Bill Regulating Jailhouse Snitches Signed Into Law

Gov. George Deukmejian signed into a law Wednesday a bill regulating the use of jailhouse informants.

Key features of the bill include a requirement that judges routinely instruct jurors to view jailhouse informants’ testimony with caution, and a requirement that prosecutors tell an informant’s crime victim that he is being given leniency in return for his testimony against another criminal defendant.

The legislation, which was drafted by defense lawyer groups and sponsored by Assemblyman Richard E. Floyd (D-Carson), also bars law enforcement from paying an informant more than $50 “in return for an in-custody informant’s testimony.”

It also requires prosecutors who rely on the testimony of an informant to disclose to the court any favors he has received.

“I think it will change the way prosecutors treat informants, (the way) juries treat informants, and I think people will stop and think now before they use these informants,” said Los Angeles defense lawyer Gigi Gordon, who lobbied for the measure on behalf of the Criminal Courts Bar Assn.

The legislation was an outgrowth of a demonstration last year by veteran jailhouse informant Leslie Vernon White of how dangerous informant testimony could be.

White showed Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials that he could convincingly fake the confession of a murder suspect he had never met. A glib robber and kidnaper, White gathered inside information on the case by using a jail telephone and posing as a law enforcement officer. Then he showed officials that he could create a phony record that he shared a cell with a suspect.

New Standards

White’s demonstration prompted Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner to issue tough new corroboration standards for use of informants and spawned an ongoing grand jury investigation.

Similar corroboration standards were written into early drafts of the legislation, but defense Bar lobbyists agreed to delete them in exchange for support of the California District Attorneys Assn.

The association contends that tougher statutory standards are unnecessary because the problem of jailhouse informants fabricating confessions is confined to Los Angeles.