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Could Texas lead the way to an important criminal justice reform?

Could Texas lead the way to an important criminal justice reform?

by digby

It’s hard to believe, but they might.This piece by Radly Balko discusses a proposed bill eliminate most jailhouse informant testimony in death penalty cases.(The only one’s allowed would be those which were recorded.) Balko writes:

If the bill passes, I predict you’ll see the use of informants in these cases dwindle to almost never. The reason: Most jailhouse snitches are lying. Informant testimony has become such a critical tool for prosecutors precisely because it allows them to put on testimony that is a) damning, b) easy to manufacture and c) allows b) to happen while giving them plausible deniability. This isn’t to say that all prosecutors manufacture evidence by using jailhouse informants. It is to say that the way informants are treated by the courts makes it very easy to do so.

The whole concept of jailhouse informants defies credulity. The very idea that people regularly confess to crimes that could put them in prison for decades or possibly even get them executed to someone they just met in a jail cell and have known for all of a few hours is and has always been preposterous. Not to mention the fact that these are people whose word prosecutors wouldn’t trust under just about any other circumstance. When informants have later recanted testimony or claimed that police or prosecutors browbeat them into lying, a DA’s office will quickly point to the informants’ criminal records and lack of trustworthiness. But when they’re helping to win a conviction, their word is gold.

It does defy credulity until you consider that the justice system is often rigged in favor of the state. Police and prosecutors probably always believe they “know” when someone is guilty and they believe that the system is riddled with “technicalities” that make it too difficult for them to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. So they are more than willing to look the other way even when it’s obvious that someone is lying as long as it benefits their case. I would guess a lot of them just feel that’s making the playing field more fair. And maybe some of you agree.

But regardless of that, they should never, ever do it in serious cases particularly when the death penalty is on the table. The government should be extremely scrupulous about following both the letter and intention of the law much less allowing shady testimony and evidence into the record when it comes to life in prison or (God forbid) capital punishment. It’s outrageous that they allow something as obscene as a jailhouse confession into a capital case.

There is almost no chance this will pass. We’re talking about Texas. But this is the kind of thinking on criminal justice reform that is overdue.

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