I realized something: Prisoners under prolonged influence of dementors mutter to themselves, based on the memories the dementors bring up to them. Based on what Barty Jr yells in his sentencing, suspects before trial are exposed to dementors (he didn't want to be sent *back* to them). Also, we know from POA that some relevant humans are made aware of contents of prisoners' mutterings. Ergo: dementors were used to extract confessions. Of course since prisoners forced into prolonged exposure to dementors aren't speaking very intelligibly, understanding what they are confessing to requires interpretation and such interpretation will depend heavily on the biases of the person doing the interpretation (who was Sirius referring to when he muttered 'he is at Hogwarts'?). Basically prisoners before trial are forced to say things that will be taken the worst way against themselves, and have no way to defend against such use.
Which means that for the Imperius defense to succeed the person's memories had better match very well with what they are claiming in their plea - or some external pressure (some form of extortion/bribe) intervened with procedures somewhere. Supporting Terri's drabble a while back where Narcissa Confounded Lucius to believe he really had been Imperioed. Or some variation thereof. (I'm not sure what the memories of a person who really was Imperiurized into doing something horrible would show. Let alone that unless someone actually acts in a way that would undo such a curse if present and this act resulted in a noticeable change, a person could be Imperiurized into believing their horrific act was voluntary. People are very good in inventing reasons for wanting to do something inexplicable after the fact - see for example the case of split-brain experiments.)
The above will be incorporated into the next installment of my series on Death To Capslock.
I realized something: Prisoners under prolonged influence of dementors mutter to themselves, based on the memories the dementors bring up to them. Based on what Barty Jr yells in his sentencing, suspects before trial are exposed to dementors (he didn't want to be sent *back* to them). Also, we know from POA that some relevant humans are made aware of contents of prisoners' mutterings. Ergo: dementors were used to extract confessions. Of course since prisoners forced into prolonged exposure to dementors aren't speaking very intelligibly, understanding what they are confessing to requires interpretation and such interpretation will depend heavily on the biases of the person doing the interpretation (who was Sirius referring to when he muttered 'he is at Hogwarts'?). Basically prisoners before trial are forced to say things that will be taken the worst way against themselves, and have no way to defend against such use.
Which means that for the Imperius defense to succeed the person's memories had better match very well with what they are claiming in their plea - or some external pressure (some form of extortion/bribe) intervened with procedures somewhere. Supporting Terri's drabble a while back where Narcissa Confounded Lucius to believe he really had been Imperioed. Or some variation thereof. (I'm not sure what the memories of a person who really was Imperiurized into doing something horrible would show. Let alone that unless someone actually acts in a way that would undo such a curse if present and this act resulted in a noticeable change, a person could be Imperiurized into believing their horrific act was voluntary. People are very good in inventing reasons for wanting to do something inexplicable after the fact - see for example the case of split-brain experiments.)
The above will be incorporated into the next installment of my series on Death To Capslock.
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