-That goes to weight, not admissibility. The plaintiff -wants to keep the admission out under the exclusionary -rule because he wasn't Mirandized. If I was the judge, -I'd say the exclusionary rule doesn't apply here here, -let it in, and let the parties argue the likelihoods.
This goes to a more fundamental issue, where I think Justin and I have some agreement, which is how much power judges have to exclude evidence and shape what juries get to hear. Liberals like when that power is used to exclude coerced confessions or unMirandized statements, but it's also used to exclude information that a person accused of stealing a pizza may be facing a third strike or is used by judges to block "necessity defense" arguments that an illegal act was done to stop bad government policy. Recently judges have been blocking expert testimony by plaintiffs on the basis that is was not "scientific" enough in the judges' viewpoint.
As long as defense attorney's can enter all necessary information about the coercion used to get a confession, statistics on the number of false confessions and unjust convictions, and so on, decreasing judge power in such areas is an overall good goal. Too much of the time, information is restricted to juries from all sides.
I've often thought that liberals should spend less time on excluding evidence from coerced confessions and more time fighting for the right of victims of coercion to sue for compensation, especially big ticket awards for any false imprisonment or conviction for any kind of illegal evidence used in trials. Oddly, the current liberal emphasis most helps the guilty while doing little for the civil liberties of the innocent who manage to escape conviction.
-- Nathan Newman