Michael Carey was arrested in July 2021, at just 19 years old, while sitting on his block with a friend. He was accused of throwing a rock at a police car that had been on the block hours before his arrest. He always denied the act, and the only evidence against him was a smell test of the rock. He was sentenced to two years in prison.
Is this sufficient evidence to convict him?
A smell test is not enough to convict someone for two main reasons:
- How fallible the smell test is.
- The Criminal Procedure Law itself establishes that evidence by itself has no value. Not even the confession of the accused person has value on its own. For example, it can be obtained through threats, coercion, or violence.
The decision must be made by the Court after evaluating several pieces of evidence that lead to the same conclusion, that is, that indicate whether the person is guilty or not.
Guilt must be legally established with conclusive evidence, because if even the slightest doubt exists, the verdict should be acquittal, by virtue of the principle of presumption of innocence. This is established in section 2 of article 181.1 of the Criminal Procedure Law, which states that “the accumulated evidence must be verified multilaterally and objectively.”.
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