171 Limited Confessions Furthermore, a confession could be limited to a part of the criminal charge only. Typically, in homicide cases the accused would confess to having struck the victim, but withthe hand instead of a weapon as claimed by the prosecutor, or not to where the prosecutor claimed but in another place (arm instead of head, for example). The limitation normally makes a claim as to the consequence of the deed: the accused will admit having hit the victim, but not with lethal results. In these cases, the limited confession seems normally to have caused the court to make a conviction. The accused’s confession reverses the burden of proof in the sense that even a limited confession makes the accused responsible for producing proof for not having caused the victim’s death. In the grounds of decisions, a limited confession is often referred to as “admittance” {“medgifvande”) for the cases of limited confessions, the point is not whether or not the accused really had committed the crime or not; rather, it is the significance that the courts have attached to the need of including “a confession” in its motivations. Vagrant Jacob Jacobsson Hakalahti was accused in the Hundred Court of Kalajoki in 1829 of killing his wife Greta Jacobsdotter. At first, the accused denied the deed, but at last admitted that he had struck his wife a few times on the head with a stick. Hakalahti denied, however, that the victim’s death could have resuited from his strikes. All instances convicted Hakalahti (Hundred Court of Kalajoki, February 2, 1830; High Court of Vaasa, March 15, 1830; theJDS, August 15, 1830; pag. 136/1830) In 1829, Wilhelm Henricsson Paunu, the son of a tenant farmer, stood accused in the Hundred Court of Mäntsälä of killing tenant farmer Johan Ericsson Mäkelä. Paunu admitted that he had mistreated Mäkelä, but denied having caused the kind of damages that according to the autopsy had caused the victim’s death. Instead, Paunu claimed that others had mistreated the victimas well. The injuries could, nevertheless, be imputed to Paunu on the grounds of one eyewitness and another witness who had seen the event but that was heard without oath. According to the Hundred Court (18th of April, 1829), the accusation was proven by “what the eyewitness Anders Johansson, heard under oath, has stated compared to the statement given byJohan Antila, heard without oath, and to the confession given by WilhelmHenricsson Paunu” - the court manifestly uses free evaluation of evidence here. The conviction held in the upper instances, but a confession was no longer referred to (High Court of Turku, September 7, 1829: “lawfully proven”; theJDS, August 15, 1839: “... on the basis of witness statements together with other things that have been recovered during the investigation, lawdully proven This roughly corresponds to the modern terminology. See Lappalainen and Ekelöf. ... genom vittnens berättelser med hvad i öfrigt vid undersökningen ... inlupit, lagligen förvunnen ...”; pag. 280/1829. See also Porrenmäki, pag. 184/1819; Bengtilä, pag. 109/1820; Grönberg, pag. 183/1830; Svensk, pag. 234/1830; Mattsson, pag. 103/1840; and Nyberg, pag. 265/1850. In all of these cases, the conviction has been based on a limited confession. Furthermore, in Johansson, pag. 1 17/1835, the two lower instances have convicted the accused, whereas theJDS has settled for confessional imprisonment. “explanation” {“förklaring”) given by the accused.^7 As or an 28 “
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=