember one simple thing: This is not the criminal justice system. The rules about what police and courts can and can not do don’t apply. School’s have a great deal of leeway when it comes to handing out punishments to their students.

As such, the best thing to do, in general, is to be open and honest. Even though it may feel like it, your teachers and your administrators are not your enemy. They don’t want to harm your educational career.

If you didn't understand the rules of attribution, say so. If you did plagiarize for one reason or another, say so. If your school is accusing you of plagiarism they likely have compelling evidence already. The best action you can take is not to try and disprove the evidence, but to work with your school to show why you deserve another chance.

But, even if you don’t get that second chance, it’s likely not the end of the world. According to an analysis from Australia, the most common punishment for an initial allegation of plagiarism is either a zero mark or a reduced mark on the assignment . While this is certainly a setback, it’s one you can recover from.

In the end, the best thing to do with an allegation of plagiarism is usually not to try and disprove it, but rather, to learn from it. Even if you didn’t intend to plagiarize, learning how the allegation came about can help you avoid future problems.

As serious as plagiarism is, it’s usually not the end of an academic career. Instead, it can be a very powerful teaching moment, but only if you’re ready to listen.

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What to do when you’re accused of AI cheating

AI detectors like Turnitin and GPTZero suffer from false positives that can accuse innocent students of cheating. Here’s the advice of academics, AI scientists and students on how to deal with it.

Your teacher says you used artificial intelligence to cheat. You did no such thing. Now what?

Stay calm, and let the facts help you.

Less than a year into the life of ChatGPT, teachers everywhere are getting AI-detecting tools that promise to expose when students use chatbots to cheat. By August, an AI detector made by the plagiarism-detection company Turnitin had already been run on more than 70 million assignments, it said.

Geoffrey A. Fowler

AI surveillance might deter cheaters. But sometimes these detectors get it wrong, too. And even a small “false positive” error rate means some students could be wrongly accused — an experience with potentially devastating long-term effects.

After I wrote about the arrival of the AI detector from Turnitin , I heard from many angry high school and college students (and some of their parents) claiming they had been falsely accused of AI cheating.

So I asked some of them how they handled the accusations, and I also sought some advice from experts in academic integrity and AI.

The clear lesson: You can fight back. Many told me sharing an article like this one with the instructor is a good place to start. (Hi, teachers. I’m on your side, too! I don’t want us to misuse tech in ways that could have dire consequences.)

Here are steps to consider. Hopefully you can find resolution before you get to the end of the list.

Start with a non-accusatory conversation

I completely understand if you’re upset, but approaching your accuser with guns blazing might make matters worse.

Several students told me that arguing with their instructors came with a cost: Their teacher stopped trusting them and gave them a bad grade in the end anyway. But in other cases, a polite back-and-forth conversation resulted in an A.

“Speak directly to the instructor, in as polite and conciliatory terms as possible,” said Christian Moriarty , a professor of ethics and law at St. Petersburg College in Florida, who studies academic integrity. “Escalating makes everybody go on the defensive.”

Part of education is learning to advocate for yourself. Explain how you either didn’t use AI at all or only used it within the terms that was permitted for the course.

Just remember: This is new to everyone. Many instructors haven’t yet had a chance to learn how Turnitin’s AI reports work, which is different from the plagiarism reports the software has offered for years. With AI, a detector doesn’t have any “evidence” — just a hunch based on some statistical patterns.

Even Turnitin says everyone should take a chill pill . “The first step should always be to have a conversation with the student,” said Turnitin’s chief product officer, Annie Chechitelli. “Our guidance is, and has been, that there is no substitute for knowing a student, knowing their writing style and background.”

Bring along data about AI detector errors

AI detectors might present scientific-looking percentages or scores, but nobody should treat those results as fact.

Too many educators think AI detectors are “a silver bullet and can help them do the difficult work of identifying possible academic misconduct,” said Sarah Eaton , an education professor at the University of Calgary and the editor of the International Journal for Educational Integrity. “The reality is that these products are not perfect.”

My favorite example of just how imperfect they can be: A detector called GPTZero even claimed the U.S. Constitution was written by AI .

In July, OpenAI — the company that made ChatGPT — shut down its own AI detector tool “due to its low rate of accuracy.”

In June, Turnitin reported that on a sentence-by-sentence level, its software incorrectly flags 4 percent of writing as being AI-generated. There is a higher incidence of these false positives in cases where Turnitin detects that less than 20 percent of a document is AI-generated.

“Teachers should be using AI reports as resources, not deciders, and educators always make final determinations,” Chechitelli said.

Certain types of writing, especially technical topics, are more likely to be erroneously flagged as AI-generated. There are only so many ways one can explain cellular mitosis, so your words may be less likely to stand out as human. (I explain some of the science of how an AI detector looks at writing that’s suspiciously average in this column .)

There’s research that suggests detectors are biased against nonnative English speakers , and several of the students who shared their experiences were writing in English as a second, or even a third, language.

Want to drive home the point? Run some of your other writing dated before the arrival of ChatGPT in the fall of 2022 through an AI detector, to see whether any of it gets flagged. If it does, the problem is clearly the detector, not the writing. (It’s a little aggressive, but one student told me he did the same with his instructor’s own writing to make the point.)

Some well-known AI scientists argue that the error rate in AI detectors means they just shouldn’t be allowed. “I think these tools should be banned and students shouldn’t be put in a position of having to do this type of stuff,” said Timnit Gebru, the executive director of the Distributed AI Research Institute . “The responsibility lies with the schools and governments.”

But don’t expect them to go away any time soon. “We will continue to improve our AI writing detection systems and we remain dedicated to making it available to educators,” Chechitelli said.

Try to prove the originality of your work

When your work gets flagged, your instructor might expect you to prove you didn’t use AI to cheat. That isn’t exactly fair — how can you prove a negative?

But you might be able to avoid more trouble by offering some evidence that you really did the work.

Several students I spoke with suggested Google Docs or Microsoft Word could help. Both offer a version history function that can keep track of changes to the file, so you can demonstrate how long you worked on it and that whole chunks didn’t magically appear. Other students recommended simply screen recording yourself writing.

Copying and pasting from an AI program also has some telltale signs that should be missing in an entirely original student work. For example, ChatGPT text uses a unique font. And all chatbots have a well-documented problem with making up facts and sources. (That also means if your essay has made-up facts or completely fabricated footnotes, it could be a sign you let AI do the writing.)

There are more traditional ways to show your work, too, including offering to do a live oral presentation. If you know your writing has been flagged as AI in the past, perhaps tell your instructor that upfront and seek feedback on drafts while you’re in process.

Another way to avoid being flagged in the first place: Be sure to write with a unique voice. “Writing with your own style with language you understand and commonly use will help show that you are the unique author of the assignment,” said Christopher Casey , the director of digital education at the University of Michigan at Dearborn.

Understand your right to due process

If a polite conversation doesn’t work, it’s time to learn your institution’s official rules for academic misconduct.

“It is perfectly reasonable to file an appeal or complaint or whatever your institution calls it, to be able to say I did everything correctly and the instructor is saying I didn’t,” Moriarty said.

Many universities have an office to help students negotiate academic misconduct, sometimes called an ombudsperson or student affairs office.

In some cases, instructors have gone rogue by using unauthorized AI tools to accuse students of cheating. Some higher education institutions ban them or have very specific guidance about how they’re supposed to be used. Also, check the course syllabus for what it did or didn’t say about using AI for the class.

Most of the time, instructors shouldn’t be using detection software “in a search-and-destroy way rather than in a way that supports student learning” Eaton said.

It’s worth noting that some instructors have actually come to the conclusion that they can’t stop students from using AI. False accusations are “the crux of the issue with trying to ban students from using AI, especially for homework or online courses where students can and should not be monitored 24/7,” Casey said. (This fall, his campus will not allow AI detection reports to be part of any academic integrity processes.)

If all else fails and you need to pass a class to graduate, you or your parents could talk to a lawyer. “If you feel they didn’t follow their procedures, you might be able to have some sort of lawsuit,” Moriarty said. “But it’s a high bar, and it’s probably more money than a lot of people are willing to spend.”

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What To Do If You're Accused of Plagiarism/Cheating

Let’s just get this out of the way right off the bat. Don’t plagiarize. Don’t cheat.

Seriously, though, don’t do it. Not only does it devalue what you’re supposed to be learning and the hard work your peers are putting in, it’s completely and utterly against all colleges’ policies and rules. Violating a college’s academic honesty policies is no joke – most colleges have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to plagiarism and cheating, which can lead to your probation or expulsion. So again…seriously, do not plagiarize or cheat on any of your work, exams, papers, or projects.

But you wouldn’t be reading this article if you weren’t in some kind of trouble, so whether you did plagiarize/cheat or have been falsely accused of doing so, it’s imperative for you to know how to handle such a situation if it arises in your college career.

What to Do If Accused of Plagiarism?

Plagiarizing is taking someone else’s work and claiming it as your original work. This can take many forms. The most well-known (and easily recognized) way is copying someone’s paper / project or having someone else write your assignment for you. But copying pieces of material without giving credit or citations, using artwork you didn’t create or get permission to use, patchwriting , and paraphrasing ideas that aren’t your own without credit are all forms of plagiarism.

If you’ve been accused of plagiarism there’s a couple of key points to keep in mind:

1. Learn the School/Department’s Policy

Knowing your rights in this type of situation is vital for your defense against it. Are you being accused of direct plagiarism (i.e. directly stealing someone else’s work), self-plagiarism (reusing your own work), paraphrasing/patchwork plagiarism, unintentional plagiarism (poor or lacking citations), or something else? Keep in mind none of these are good, but the severity of what you are accused of matters…a lot. Blatant plagiarism will likely be dealt with very harshly, whereas accidental plagiarism might involve a heartfelt apology and minor punishment. Know what you’re accused of, what your school’s policy details might entail, and what the consequences are before you do anything.

2. Don’t Lie

Your professor has heard every excuse out there. They have software built for detecting plagiarism, instructors spend their entire careers learning this material, and they know from previous interactions how you talk, write, and think. Do you really think you’ll be able to get one by them? Lying about plagiarism is a sure-fire way for people to lose any feelings of leniency towards you. You’ll just tick them off.

3. Talk to Your Professor

Your professor is the first point of contact when being accused of plagiarism. Ask them to explain what they’re accusing you of and why they believe you plagiarized. They are also the ones most likely to grant you mercy (if you deserve it), so pay attention to what they’re saying, try to clarify if you can, and make sure you understand at the end of the conversation what they intent to do next – let you off with a warning, flunk you, report you to a higher authority in the school, etc.

4. References, References, References

Learn to reference and cite your sources. No one has ever gotten in trouble for over citing their sources. It’s perfectly fine if you reference someone else’s work in your papers, but give them proper credit in your project. Make sure you know your references and have them handy if accused of plagiarism. Showing where you got your information and how you accidentally didn’t cite something properly can go a long way in getting all charges cleared. Remember, instructors aren’t looking to bring someone up on academic dishonesty charges for a genuine mistake. If you can show where you made a good faith effort, you’ll likely just be given a warning.

5. Respect the Process & Ask for Mercy

If you get caught, do not (really, don’t do it) get defensive and aggressive. Being upset and defensive can get you into more trouble and create problems. Instead, be calm. Talk with your professor and/or dean calmly about your situation and learn what you need to do to plead your case. If you’ve plagiarized, there may be nothing you can do except accept the consequences of your actions, however, doing so in a calm and adult manner can only help you in the long run.

What to Do If Accused of Cheating?

Cheating on any academic work is unacceptable. Cheating is pretty self-explanatory for most people, but it can include looking at someone’s test/answers during an exam, using outside resources when they’re forbidden, stealing test answers off the internet, plagiarizing (which is a form of cheating), etc. So, what should you do if you are caught cheating?

1. Read and Learn the Policy

Sound familiar? Similar to plagiarism, it’s important to learn your school’s policy on cheating. It will tell you what the school defines as cheating and your rights. This can help you determine if you even have a case against the cheating charge you’re accused of committing.

2. Talk to Your Instructor

Be real—did you cheat? If you did, beg your instructor for mercy. They might not give it but it’s worth a shot. If you really, truly didn’t cheat, explain–calmly and rationally—the situation from your perspective. Try to give evidence in support of why you weren’t cheating. Do not become aggressive, angry, or shout at your instructor. Ask for their help in clearing you of this issue.

3. Ask If Your Score Can Be Thrown Out

Failing a class is better than getting in trouble for your entire academic career. You can ask you professor if they are willing to throw out the score or give you a zero on the test/exam/project you’re accused of cheating on. Keep in mind this might mean you risk failing the class, but that might be the best bad option. It’s easier to re-take a failed class rather than get kicked out of school.

4. Speak with the Administration about It

If this is your first offense and the severity of your cheating isn’t high, you may get a warning. There are many levels to this process – speak to an administrator or dean and understand the steps you’ll need to go through. Plead your case, ask for mercy, and show genuine remorse at your mistake. If you can show how this will never happen again (and mean it!) people will be more likely to give you a second chance.

5. Accept the Consequences

Colleges and universities have zero-tolerance policies for a reason. If you cheated (particularly if this is a 2 nd or more offense) you will likely have to accept the consequences of your actions. Try to do so responsibly and with contrition. You’ve come to college to learn and have a successful future, so cheating really isn’t the answer. But start now by making amends and take responsibility for your mistakes. It won’t clear away the problem right this moment, but it can turn things around for you down the road.

Plagiarism and cheating are serious, and the best way to not need any of this advice is to just not do it. College is about learning new things. Cheating your way to graduation is definitely going to harm not only your college career, but it can follow you into your job.

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Florida State University

FSU | Writing Resources

Writing Resources

The English Department

• College Composition
• Our Own Words 2006 - 2007 Edition

Wrongfully Accused

As I blew past a small black cavalier in the right lane, going 45 in a 35, I cranked up Nelly on the radio. My friend Zach from work belted out the lyrics to “Must be the money” from the passenger seat as I drove him home. I looked in the rearview mirror to check my hair and noticed red and blue lights following close behind. I hesitated a second, assuming the lights would rush past, but realized the cop was after me. I hit the switch on the radio and started to panic. I could hear Zach telling me to “Calm down” and “Everything will be okay”. After pulling onto the shoulder I heard a fierce southern accent come over an intercom giving specific instructions: “Turn off your engine and place the keys on the roof.” At this point I thought “What is happening, is this routine?”.

I turned the engine off, cracked my car door open, and placed the keys on the roof. As the keys slipped from my fingers, a warm rough hand snatched my wrist and proceeded to rip me from the vehicle. The officer flung my body around to the outside of the car. The dew on the window from the approaching morning moistened my cheek. I winced as the cold steel handcuffs clicked tighter and tighter.

“Please what did I do wrong? I don’t understand.”

“Do you usually run from the police ma’am?”

“Run from you? I pulled over as soon as I realized you were chasing me!”

“Your actions convince me otherwise.”

I felt the blood rush to my head and my face grew hot. What an asshole! I wanted to spit in his face and scream at him to let me go. My eyes began to water and I was on the brink of tears, but I forced them back. I wasn’t giving this jerk the pleasure. He put me in the back of the cop car and told me he would be back. I watched him rifle through my purse and glove box, apparently he was searching for something. I noticed a look of disappointment on his face when nothing came of his search. He started walking back toward the car with my purse in hand. I didn’t know what was about to happen. I knew I would be in a heap of trouble though, considering both my parents were in Houston for the Super Bowl and had no idea I went out for the evening, eventhough it was only bowling and Dennys. The officer approached the car, stopped a minute, then got into the front seat. He then removed my license from my wallet, and started fiddling on his computer.

“I need to call someone to pick you up. Who can I call?”

I thought for a moment. “My sister Kasey,” I replied.

She didn’t answer and the only thing he could do was leave a message. I started breathing extremely fast, I knew I was in a pickle. I knew I had to call my parents. It was my only other option. What would the officer say, what would they say?

“Hey,” he barked, “I need another number of a guardian or you’re on your way to jail.”

“Jail? I still don’t know exactly what I did wrong.”

“I don’t need your attitude, only a name and number.”

“Okay you can call my step dad Michael.”

The conversation was brief. My hands, still cuffed behind my back, began sweating and my heart was racing. I rested my head on the window and stared out into the dark night. The only light for miles was the faint glow of the Chevron sign just up the road. My breath fogged the window and clouded my view. I could see a side profile of Zach sitting on the sidewalk with his hands resting on his knees. He looked worried and I was sorry he was included in all this, but he was the farthest thing from my mind. My mind was focused on one thought, my mother’s reaction. At that moment the cop car seemed more comforting than going home to deal with the consequences. Just then, a set of approaching headlights in the rearview mirror caught my eye. A dark figure walked toward the car and began talking with the officer. I closed my eyes hoping that this was a terrible dream. Just after closing my eyes I was startled by a tap on the window. The officer opened the door and asked me to step out of the vehicle. The dark figure was now clear. It was Les, the manager of my stepdad’s restaurant, here to pick me up. I could tell he dressed quickly and his hair stuck up slightly in the back from where he was sleeping. I was grateful he came to help me and to speed things along.

The officer finally removed the cuffs and the blood quickly rushed back to my hands. He explained to me that he pulled me over for racing the black cavalier and that he believed I was “fleeing” and “eluding” him. He then proceeded to inform me that he was issuing me two tickets and taking my license.

“The first ticket you are receiving is for breaking your legal curfew. The second is for reckless driving and because I’m charging you with reckless driving I have to suspend your license. Do you understand?”

No I don’t understand. I don’t know how the hell I got in this situation. “Yes,” I replied.

The ride home took an eternity. Les attempted to strike up a conversation a time or two, but soon realized I was not in the mood. Everything seemed unreal. I was in such a daze that I could barely walk up my own drive way. As I approached the front door, I noticed a hint of light shining thru the distorted glass. My hands trembled as I slipped the key into the lock and pushed the door open. I was surprised to see my sister sitting on the couch waiting for me. As soon as I walked through the door she rushed to me and gave me the biggest hug and told me she got the message, but didn’t understand or know what to do in response to the call; instead, she came to the house as soon as possible. The tears I held back earlier began streaming down my face as I explained everything. I dropped to the floor and laid there for what seemed like hours. The cold tile welcomed my heated cheeks and brought comfort to my exhausted body as I laid there contemplating what to tell my parents and what to expect when they came home the next day.

Disappointment was painted all over my mother’s face when she walked through the door. Her eyes cast a tired gaze in my direction as she set down her luggage. She asked me to come sit down so we could talk. When I sat down, she began crying hysterically and whispered softly to get away from her, that she couldn’t look at me. I rose slowly and headed toward the stairs leading to my room. She has never made a comment so awful toward me, it broke my heart. I wanted to turn around and run to her and throw my arms around her, and desperately beg for her forgiveness, but I knew her heart was broken too.

For the next two weeks no one spoke to me in my house. I was confined to my room all day everyday except for when I went to school. With each passing day the walls seemed to move in closer and closer. I mastered playing board games and cards by myself and my room never looked so clean. Eating dinner with the family was not an option; my dinner was brought to my door each night. I felt like a prisoner. The freedom I once took for granted had been ripped from me without warning and I prayed each night to have it back. Neither of my parents trusted me and I felt as if they didn’t want to love me for the time being. This outcast lifestyle went on for over a month before my mom could actually confront me about her feelings.

One evening I was at the stove cooking dinner when my mom walked in from work. The way she looked at me told me she had something on her mind. I didn’t know whether to be scared or happy if she did in fact want to talk. She walked toward me slowly then softly ran her fingers through my hair. After this small gesture we talked, well, cried mostly, but we were finally able to speak openly about the incident. She told me how sorry she was for making me feel like she didn’t care for all this time, but that she was hurting so much inside and she needed time to get over what happened. Disappointment still lingered in her tone but I could tell it had faded greatly. She told me that she “Just couldn’t believe I got into such a mess” and that I lied to them about being out that night. She still wasn’t sure what to believe about the incident, but she wanted to move on. She held my hands as she spoke and I could feel her soft fingertips grazing my palms. I told her how hurting her killed me more than what actually happened. Finally she forgave me and held me tight as if it was for the first time. At that moment I took a deep breath and felt an overwhelming relief invade my body.

About two months after the incident my court date came around. My stomach turned when I saw the courthouse. I felt extremely parched; a lump formed in the back of my throat. My name was called loud and clear and I approached the podium facing the judge. A middle aged balding man with soft blue eyes studied my appearance. We conversed about the night in question and I told him my account of the story. After listening to my story and reading the police report, he seemed to analyze me for some time. The judge sighed deeply and looked down at his paper work. He looked back up at me and informed me of an option to keep the charges off my record. The option entailed serving 25 community service hours; I gladly accepted. The judge dropped both tickets, cleared my record, and reinstated my license.

The freedom I lost only two months previous gradually worked its way back to me. During those two months I had to bum rides to school and quit my job because it was, according to my parents, “too much fun”. I never took notice of how important these simple liberties were until they were taken away then given back. After my license was reinstated and my service hours were completed, my parents loosened my chain a bit. After enduring two more weeks of punishment my parents ended it, and in a way reinstated my freedom completely. My normal routine bounced back in no time, but the relationship I once had with my parents was lost and had to be rebuilt from scratch.

Although this crazily unexpected event damaged my life greatly, I see it as a blessing in disguise. I learned the value of trust and honesty and that simple respect for the ones I love will carry me far in life. Sometimes starting from a new and fresh place makes a relationship stronger; I feel this applied to my situation with my mother. It took devastation to bring us closer together than we were to begin with. My heart smiled at the end of things, knowing better times were soon to come.

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Definition of accuse

transitive verb

intransitive verb

• defame [ archaic ]
• incriminate

Examples of accuse in a Sentence

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'accuse.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Middle English acusen, accusen, borrowed from Anglo-French accuser, acuser, borrowed from Latin accūsāre "to blame, censure, charge with a crime," from ad- ad- + -cūsāre, verbal derivative of causa "legal case, reason, cause" — more at cause entry 1

13th century, in the meaning defined at transitive sense 1

Dictionary Entries Near accuse

Cite this entry.

“Accuse.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/accuse. Accessed 7 May. 2024.

Kids Definition

Kids definition of accuse, legal definition, legal definition of accuse.

Latin accusare to find fault with, charge with a crime, from ad to, at + causa legal case, trial

More from Merriam-Webster on accuse

Nglish: Translation of accuse for Spanish Speakers

Britannica English: Translation of accuse for Arabic Speakers

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US government and civics

Course: us government and civics   >   unit 3.

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Due process and the rights of the accused: lesson overview

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Why I’m Not Calling the Police on My Students’ Encampment

The president of wesleyan university explains why he’s allowing pro-palestinian protesters to pitch tents on campus..

The encampment at Wesleyan University went up on the night of Sunday, April 28, during a planned rally in support of Palestinians. At the time, I was in an open meeting called by the student government to answer questions about how the university invests its endowment but also about many other topics—from labor issues at a construction site to whether there could be a nonbinary entrance to the swimming pool. But the energy in the room was about the war in Gaza and what Wesleyan could do in reaction to it.

The students were well aware that I’d already gone on record—several times in print—with respect to Gaza since the heinous terrorist attacks of October 7. On that day I wrote about Hamas’s “sickening violence” against Israel, and since then I have written about the dangers of antisemitism and Islamophobia at home and about the loss of innocent life in Gaza. So I can’t argue that university leaders should keep quiet or say something evasive about “ principled neutrality .” Indeed, the students reminded me of a phrase I’d used: “Neutrality is complicity.” Although I am one of the only American university presidents to call for a cease-fire in Gaza, the students in the meeting did not find that nearly enough. Mere words, they told me, are just another form of neutrality. They accused me of trying to hide behind them. And outside the chants grew louder: “Roth, Roth, you can’t hide / you can’t hide from genocide.” When I walked home, an angry crowd of maybe 75 followed close behind.

By Monday morning there were a couple dozen tents set up. Students were careful not to block exits and entrances to campus buildings, and they made sure that the pathways through their encampment were clear. They were claiming territory for their protest, but they were not attempting to close it off. This was important for everyone. For the protesters, it was a sign that they wanted to spread their message to others, and also that they were open to discussing their objectives with anyone who wanted to talk. For me and my administrative colleagues, it was important because one of the reasons encampments are not normally permitted is that they mark off public areas for exclusive use, thereby denying others the opportunity to use that part of campus. Sure, the area was now dominated by signs bearing very specific and sometimes aggressive messages—among them, slogans about genocide and freeing Palestine that were off-putting to many on campus, including myself. (There were no signs demanding the return of the hostages kidnapped from kibbutz.) But this is a protest directed at the administration, and I don’t get to choose the protesters’ messages. I do want to pay attention to them.

We could have immediately closed down the encampment because the protesters hadn’t gotten advance permission for tents, and because they were writing messages on the adjacent buildings in chalk. Over the last week I’ve gotten many notes from alumni, parents, and strangers chastising me for not making the protesters “pay a price” for breaking the rules. In my initial message to the broad university community, I wrote : “The students [in the encampment] know that they are in violation of university rules and seem willing to accept the consequences.” So why haven’t I made them feel those consequences? Cops don’t always give people tickets for going a few miles over the speed limit. Context matters, whatever Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik says. In this case, I knew the students were part of a broad protest movement, and protest movements often put a strain on an institution’s rules. They are meant to do that. The encampment was “ non-violent and has not disrupted normal campus operations,” I wrote, and “as long as it continues in this way, the University will not attempt to clear the encampment.” I added that we would “not tolerate intimidation or harassment of students, staff, or faculty,” and that the protesters, as far as I could tell, were not moving in that direction.

The encampment is just beneath my office window, and many times during the last several days I’ve looked over to see what was happening: mostly students and the occasional faculty member engaged in casual conversation, and occasionally animated debate. I’ve written that being a student in the West has come to mean “practicing freedom ,” and I was reminded of that as I looked at these young people expressing their political concerns. There were drawings and flags, and a sense of a community. Between classes and during mealtimes, there have been many people just passing through. Some stop to talk, others just amble along. I myself have walked through every day I’m on campus, and notwithstanding hostility from more than a few protesters (“Why are you unwilling to support divestment?!”), I stop to talk to students I know from my classes or say hello to those I don’t know. One day I bumped into the campus rabbi there, and we talked for a while until the leader of a Black music collective on campus happened by and told me about his senior recital.

The encampment, now grown to roughly 50 tents, may be fostering a sense of community among protesters, but it hasn’t been kumbaya for everyone. Several Jewish students were outraged by the messages about genocide and freeing Palestine. Did this mean freeing the region from Jews? The expressions “Globalize the Intifada,” “Glory to the Martyrs,” and “Terror is justified as long as Palestine is occupied” indicated toleration if not support of Hamas, an organization that justifies raping women and killing babies as long as you call them Jewish settlers. A few students showed up with an Israeli flag and were shamed on social media. Their counterprotest didn’t result in productive conversation, alas. But it didn’t spill into violence either, and my team did its best to make sure that was the case.

I’ve checked in with many Jewish students individually and sat down with a group to talk about their fears—and their complaints about faculty bias. Amazingly to them and to me, a few professors took votes in their classes to decide whether they should hold class in the encampment. Minority rights? Not something these faculty seemed concerned with, at least not until the provost reminded them that they could not force any student to support a cause with which the professor happened to agree. Of course, faculty are free to support any cause they like, but whatever political acumen they believe themselves to possess, they are not free to impose this on their students. The Jewish students opposed to the protesters seemed glad to be able to talk openly about their concerns. I emphasized to them that I could not protect them from opposing views but that I could protect their safety and capacity to pursue their education.

There was some graffiti vandalism after the encampment settled in, and we let people know that if that continued, the university would have to step in. Fortunately, that didn’t continue, and so far, almost all the protesters seem eager to find a constructive path: to make their arguments about divestment and about boycotts. They know that I have long been on record opposing these arguments, but I will try to listen to them with an open mind. Ultimately, it is the Board of Trustees that will decide about investment policy. Myself, I am eager to find ways of supporting Gazan relief efforts, and of doing whatever we can to promote a sustainable peace in the region that would acknowledge the rights of all parties. I’d like to think students know that.

I have watched with sadness the police actions on some campuses, as well as the lack of police action in Los Angeles when an encampment was attacked by counterprotesters. I can well imagine that for most university presidents, calling in the police is the last resort. I too have depended on the law enforcement in the past, most heartbreakingly when a student was murdered on campus many years ago. I will certainly ask for police help if I need it to protect people, property, or university operations from criminal behavior.

It’s almost the end of the school year, and more than once I’ve been asked, “Don’t I wish we had just made it through a couple of more weeks without incident?” Mostly … no. How can I not respect students for paying attention to things that matter so much? I respect that they’re concerned about Gaza; I admire that they’re not entirely taken up with grades or lining up their credentials. Will their protest help? My fear is that such protests (especially when they turn violent) in the end will help the reactionary forces of populist authoritarianism. I also think student protesters are wrong to focus on university investments . I would prefer they use their energies to pressure the U.S. government to do more to get the hostages released, to stop supporting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war tactics, and to bring more direct aid to people in Gaza on the brink of starvation. My team expects to discuss all of this with students in the coming days. Right now, I’m most concerned with protecting their right to protest in nonviolent ways that don’t undermine our educational program. For me, the modest violations of the rules are preferable to the narrow-minded vocationalism that others seem suddenly to pine for.

I share this view of the moment with some trepidation. It only takes a few jerks to turn a peaceful protest into a violent confrontation. But I also share this with hope that we will all learn something from this experience—whether or not we are sleeping in a tent.

Michael S. Roth is the president of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. His most recent books are The Student: A Short History and Safe Enough Spaces: A Pragmatist’s Approach to Inclusion, Free Speech, and Political Correctness on College Campuses .

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Home » Law and Ethics » What is evidentiary value of the statement of accused? Explain

What is evidentiary value of the statement of accused? Explain

    Introduction

Law of evidence allows a person –who is a witness to state the facts related to either to a fact in issue or to relevant fact, but not his inference. It applies to both criminal law and civil law. It is quite difficult to define properly the evidentiary value which we get from serving as or based on evidence. On the other hand, the accused is a person who is in a trial for committing a crime. So the statement of the accused does not have greater evidentiary value as the person who has already committed crime might not that much reliable whom can the court trust. The defendant (accused) is, however, entitled to rely on the fact that he is of previous good character as making it less likely that he would have committed the offence. If there is any room for doubt, his good character may be thrown in the scales in his favor. [1]

The essay will be discussed in two separate parts. Firstly, I would define the evidentiary value and the statement of accused; secondly, how the statement of accused has the evidentiary value and what would happen if the accused confesses.

•      Definition
• a.      Define “ evidentiary value” :

Evidentiary is something constituting evidence or having the quality of evidence and something that relates to the evidence in a particular case.

•          i.            A’s statement at the scene of a car wreck that one of the drivers was speeding has evidentiary value because it says something about how the accident happened.
•        ii.            If a judge holds a hearing to decide whether or not a particular piece of evidence is admissible at trial, that hearing might be called an evidentiary hearing.

Based on the unique reproducible striations and/or impressions produced during the normal functioning of a firearm, it is possible to identify

v     cartridge cases and shotshell cases as having been fired in a particular firearm, based on  firing pin impressions ,  breech face marks , and  chamber marks ,

v     fired and unfired cartridge cases and shotshell cases as having been cycled through the action   of a particular firearm, based on extractor and ejector marks as well as other mechanism marks. Although the identification of a cartridge case or shotshell case as having been fired in a particular firearm carries more weight as evidence, the identification of these items as having been at least cycled through the action of a firearm is still significant and may have probative value.

• b.      Define “ the statement of accused”:

The Statement (answers and explanations) given by the accused is entirely for the benefit of accused and the accused only. The statement cannot be used by the Court against him or her nor is the prosecution permitted to use to fill up any gap or lacuna left in the prosecution evidence. [2]

The statement ought to be treated like any other evidence and the material in favor of the accused. The same should be given due weight and adequate emphasis while recording the guilt against the accused. The answers given by the accused may be taken into consideration, but the same generally cannot take the place of evidence that has to be adduced by the prosecution. Any stand taken by the accused in his statement cannot be used as evidence, unless its truth is otherwise established. When the circumstances stated by the accused become probable, the accused is entitled to get benefit of reasonable doubt. The statement of one accused cannot be used against co-accused.

•           i.          Confessional Statement:

The confessional statement either inculpatroy or exculpatory, if not referred to the accused or the main aspect of the confessional statement of the accused was not brought to his notice during his examination, in ordinary course, it should not be used against him. Such a confessional statement should be kept out of consideration. [3]

The confessional statement not having been put to the accused in his examination though cannot be used for any purpose what so ever, but when a confessional statement  not mentioned during examination of accused found to be true and voluntary and corroborated by other evidence then it may be considered, even as the basis of the conviction. [4] Similarly, during his examination under section 342 Cr.P.C., if a confessing accused does not deny his confessional statement or makes any suggestion challenging the voluntariness or truthfulness of the same then the confessional statement may be used against the accused. [5]

•         ii.          Admission of guilt made by the accused during his examination:

Admission of guilt made by the accused during his examination, if found clear, unambiguous and ungratified, the court may consider it as evidence and proceed to convict him. If it is made during trial, it should be read over during examination of accused as a whole. But where the accused admits the occurrence in explaining circumstances against him set up his own version and seeks to explain his conduct pleading that he has committed no offence, such admission can only be taken into consideration in its entirety. Court cannot dissect the statement and to pick out a part of the statement which may be incriminating and then examined whether the explanations furnished by the accused for his conduct is supported by the evidence on record. If the accused admits any incriminating circumstances appearing in evidence against him, such admission cannot be rejected mainly on the ground that the same were advanced as a defence strategy.

•       iii.          Court’s dealing upon the statement of an accused alone:

When the court deals upon the statement of an accused alone and there is no other evidence available which disproves any portion of that statement, the whole of that statement and not only a part of it which may go against the accused should be taken into consideration.

•       iv.          Failure of accused to establish his plea:

Failure of accused to establish his plea made during his examination can not by itself lead to his conviction. But during his examination under section 342 Cr.PC, if any alibi or special plea is taken by the accused as his defence or innocence, the burden of proof lies upon the accused. [6]

Where the evidence against the accused consists of circumstantial evidence only, and if the same was not asked to explain, cannot be used against the accused. However, failure of the court to bring to notice of the accused the inculpatory material appearing against him will not itself render the conviction bad unless the accused has been prejudiced in his defence. Where the statement recorded under section 342 Code of Criminal Procedure contains both exculpatory and inculpatroy parts, only inculpatory part of the statement may be taken into consideration.

Silence or failure of the accused to explain the circumstances appearing in the evidence against him is a strong circumstance which can be used against him. Similarly in case of evasive answer of the accused adverse inference can be drawn against him. False answer of the accused against the established facts may be counted as providing a missing link for completing the chain.

•         v.          Incriminating circumstances:

The circumstances or the evidences incriminating not put to the accused must be excluded from consideration, because the accused did not have any chance to explain them. Generally an accused offers his explanation verbally with or without any supporting document to convert the evidence recorded against him. But if the accused files any written statement during his examination under 342 Cr.P.C. it should not be treated as the Memo. of accused’s case. It is also not evidence. [7]

Similarly, the documents, if any, filed by the accused during his examination merely form part of his statement there under, which does not require any formal proof nor such statement can be treated as evidence within the meaning of section 3 of the Evidence  Act. The Trial Court may consider such statement for the benefit of the accused only. But this statement cannot be used by the prosecution to fill up any gap or lacuna nor the court can use any such statement against the accused. [8]

•   Evidentiary value of confessional statement

A.  Against maker:

(i) A confessional statement is incriminating evidence against its maker unless its admissibility is excluded. Confession can form the sole basis of conviction against its maker on the conditions that it is true and voluntary; it fits in the circumstances of the particular case which may at least create an impression that it is true and it either admit in terms of the offence or at any rate substantially all the facts which constitute the offence . There is no compulsion that a true and voluntary confession needs to be materially corroborated for using it against its maker. [9]

 (ii) Retracted Confession:

When an accused alleges that he has not made the confession voluntarily or that he has made the confession as a result of mental or physical torture that amounts to retraction. [10] An accused may be convicted even on a retracted confession if it is inculpatory but corroboration is required, but this rule of prudence, however, does not require that each and every circumstance mentioned in the confessional statement must be separately and independently corroborated then the rule will be meaningless, as an independent evidence itself would afford sufficient basis of conviction and it would be unnecessary to call the confession in aid. [11] [12]

(iii) Exculpatory Confession:

Exculpatory statement is one wherein the accused making it does not implicate him. Without any other direct or circumstantial evidence qualifying the said confession, it is of no avail to the prosecution for sustaining the order of conviction. There may be cases where maker does not implicate himself and, on the other hand, implicate other persons in his confessional statement. It is then a so-called confession which alone cannot be relied upon as against its maker and also against other co-accused. [13]

(iv) Confession containing exculpatory and inculpatory statement:

There may be confessional statement containing inculpatory and also exculpatory statement. Question often arises whether reliance can be placed on the inculpatory part of such confession. [14]

(iv) Extra judicial confession:

(a) Extra judicial confession by its very nature is weak type of evidence. It is unsafe to base conviction of an accused on his extra judicial confession alone. The value of such confession as evidence depends upon the veracity of witnesses to whom it was made. [15] With precaution such confession can be taken into consideration along with other evidence and attending circumstances. If the other evidence and circumstances are found meagre lacking independent corroboration, the extra judicial confession, even if found to be true, cannot be the basis of conviction against its maker. [16] If extracted upon physical assault or inducement, it has no value. [17]

(b) Confession under police custody:

Normally confession made before police or under police custody is inadmissible (Sections 25 and 26, Evidence Act). But when some incriminating article is recovered following such confession, it is admissible according to section 27 of the Evidence Act which provides that when any fact is deposed to as discovered in consequence of information received from a person accused of any offence, in the custody of a police officer, so much of such information whether it amounts to a confession or not, as relates distinctly to the fact thereby discovered, may be proved. [18]

(v)  Voluntary confession containing untrue statements:

Though voluntary, if it is not true, confessional statement cannot form the sole basis of conviction. [19] When the whole prosecution evidence contradicts the confession, the accused is entitled to benefit of doubt. But when the prosecution case is proved by other evidence on record, the confessing accused cannot be acquitted on the plea that his confession is untrue and non-voluntary. When confessional statement is partly true and partly false or in other words does not disclose the full picture of the occurrence, the confessional statement can be used against the maker and there is no legal bar in upholding the conviction on the basis of the confession. [20]

B.  Against other co-accused:

The confession of one co-accused does not fall within the definition of evidence under section 3, Evidence Act. It cannot be made on oath. It is not made in presence of other co-accused against whom it was made. Its veracity cannot be tested by other co-accused affected in the confession. This is weak type of evidence as against other co-accused. It does not amount to proof. Therefore, the confessional statement of one accused cannot be treated to be the substantive evidence as against other co-accused. [21]

•     Conclusion

To sum up it is chiefly on question of science or trade (where there often is a difficulty, and occasionally, an impossibility, of obtaining more direct and positive evidence) the accused, are allowed to give their opinions in evidence as well as testify to facts. In the conclusion it should be mentioned that the statement given by the accused during his examination under section 342 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, may not be sacrosanct but certainly it deserves proper consideration. The statement of accused under section 313 of Cr. P. C. is not a substantive piece of evidence. It can be used for appreciating evidence led by the prosecution to accept or reject it. It is, however, not a substitute for the evidence of the prosecution.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Islam, A. (n.d.). Confessional Statement: Legal requirements for recording, its use and evidentiary value. Retrieved from http://www.jatibd.org/Confessional%20Statement-3.doc
• Al-Azad, M. R. (n.d.). Examination of the accused under section 342 of the code of criminal procedure. Retrieved from http://www.jatibd.org/Examination%20of%20the%20Accused-5.doc
• Mulchand Sampatraj Shah vs Dayashankar, Assistant . (1800, November 1). Retrieved from http://www.indiankanoon.org/doc/1509749/

3.      Statement of Accused u/s 313 Cr PC is Not ‘Evidence’: Delhi High Court . (2011, January 27). Retrieved from http://www.legalblog.in/2011/01/statement-of-accused-is-not-evidence.html

4.              Evidentiary value of previous statements of the accused . (2008, March 26). Retrieved from http://www.sense-agency.com/icty/evidentiary-value-of-previous-statements-of-the-accused.29.html?cat_id=1&news_id=10819

5.      Dying Declaration – Evidentiary Value: The Law . (2011, October 23). Retrieved from http://www.legalblog.in/search/label/Evidence

• Criminal procedure code: Evidentiary value of FIR. (2011, December 12). Retrieved from http://legalservicesindia.com/article/article/evidentiary-value-of-fir-936-1.html

8.      Klip, A. , & Sluiter, G. (Eds.). (1998). Prosecutors In Annotated leading cases of international criminal tribunals (pp. 204-207). Retrieved from http://books.google.com.bd/books?id=kwR88rsWaoC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

• Evidentiary definition. Retrieved from http://legaldefinitions.co/evidentiary.html

10.  Definition: evidentiary. Retrieved from http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definitions/evidentiary

• 313 Statement of Accused in the court . (2012). Retrieved from

http://crl-law.blogspot.com/2010/08/313-statement-of-accused-in-court.html

12.  National institute of justice. Nij.gov: Evidentiary Value. Retrieved March 20, 2012 from http://www.nij.gov/training/firearms-training/module09/fir_m09_t04_01.htm

• Evidentiary Value of Expert Opinion Under Indian Evidence Act. (2007, July). Retrieved from http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=krishnaaret

[1] Supra note 36 at p.589

[2] Refs: 14 BLD- 167.

[3] Refs: 45 DLR- 755.

[4] Refs: 46 DLR-212, 11 BLD (AD) – 80, 16 BLD (AD)-  293, 2 BLC (AD)- 27 & 2 LG (AD)- 104.

[5] In the case of Iftekher Hossain (Md.) @ Al-Manun & others -vs- The State reported in 59 DLR(AD)- 36, when it was found that during examination under section 342 Cr.P.C. the accused neither denied his confessional statement nor any suggestion was put regarding the same, rather he admitted the occurrence, the Appellate Division held that the confessional statement and admission before the court coupled with evidence on record proved the case against the accused.

[6] Ref: 21 BLD (AD)-103 & 53 DLR-268.

[7] In the case of Hasan (Md.) alias Md. Hasan -vs- the State reported in 60 DLR – 56, the High Court Division relying on 42 DLR (AD) – 31, held that written statement submitted by the accused when he was examined under section 342 Cr.P.C. is not evidence within the meaning of section 3 of the Evidence Act. Such statement is to be considered along with the evidence and circumstances recorded and if the statement gets support from the evidence on record due weight may be given on it. More Refs: 45 DLR- 521.

[8] Refs: 6 MLR (AD) -166, 21 BLD (AD) -103 & 14 BLD-167.

[9] But in the particular circumstances in State Vs. Shafique 43 DLR(AD) 203, it was held that there being no corroboration on any material particular of the confessional statement, it was unsafe to maintain conviction of the respondent under section 302/ 34, Penal Code, though the respondent implicated himself to be an offender. The confessional statement cannot be used against its maker when it is proved that it was obtained by inducement, threat or promise. But when it is found that threat or promise or inducement was before making the confession, but in the opinion of the court, the confessional statement was recorded after removal of such threat, promise or inducement- such confession may be admissible.

[10] State Vs. Lalu Miah and another reported in 39 DLR(AD) 117, it was held that retraction of a confession at an earliest opportunity may lend support to the defence plea that the confession was not voluntary one, but from a belated retraction of a confession no inference adverse to the accused can be made.

[11] When retracted, it is the duty of the court, as a rule of caution, to take into consideration the reasons shown in the retraction petition. But for mere reason of filing retraction petition, the confessional statement cannot be readily and mechanically brushed aside. If it is found that the confession, at the time of making it, was voluntary and true, subsequent retraction cannot make any difference from the confession which is not retracted.

[12] As against the maker himself, his confessional statement, judicial or extra judicial, whether retracted or not retracted, can, in law, validly form the sole basis of his conviction [State vs. Minhun @ Gul Hassan, 16 DLR 9(SC) 598]. In Amir Hossain Hawlader Vs. State reported in 4 BLD(AD) 193, it has been held that a retracted confession, like the one which is not retracted, may form the sole basis of conviction of  its maker.

[13] In a case of murder where it was found that there was no common intention, the confessing accused stated nothing incriminating against himself as playing any role in commission of murder except being present in the scene of the occurrence, the conviction awarded by the Sessions Judge was held manifestly wrong, the confessional statement being considered to be exculpatory[Ibrahim Mollah and others Vs. State 7 BLD(AD) 248].

[14] In State Vs. Lalu Miah and another reported in 39 DLR(AD) 117, paragraph 39, the view taken was  “……. Notwithstanding the general principle that a confession should be accepted or rejected as a whole, but in certain facts and circumstances, the inculpatory part may be accepted if the exculpatory part is found to be false or basically improbable, regard being had to reason and human conduct”.

[15] Extra judicial confession can well be relied upon, but the court must bear in mind two rules of caution- first: whether the evidence regarding confession is reliable and second: whether it finds corroboration[State Vs. Hassan Ali, 19 BLD(HCD) 42-18].

[16] Mobarak Hossain Vs. State, 3 BLD(AD) 329

[17] For Instance, if an extra judicial confession is made before a Dafader and there is evidence of beating the accused by him, it should be left out of consideration.

[18] For example, when an accused confessed before police that he had concealed the dead body of his wife in a latrine-well and the dead body was recovered there from by police. Such information can be admissible and can be relied upon for basing the conviction. [Dipok Kumar Sarker Vs. State, 8 BCR(AD) 141, Paragraph 16]

[19] For example, when confessing accused states in his confessional statement that he dealt a blow on the head of the victim by iron rod but from the evidence it is found that there was no injury caused by iron rod on the victim, the statement is not true and such confession cannot form the sole basis of conviction[State Vs. Abul Basher @ Bashir @ Khaleque and another, 9 BLT(AD) 218]

[20] When it is found from the incriminating confessional statements that the accused made conspiracy with other co-accused and the accused was present standing outside the place of occurrence, the confessing accused can be safely convicted for abetment of murder though not confessed that he has committed murder[ State Vs. Bellal Hossain, 20 BLD(HCD) 45]

[21] Section 30 of the Evidence Act simply makes the confession of a co-accused relevant fact and, therefore, it may be taken into consideration against other co-accused [Amir Hossain Hawlader and others Vs. State, 37 DLR(AD) 139, 4 BLD(AD) 193] . In the same case it was held that it is the established rule of evidence as well as rule of prudence that confessional statement of co-accused shall not be used as the sole basis of conviction in the absence of independent corroborative evidence . In the particular circumstances of the case, c onfession one accused can be taken into consideration as the evidence against co-accused when facts and circumstances are supportive of such confession [Nausher Ali Sarder and others Vs. State, 39 DLR(AD) 194] . The confession of one co-accused is considered as a weak type of evidence against other co-accused and to base upon such confession for convicting other co-accused, there must be at least some sort of corroboration from other evidence and circumstances. The matter of using  confessional statement against co-accused was raised before the Privy Council (AIR 1949 PC 257) and  it was held that section 30 provides that the court may take the confession into consideration and thereby make it evidence on which the court may act, but the section does not say that the confession amounts to proof, clearly there must be other evidence, the confession is only one element in the consideration of all facts proved in the case, it can be put into the scale and weighed with other evidence. Then the question as to how the confession of a co-accused can be weighed out was addressed in Maqbool Hossain Vs. State, 12 DLR(SC) 217 by holding “The language of the section is very guarded and lends no warrant  to the inference that such a statement made by a co-accused could be treated as substantive evidence against the other person, sufficient to sustain his conviction. It is well settled that there ought to be other evidence, whether direct or circumstantial, linking a person with the crime, before a confession made by a co-accused could be adverted to, in adjudging the guilt of that person”. In what way the confession of a co-accused can be dealt with has been settled in the decision in Lutfun Nahar Begum Vs. State, 27 DLR(AD) 29 wherein it was held that confession of a co-accused cannot be treated to be the substantive evidence against another accused but it can be used only to lend assurance to other evidence. The spirit of the principles laid down in Babor Ali Molla Vs. Sate, 44 DLR(AD) 10 and  Ustar Ali Vs. Sate 3 BLC(AD) 53 is that a confession made by a co-accused in a joint trial for the same offence affecting himself and others may be taken into consideration and that such confession may lend assurance to the other evidence.  In Paragraph 20 of the judgment in Abdus Salam Mollah Vs. State, 13 BLC(AD)17 the confusion on the evidentiary value of a confessional statement against non-confessing co-accused in the same trial for the same offence was taken into account and it was held that when the confession made by an accused is found voluntary and true, such confession affecting the confessing accused and some others tried in a joint trial for the same offence can be taken into consideration as against the non-confessing accused in finding such non-confessing accused guilty only when there is substantive evidence against the non-confessing accused. It was further clarified that the confession of a co-accused can be taken into consideration along with substantive evidence as an extra weight against the co-accused tried jointly for the same offence. Therefore, the spirit of section 30 is that this is an enabling provision to take into consideration the confessional statement of a co-accused against other co-accused tried jointly for the same offence but such confession cannot be used as substantive piece of evidence and as the sole basis of conviction as against the co-accused; such confession may lend assurance to other substantive evidence, against such co-accused. Mere abscondance of an accused is not to be treated to be corroborative of a confessional statement of a co accused and such statement cannot be the basis of conviction of the absconding accused.

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The number of religious ‘nones’ has soared, but not the number of atheists. Why is that?

The conversation: sociologists explore the possible reasons..

(Anthony Bradshaw/Photographer's Choice RF via Getty Images) Fewer people are affiliated with religion in the United States, but that hardly means that they’re all atheists.

The number of individuals in the United States who do not identify as being part of any religion has grown dramatically in recent years, and “the nones” are now larger than any single religious group . According to the General Social Survey, religiously unaffiliated people represented only about 5% of the U.S. population in the 1970s. This percentage began to increase in the 1990s and is around 30% today.

At first glance, some might assume this means nearly 1 in 3 Americans are atheists, but that’s far from true. Indeed, only about 4% of U.S. adults identify as an atheist .

As sociologists who study religion in the U.S., we wanted to find out more about the gap between these percentages and why some individuals identify as an atheist while other unaffiliated individuals do not.

Many shades of ‘none’

The religiously unaffiliated are a diverse group. Some still attend services, say that they are at least somewhat religious, and express some level of belief in God — although they tend to do these things at a lower rate than individuals who do identify with a religion .

There is even diversity in how religiously unaffiliated individuals identify themselves. When asked their religion on surveys, unaffiliated responses include “agnostic,” “no religion,” “nothing in particular,” “none” and so on.

About 17% of religiously unaffiliated people explicitly identify as “atheist” on surveys . For the most part, atheists more actively reject religion and religious concepts than other religiously unaffiliated individuals.

Our recent research examines two questions related to atheism. First, what makes an individual more or less likely to identify as an atheist ? Second, what makes someone more or less likely to adopt an atheistic worldview over time?

Beyond belief — and disbelief

Consider the first question: Who’s likely to identify as an atheist. To answer that, we also need to think about what atheism means in the first place.

Not all religious traditions emphasize belief in a deity . In the U.S. context, however, particularly within traditions such as Christianity, atheism is often equated with saying that someone does not believe in God. Yet one of our surveys found that among U.S. adults who say “I do not believe in God,” only about half will select “atheist ” when asked their religious identity.

In other words, rejecting a belief in God is by no means a sufficient condition for identifying as an atheist. So why do some individuals who do not believe in God identify as an atheist while others do not?

Our study found that there are a number of other social forces associated with the likelihood of individuals identifying as an atheist, above and beyond their disbelief in God — particularly stigma.

Many Americans eye atheists with suspicion and distaste . Notably, some social science surveys in the U.S. include questions asking about how much tolerance people have for atheists alongside questions about tolerance of racists and communists .

This stigma means that being an atheist comes with potential social costs, especially in certain communities. We see this dynamic play out in our data.

Political conservatives, for instance, are less likely to identify as an atheist even if they do not believe in God. Just under 39% of individuals identifying as “extremely conservative” who say they do not believe in God identify as an atheist . This compares with 72% of individuals identifying as “extremely liberal” who say they do not believe in God.

We argue that this likely is a function of greater negative views of atheists in politically conservative circles .

Adopting atheism

Stating that one does not believe in God, however, is the strongest predictor of identifying as an atheist. This leads to our second research question : What factors make someone more or less likely to lose belief over time?

In a second survey-based study , from a different representative sample of nearly 10,000 U.S. adults, we found that about 6% of individuals who stated that they had some level of belief in God at age 16 moved to saying “I do not believe in God” as an adult.

Who falls into this group is not random.

Our analysis finds, perhaps unsurprisingly, that the stronger individuals’ belief in God was at age 16, the less likely they are to have adopted an atheistic worldview as an adult. For instance, fewer than 2% of individuals who said that “I knew God really existed, and I had no doubts about it” as a teenager adopted an atheistic worldview later on. This compares with over 20% of those who said that “I didn’t know whether there was a God, and I didn’t believe there was any way to find out” when they were 16.

Our analysis reveals, however, that several other factors make one more or less likely to adopt an atheistic worldview.

Regardless of how strong their teenage belief was, for instance, Black, Asian and Hispanic Americans were less likely to later identify as an atheist than white individuals. All else being equal, the odds of individuals in these groups adopting an atheistic worldview was about 50% to 75% less than the odds for white individuals. In part, this could be a product of groups that already face stigma related to their race or ethnicity being less able or willing to take on the additional social costs of being an atheist .

On the other hand, we find that adults with more income — regardless of how strong their belief was at 16 — are more likely to adopt the stance that they do not believe in God . Each increase from one income level to another on an 11-point scale increases the odds of adopting an atheistic worldview by about 5%.

This could be a function of income providing a buffer against any stigma associated with holding an atheistic worldview. Having a higher income, for instance, may give an individual the resources needed to avoid social circles and situations where being an atheist might be treated negatively.

However, there may be another explanation. Some social scientists have suggested that both wealth and faith can provide existential security — the confidence that you are not going to face tragedy at any moment — and therefore a higher income reduces the need to believe in supernatural forces in the first place.

Such findings are a powerful reminder that our beliefs, behaviors and identities are not entirely our own, but often shaped by situations and cultures in which we find ourselves.

Christopher P. Scheitle and Katie Corcoran are an associate professors of sociology at West Virginia University.

This story originally appeared in The Conversation , an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts. The Conversation is wholly responsible for the content.

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Biden Administration Releases Revised Title IX Rules

The new regulations extended legal protections to L.G.B.T.Q. students and rolled back several policies set under the Trump administration.

By Zach Montague and Erica L. Green

Reporting from Washington

The Biden administration issued new rules on Friday cementing protections for L.G.B.T.Q. students under federal law and reversing a number of Trump-era policies that dictated how schools should respond to cases of alleged sexual misconduct in K-12 schools and college campuses.

The new rules, which take effect on Aug. 1, effectively broadened the scope of Title IX, the 1972 law prohibiting sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding. They extend the law’s reach to prohibit discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and widen the range of sexual harassment complaints that schools will be responsible for investigating.

“These regulations make it crystal clear that everyone can access schools that are safe, welcoming and that respect their rights,” Miguel A. Cardona, the education secretary, said in a call with reporters.

The rules deliver on a key campaign promise for Mr. Biden, who declared he would put a “quick end” to the Trump-era Title IX rules and faced mounting pressure from Democrats and civil rights leaders to do so.

The release of the updated rules, after two delays, came as Mr. Biden is in the thick of his re-election bid and is trying to galvanize key electoral constituencies.

Through the new regulations, the administration moved to include students in its interpretation of Bostock v. Clayton County, the landmark 2020 Supreme Court case in which the court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects gay and transgender workers from workplace discrimination. The Trump administration held that transgender students were not protected under federal laws, including after the Bostock ruling .

In a statement, Betsy DeVos, who served as Mr. Trump’s education secretary, criticized what she called a “radical rewrite” of the law, asserting that it was an “endeavor born entirely of progressive politics, not sound policy.”

Ms. DeVos said the inclusion of transgender students in the law gutted decades of protections and opportunities for women. She added that the Biden administration also “seeks to U-turn to the bad old days where sexual misconduct was sent to campus kangaroo courts, not resolved in a way that actually sought justice.”

While the regulations released on Friday contained considerably stronger protections for L.G.B.T.Q. students, the administration steered clear of the lightning-rod issue of whether transgender students should be able to play on school sports teams corresponding to their gender identity.

The administration stressed that while, writ large, exclusion based on gender identity violated Title IX, the new regulations did not extend to single-sex living facilities or sports teams. The Education Department is pursuing a second rule dealing with sex-related eligibility for male and female sports teams. The rule-making process has drawn more than 150,000 comments.

Under the revisions announced on Friday, instances where transgender students are subjected to a “hostile environment” through bullying or harassment, or face unequal treatment and exclusion in programs or facilities based on their gender identity, could trigger an investigation by the department’s Office for Civil Rights.

Instances where students are repeatedly referred to by a name or pronoun other than one they have chosen could also be considered harassment on a case-by-case basis.

“This is a bold and important statement that transgender and nonbinary students belong, in their schools and in their communities,” said Olivia Hunt, the policy director for the National Center for Transgender Equality.

The regulations appeared certain to draw to legal challenges from conservative groups.

May Mailman, the director of the Independent Women’s Law Center, said in a statement that the group planned to sue the administration. She said it was clear that the statute barring discrimination on the basis of “sex” means “binary and biological.”

“The unlawful omnibus regulation reimagines Title IX to permit the invasion of women’s spaces and the reduction of women’s rights in the name of elevating protections for ‘gender identity,’ which is contrary to the text and purpose of Title IX,” she said.

The existing rules, which took effect under Mr. Trump in 2020, were the first time that sexual assault provisions were codified under Title IX. They bolstered due process rights of accused students, relieved schools of some legal liabilities and laid out rigid parameters for how schools should conduct impartial investigations.

They were a sharp departure from the Obama administration’s interpretation of the law, which came in the form of unenforceable guidance documents directing schools to ramp up investigations into sexual assault complaints under the threat of losing federal funding. Scores of students who had been accused of sexual assault went on to win court cases against their colleges for violating their due process rights under the guidelines.

The Biden administration’s rules struck a balance between the Obama and Trump administration’s goals. Taken together, the regulation largely provides more flexibility for how schools conduct investigations, which advocates and schools have long lobbied for.

Catherine E. Lhamon, the head of the department’s Office for Civil Rights who also held the job under President Barack Obama, called the new rules the “most comprehensive coverage under Title IX since the regulations were first promulgated in 1975.”

They replaced a narrower definition of sex-based harassment adopted under the Trump administration with one that would include a wider range of conduct. And they reversed a requirement that schools investigate only incidents alleged to have occurred on their campuses or in their programs.

Still, some key provisions in the Trump-era rules were preserved, including one allowing informal resolutions and another prohibiting penalties against students until after an investigation.

Among the most anticipated changes was the undoing of a provision that required in-person, or so-called live hearings, in which students accused of sexual misconduct, or their lawyers, could confront and question accusers in a courtroom-like setting.

The new rules allow in-person hearings, but do not mandate them. They also require a process through which a decision maker could assess a party or witness’s credibility, including posing questions from the opposing party.

“The new regulations put an end to unfair and traumatic grievance procedures that favor harassers,” Kel O’Hara, a senior attorney at Equal Rights Advocates. “No longer will student survivors be subjected to processes that prioritize the interests of their perpetrators over their own well being and safety.”

The new rules also allow room for schools to use a “preponderance of evidence” standard, a lower burden of proof than the DeVos-era rules encouraged, through which administrators need only to determine whether it was more likely than not that sexual misconduct had occurred.

The renewed push for that standard drew criticism from legal groups who said the rule stripped away hard-won protections against flawed findings.

“When you are dealing with accusations of really one of the most heinous crimes that a person can commit — sexual assault — it’s not enough to say, ‘50 percent and a feather,’ before you brand someone guilty of this repulsive crime,” said Will Creeley, the legal director of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

The changes concluded a three-year process in which the department received 240,000 public comments. The rules also strengthen protections for pregnant students, requiring accommodations such as a bigger desk or ensuring access to elevators and prohibiting exclusion from activities based on additional needs.

Title IX was designed to end discrimination based on sex in educational programs or activities at all institutions receiving federal financial assistance, beginning with sports programs and other spaces previously dominated by male students.

The effects of the original law have been pronounced. Far beyond the impact on school programs like sports teams, many educators credit Title IX with setting the stage for academic parity today. Female college students routinely outnumber male students on campus and have become more likely than men of the same age to graduate with a four-year degree.

But since its inception, Title IX has also become a powerful vehicle through which past administrations have sought to steer schools to respond to the dynamic and diverse nature of schools and universities.

While civil rights groups were disappointed that some ambiguity remains for the L.G.B.T.Q. students and their families, the new rules were widely praised for taking a stand at a time when education debates are reminiscent to the backlash after the Supreme Court ordered schools to integrate.

More than 20 states have passed laws that broadly prohibit anyone assigned male at birth from playing on girls’ and women’s sports teams or participating in scholastic athletic programs, while 10 states have laws barring transgender people from using bathrooms based on their gender identity.

“Some adults are showing up and saying, ‘I’m going to make school harder for children,” said Liz King, senior program director of the education equity program at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “It’s an incredibly important rule, at an incredibly important moment.”

Schools will have to cram over the summer to implement the rules, which will require a retraining staff and overhauling procedures they implemented only four years ago.

Ted Mitchell, the president of the American Council on Education, which represents more than 1,700 colleges and universities, said in a statement that while the group welcomed the changes in the new rule, the timeline “disregards the difficulties inherent in making these changes on our nation’s campuses in such a short period of time.”

“After years of constant churn in Title IX guidance and regulations,” Mr. Mitchell said, “we hope for the sake of students and institutions that there will be more stability and consistency in the requirements going forward.”

Zach Montague is based in Washington. He covers breaking news and developments around the district. More about Zach Montague

Erica L. Green is a White House correspondent, covering President Biden and his administration. More about Erica L. Green

Handout A: Rights of the Accused Essay

All governments—whether a constitutional democracy, a monarchy, or a dictatorship— operate through the exercise of coercion. The fundamental question is, by what authority or criteria may government exercise that coercion? When we say in the United States that we have a government of law and not of men, we mean that government may exercise coercion only in terms of principle, embodied in the law, rather than according to the arbitrary whims of government officials. Under the rule of law coercion exists in two forms. First, law coerces us by prohibiting us from doing what we want to do (e.g., speeding), and requiring us to do what we do not want to do (e.g., pay taxes). Second, law coerces us by charging, convicting, and punishing us for not obeying either dimension of law in its first form.

Criminal law and procedures have to do with that second sense of the coercive power of law. In a society whose Founding document speaks of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the question of when and how government may legitimately employ its coercive power—in the words of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, to deprive us of our life, liberty, and property—is thus central. Given the presumption of innocence that is implicit in our constitutional scheme, the rights of criminal suspects and defendants flow from and give effect to that presumption and the rule of law itself. For that reason, it is appropriate to think of these protections not as criminal rights, but rather as the rights of criminal suspects and defendants. Under our system of government people charged with criminal activity are not criminals in the eyes of the law until after they confess or are convicted in a trial. In simplest terms, we can say that the criminal-justice process consists of three stages: first, when police suspect someone of criminal activity, he is a criminal suspect; second, when police amass sufficient evidence for a prosecutor to charge someone with a crime, he is a criminal defendant; and third, once someone has confessed or has been found guilty in a trial, he is a criminal. Broadly conceived, the Fourth Amendment covers the criminal suspect, the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Amendments cover the criminal defendant; and the Eighth Amendment (aside from bail) covers the criminal’s punishment.

Some people argue that the rights of the accused are mere technicalities, but one could argue that it is those very “technicalities”—especially the protection against unreasonable searches and seizures in the Fourth Amendment, at issue in Mapp v. Ohio (1961), the privilege against self-incrimination (as well as the guarantee of due process) in the Fifth Amendment, at issue in Miranda v. Arizona (1966), and the right to counsel in the Sixth Amendment, at issue in Gideon v. Wainwright (1963)—that distinguish a constitutional democracy from an authoritarian, tyrannical, or totalitarian political system. You may be familiar with a phrase out of the old American West: “Give him a fair trial and then hang him.” Sometimes used today as well, this phrase suggests that we know someone’s guilt prior to a trial, but under the law it is only through an elaborate set of procedures that we are authorized to determine one’s guilt or innocence. Under the presumption of innocence, the rights of the accused are the foundation of those procedures.

Understanding the rights of the accused requires us to consider four central issues. The first one is what we can call the interpretive question: what is the meaning of a particular right or procedural guarantee? For example, what is a search, what is a seizure, and what is the difference between a reasonable and unreasonable search and seizure? Is the government engaged in a reasonable search when it wiretaps telephone conversations ( Katz v. United States , 1967), or when it points a thermal-imaging device at someone’s home to determine whether he is generating enough heat inside to indicate that he is using heat lamps to grow marijuana ( Kyllo v. United States , 2001)?

If police officers see a suspect swallow a substance during a drug bust and they take him to hospital to have his stomach pumped to obtain that substance as possible evidence of a crime, is that a reasonable search and seizure or a violation of the privilege against self- incrimination ( Rochin v. California , 1952)? How much time must pass before one is deprived of the right to a speedy trial? Does allowing a child to testify behind a screen against an alleged child molester deny the defendant his right to confront the witnesses against him? These and other interpretive questions arise constantly when criminal suspects and defendants assert their constitutional rights.

Additionally, in answering the interpretive question we have to ask whether the meaning of a particular right or procedural guarantee can change over time. When we ask what “cruel and unusual punishment” is, for example, do we ask what those who wrote and ratified that prohibition in 1791 meant by it, or what we might consider it to mean today? Posing a hypothetical situation in which “some state should enact a new law providing public lashing, or branding of the right hand, as punishment for certain criminal offenses,” Justice Antonin Scalia, who as an originalist takes the former position, has written, “Even if it could be demonstrated unequivocally that these were not cruel and unusual measures in 1791 … I doubt whether any federal judge—even among the many who consider themselves originalists— would sustain them against an eighth amendment challenge” (“Originalism: The Lesser Evil,” 57 University of Cincinnati Law Review 849, 861 [1989]). Relatedly, how do the criminal procedure guarantees ratified in 1791 apply to technological innovations unknown at the time, such as telephones, computers, automobiles, and airplanes?

The second central issue is what we can call the federalism issue: to what extent are federal criminal procedure guarantees applicable against the states? In other words, to what extent are states, where we find the vast bulk of criminal law, free to deal with criminal justice matters as they see fit, and to what extent are they bound by a federally mandated floor of criminal procedures? For example, the exclusionary rule at issue in Mapp v. Ohio requires that evidence obtained by the government in violation of the rights of the accused be excluded from use by the prosecution at trial. The Supreme Court first announced this rule as binding on the federal government in Weeks v. United States (1914). The Court held in Wolf v. Colorado (1949) that it was binding only on the federal government, and not the states. Do all rights of the accused in federal proceedings apply against the states, or only some of them—and how do we determine which do and which do not?

The exclusionary rule exemplifies the third central issue in understanding the rights of the accused: what is the constitutional status of rules the Supreme Court fashions to give meaning and effect to the procedural rights and guarantees stated explicitly in the Fourth through Eighth Amendments? It is one thing to state that criminal suspects and defendants are protected against unreasonable searches and seizures, have a right to counsel and due process, a protection against self-incrimination and cruel and unusual punishment, and so forth, but how are such rights and guarantees to be enforced?

Justice Benjamin Cardozo complained that the meaning of the exclusionary rule is that “the criminal is to go free because the constable has blundered” ( People v. Defore , 1926). Standard arguments against such rules are, first, that they are not constitutional provisions; second, that they handicap the police, making investigation of crimes more difficult; and, third, that they let guilty people go. Standard arguments in favor of such rules are, first, that they are rules fashioned by the courts to give meaning, content, and effect to explicitly stated constitutional protections, protections that would not exist in any meaningful way otherwise. Second, that far from handicapping police, requiring adherence to the Miranda warning and the exclusionary rule actually makes the police more careful and thus more likely to sustain a case and secure a conviction. Third, that there is evidence that relatively few convictions are ever overturned on these “technical” grounds.

Finally, understanding the rights of the accused raises a fourth central issue, one with particular salience in our post-9/11 world: to what extent, if any, do those rights—especially the prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures and the privilege against self incrimination— apply, for example, in the case of suspected terrorists who may have knowledge of a conspiracy to detonate a nuclear explosion in an American city? Even in a constitutional democracy dedicated to liberty, the rule of law, and the presumption of innocence, we have to remember that the central function of government is to provide for the national defense and the maintenance of law and order. There is always a tension between liberty and security: too much concern for liberty can threaten our personal and national security, and too much concern for our personal and national security can threaten our liberty. How do we strike the proper balance between liberty and security in ordinary cases of domestic criminal activity, and how do we do so in extraordinary cases of domestic and international terrorism? As you read the following materials on the rights of the accused, consider how you would balance your liberty against your need for protection against both criminals and terrorists.

Dr. Dennis Goldford is Professor of Politics and International Relations at Drake University in Iowa. He teaches in the areas of political theory and constitutional law, and his recent research deals with the originalism debate in contemporary constitutional theory. He has published numerous articles in the areas of political theory and constitutional interpretation, and his recent book is entitled The American Constitution and the Debate Over Originalism (Cambridge, 2005). His current research deals with politics and religion, and with the theory of federalism. Professor Goldford is also a frequent commentator on Iowa and national politics through both local and national media outlets.

• Cambridge Dictionary +Plus

Thesaurus article: to accuse someone of something

• to accuse someone of something

These words mean to say that someone has done something morally wrong, illegal, or unkind.

The most commonly used word is accuse . It can be used in legal contexts and when talking about everyday complaints, disagreements, etc.

You can also say that someone makes an accusation against another person. This is usually used when accusing someone in a public or official way. Level an accusation against someone and level a charge against someone are also used, especially in the passive.

If one person hurls accusations at another, they accuse them of things in an angry or unreasonable way.

If the police charge someone with a crime, they officially accuse them of it.

In legal contexts, you can bring , file , press , or, in UK English, prefer charges against somebody.

In some countries, when a person is indicted , they are charged with a serious crime by a high authority, such as a grand jury in the US.

You can also say that someone brings , files , or issues an indictment against someone. In formal US English you can also say that someone hands down , hands out , or returns an indictment against someone.

In some countries, when a public official is impeached , they are charged with a serious crime by a legislative body, for example the House of Representatives in the US.

If you allege that someone has done something wrong or illegal, you say that they did that thing, but you do not give any proof. Allege is a formal word.

You can also level or make an allegation against someone.

For more words about accusing someone of something, see the article at blame .

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