"Law requires corroboration of cellmate's testimony," is the title of Bob Egelko's report in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Testimony by jailhouse informants will no longer be enough to convict criminal defendants in California under hotly contested legislation signed Monday by Gov. Jerry Brown.
SB 687 by Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, applies to cases in which an inmate, often in exchange for leniency, testifies that a cellmate confessed to a crime. The bill, effective next year, will require prosecutors to corroborate that testimony.
Similar laws are in effect in 17 other states. But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the same proposal twice at the urging of the California District Attorneys Association, which also opposed Leno's bill.
The prosecutors' group argued that there was no need for such a law, since judges already tell juries to consider an informant's testimony with caution. The association also said a ban on uncorroborated informant testimony would make jailhouse crimes harder to prosecute.
But Leno said informant testimony is often self-serving and unreliable and can lead to convictions of the innocent. Defense lawyers and civil-liberties advocates who supported SB687 were joined by the district attorneys of San Francisco and Los Angeles, who say a requirement of corroboration, already in effect in their offices, actually leads to stronger prosecutions.
Leno praised Brown's action, saying, "Without the safeguards created in this legislation, the potential for the miscarriage of justice when informant testimony is involved is just too high."
The informant measure was one of several proposed by a statewide commission, headed by former Attorney General John Van de Kamp, that the state Senate established in 2004 to look into the causes of wrongful convictions.
More on SB 687, via the California State Legislature website.
Alexandra Natapoff posts, "California passes jailhouse informant corroboration law," at Snitching Blog.
Governor Brown just signed important new legislation requiring corroboration before a jailhouse informant can testify. SF Chronicle story here: Law requires corroboration of cellmate's testimony. California joins Texas, Illinois, Massachusetts, Idaho, and several other states that require safeguards to counteract the well-documented unreliability of jailhouse snitch testimony. Here is part of the bill:
A jury or judge may not convict a defendant, find a special circumstance true, or use a fact in aggravation based on the uncorroborated testimony of an in-custody informant.
I'm adding Snitching Blog to the More Criminal Justice Web Resources webroll in the left-column. It's a fantastic resource. Thanks to Saor Stetler for forwarding.
Related posts are in the informant / snitch testimony index.
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