Falsified Evidence

Falsification of the evidence is not something new. The world has witnessed several cases, where the so-called criminals were acquitted after years of captivity. What went wrong? Why did they have to experience the angst and agony of imprisonment? Who is to blame for their plight? What delayed their extrication? Most of the time, in such cases, justice was delayed due to falsified evidence!

Any information which is fabricated or procured by illegal means, in order to divert the course of an impending verdict, can be termed as falsified evidence. Such evidence is not only used by a criminal for his acquittal, but it is sometimes used to frame an innocent person.

It is obvious that evidence is falsified by the criminals to avoid imprisonment, but they are not the only ones who manipulate evidences. The adversarial trial system involves 2 parties, the prosecution and the defense, either of them can falsify the evidence to gain a verdict in their favor. The influence of the police cannot be mitigated if the evidence is fudged.

As I mentioned earlier, false evidence is used by criminals to rescue themselves from the possible imprisonment, but there are several other reasons why evidence is tampered or manufactured illegally. Few of them are discussed here:

Noble Cause Corruption
When the police believe that they have found the culprit, but they do not have enough evidence to frame him, they resort to the fabrication of evidence and justify themselves by believing that, their act is in the larger good of the society. This is termed as noble cause corruption.

Incompetence or Indifference
Sometimes, the people who are assigned to collect evidence are incompetent, they find it easier to create evidence rather than finding them. On the other hand, there may arise a situation where the police show no interest in the pursuit of the truth, they simply fabricate evidence which reconciles with their prejudice.

To Save the Innocent
There can be people who believe that the accused is not guilty. These people are driven by overwhelming emotions, and they desperately want to save the accused, so they resort to the falsification of the evidence.

In reality, the evidence can be forged or fabricated any time (till the jury has not arrived at a verdict!). You cannot isolate a time span and say that, this is when the evidence is manipulated, but you can surely state the situations in which there is a high probability of tampering with the evidence, few such situations are listed below:

• A delay in the arrest will give time to the accused to manipulate the evidence.
• If the accused has his "men" outside, they will surely try to fudge the evidence.
• If the defense believes that there is no way of saving the accused, they will resort to falsification of the evidence.

Falsifying evidence is not just restricted to law and order, there have been instances where people carrying out scientific research have falsified the evidence so that the evidence lies in accordance with their hypothesis. Whatever may be the case, the fabrication and manipulation of the evidence cannot be justified under any circumstances!

Truth can never be obscured for long, it will surely emerge from the clouds of deceit one day. Knavish men who mock the judiciary by fabricating evidences should be put behind the bars, but it is very difficult to nab them if the police favors them.

A legally abiding innocent citizen has to pay the price for such a fraud, he has to tolerate the captivity for ages with the hope that someday, the world will realize that he was not guilty, but no one can assure him, that he will have a normal life after the delayed justice. To conclude, I state a famous quote; "Justice delayed is justice denied".