The validity of statements made in police detention without lawyer assistance

Abstract

In this article, Dr. Tonio Borg reviews and analyses the case-law of the Maltese Courts on statements given to the police without lawyer assistance, as a potential exception to the ‘no forbidden fruit theory’ recognised by Maltese Law. The ‘Forbidden Fruit Theory’ in Criminal and Constitutional Law can be explained in the following way: if the investigating authorities, particularly the Police, infringe any of the procedures or conditions required by law in obtaining evidence, that evidence is tainted and excluded as evidence before a court of law. The doctrine developed mostly in the United States of America and was established in 1920 by the decision in Silverthorne Lumber Co. v United States, and the phrase ‘fruit of the poisonous tree’ was coined by Justice Frankfurter in his 1939 opinion in Nardone v United States. [excerpt]