(California) Law requires corroboration of cellmate's testimony

[alp227]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

(08-01) 17:05 PDT SACRAMENTO -- Testimony by jailhouse informants will no longer be enough to convict criminal defendants in California under hotly contested legislation signed today by Gov. Jerry Brown.

SB687 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.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/01/BAEG1KI25B.DTL

[FreakinDJ]

1. If retroactive 1000s serving life will be freed

[X_Digger]

2. K&R!

So sad that prosecutors will have to work harder. I hear they want to do away with the exclusionary rule, too. That pesky fourth amendment, always getting in the way of a good conviction ratio.

:sarcasm:

[buckrogers1965]

3. Heresay.

It's not legal.

[rpannier]

4. IT's not hearsay

Hearsay is when I say, "Mike told me he heard Jon say he killed Tom."
Mike told me, "I killed Tom." is not hearsay

[buckrogers1965]

5. No.

Hearsay is when I say someone said something.