In some criminal cases, the only existing evidence is the verbal statement of a witness or the plaintiff. The typical example is an alleged rape where victim and perpetrator have had some kind of relation, and their records of the incident differ. In these cases, the assessment of the value of the evidence drawn from the plaintiff's story is of crucial importance. On the one hand, a false positive judgment means that a person is wrongly convicted, on the other hand, a failure to correctly identify a truthful claim of rape means that a victim of a severe crime is left without judicial remedy. That the prosecutor must prove that the crime is committed by the defendant without reasonable doubt, means that there is much more chance of a failure to convict guilty felons, than of the opposite.In the essay, the rules of criminal procedure directed at the evaluation of the verbal statement are identified and critically evaluated from the perspective of how they may or may not facilitate the judgment of a verbal statement presented before the court, either in person, or through other media such as video.