ABSTRACT
A close examination of the authorities suggests a more problematic picture. This picture is influenced by the consideration that various features of the investigative and prosecution process stood out in profound contrast with that which had been routinized under the Marian legislation. Chief amongst these features is the emergence and institutionalisation of professional police forces. By the middle of the nineteenth century, with the effective judicialisation of the justices, the active investigation and prosecution of crime passed to the ‘new’ police. The law and the conflicting authorities pertaining to the admission of confession evidence, the legal delineation of the concept of voluntariness and the scope of the exclusionary rule as it related to police interrogations, were comprehensively considered by senior members of the Irish judiciary. For the dissenting members of the court, in assessing the admissibility of confession evidence under the voluntariness rule, judges should presume that statements made by persons in police custody to have been made involuntarily.
