After reading PoA and OotP again in last few days, I thought how could Sirius prove his innocence or Harry Voldemort´s return in trial or in middle of investigation. And I could not think of any feasible way.

Results of Veritaserum are unreliable and would surely be decried by hostile Ministry as trickery, there are no wows "on my magic/life I swear" in canon, there are few/no possible witnesses, there was no casting of Prior Incantato, there was no use of memories with Pensieve in trial in OotP etc.

When guilt, innocence and truth is determined by hearsay, public opinion and charisma and political power of prosecution or defense, what are chances of right-hand man of Voldemort or delusional liar to convince court ?

 

Gold. Lots of shiny gold.

 

He could perform the unbreakable vow to swear on his life that he would tell the full truth and nothing else for the duration of the trial, but with spell like obliviate that would be unreliable. He could submit a pensive memory, but HBP showed that you can fake those.

Honestly, Sirius's best bet is to claim the Imperius curse. Everyone else did. Harry is just fucked, though.

 

Swearing a unbreakable vow seems more of a fanon type thing.

Veritaserum might work.

Or having the Minister in your back pocket.

 

HBP Snape swears an Unbreakable Vow to Narcissa.

 

This is true. It was near the beginning of the book. Both Belatrix and Narcissa talk him into giving it. So it's not fanon; it's canon.

 

I think what he's referring to is the use of Unbreakable Vows in a courtroom. It really doesn't seem like something they could realistically implement in a court situation to me... too many skeletons in too many closets for that to be allowed into law. Something only included in the less thought-out fanfics, I believe.

 

I'd say HBP confirmed that you can't fake those. Slughorn's first memory was clearly tampered with - Slughorn wasn't able to create convincing scenes, just some fog and his voice.

However what would happen if one was placed under a memory charm or the Imperius Curse we don't know.

Basically this. The evidences were definitely against Sirius, and without a chance to prove his innocence this would have been one option. As the heir of an old pureblood family he might even have gotten away with it. Nevertheless that would have cost him his friends - as everyone knows most of the claims concerning the Imperius Curse were wrong. So that might have been an option he wouldn't have chosen.

 

If I remember right, Dumbledore said that Slughorn fabricated the memory badly, which would imply that he could do better. Fuck it, I've got nothing better to do....

Alright, I was wrong. Still, that does seem to imply that it's possible for someone to completely modify their own memory, requiring that they are willing to part with the original. Or maybe Slughorn is just shit at memory charms.

 

You can't really. I would imagine the problem with Vows would be the same as Veritiserum, the fact that if you truly think something happened that way, you would say that even if it wasn't true. As for memories, Dumbledores statement implies that memories can be faked convincingly, as proved by Voldemort, the fact that he framed both Morvin and the House Elf, Hooky.

Prior Incantem can be useful, only if used right after. And then whos to say that they didn't use another wand. For Sirius's case, he might have actually used a similar spell to the one that caused the explosion, he fact he was giggling insanely when Aurors arrived along with evidence from witnesses it isn't all that surprising he was thrown into jail if he was considered to be Voldemorts right hand. Would there be any fuss if Bellatrix was just thrown into jail? I doubt.

 

:facepalm

Just because pensieve memories, verasiterum, and Unbreakable Vows aren't foolproof doesn't mean that they aren't significant evidence.

There's no canon evidence of this, but it's difficult to imagine that there aren't any ways of detecting memory charms, so it would be possible to check if one were under one in order to deceive these methods.

You all seem to be forgetting that you can't use the Imperius curse to force a secret out of a Secret Keeper, either.

Here is an unbreakable vow that could be used for his trial (or generically):
During this questioning, I swear to tell the truth of the events of (insert day here).

Edit: Also, they could ask about him serving Voldemort, his relationship with James, etc, to determine if he would even have had a motive for these things. I get the impression that that sort of thing would be more difficult to erase.

 

Why not? The Secret Keeper can spill the secret - and the Imperius Curse can be used to convince him to do it.

They might be significiant - though if a skilled wizard is on trial who actually might be able to get his way around unbreakable vows and pensive memories, then they lose their significance. In Black's case you have a few Aurors arriving at the crime scene moments after the crime happened, and Black is still standing there, holding his wand.

Whom to believe? A few Aurors or some memories which might have been tampered with? Ask their teachers: Would Pettigrew have been able to blow up the street? Would Black have been able to pull this off and find a way around Veritaserum? In contrary to Peter Pettigrew, Sirius Black seems to be a skilled wizard. It's enough to declare he would have been able to forge his memories to render the evidence useless.

 

Shit, fanon. I take that back, though suddenly the entire premise of the Fidelius charm loses its effectiveness.

 

I'm pretty sure a secret-keeper cannot be forced. He can be tortured into it, but not forced through Imperio.

 

From the HP-Lexicon:

We also know how the Imperius Curse works as described in GoF:

Why not ordering the Secret Keeper to spill the secret? If the person under the curse isn't able to fend it off, perhaps even indulging in "the most wonderful feeling" he/she would spill it.

 

This isn't 100% reliable, but it indicates that there's no canon evidence one way or the other:
http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Secret-Keeper

While Rowling's system of magic is contradictory enough for either possibility to be true, it doesn't make sense plotwise for the secret keeper to be able to divulge the secret out of anything other than his free will (though I'm not sure how torture would factor into it). It rather weakens it as a defense - all one would need to do would be to find the secret keeper and and stuff verasiterum down their throat.

 

Out of curiosity, do we actually have nay proof that Veratiserum is avoidable?

 

What I'm seeing from this topic is that the only sure way for Sirius to be proven innocent is for Pettigrew to be caught. Even then, that only proves that Sirius didn't kill Pettigrew and not the dozen Muggles. Pettigrew would need to confess.

With as much knowledge as we have from JK, Wizarding courts are pretty screwed up.

 

It is rather understandable though, with the possibilities of magic it makes things alot more complicated. We can have witnesses obliviated, memories changed, imperius curse, polyjuice potion, Metamorphmagi, Veela, animagi, love potions and countless other spells or potions to take into consideration.

For a crime to have been commited you need to have willingly commited it, and with magic there is alot of coercion that can take place.

As for the imperius curse, I am dissappointed with fanfictions general take on that. I would imagine it is rather easy to say no to a command of jump on a desk, than it is to not obey possibly hundreds of commands that the death eaters or Voldemort likely used. as they would need to cover a large range of possibilites that may happen to the target.

 

There's an antidote in canon and presumably occlumency would work to defeat it, according to interviews with JKR. Still, the assertion that just because methods of defeating it exist make it completely invalid as testimony is ridiculous. There are people who can fool polygraphs, which operate on the principles of comparing natural bodily reactions to lying to those reactions to control questions, either through trained skill or mental condition. Nevertheless, a defendant who takes a polygraph and passes generally gains some credence in court (note: while I am not a laywer, I would never advocate taking a polygraph as the results are subject to interpretation by a human being. It is generally considered to be better to always exercise your 5th amendment rights. This is not legal advice).
Also, the burden of proof is on the accuser. Or ought to be, at any rate. Without that the entire legal system is rendered rather redundant.