LIMITED USE OF JAIL INFORMANTS URGED

State Blue Ribbon Panel Says the Legislature Should Enact Laws
Requiring Corroborating Evidence If Such Testimony Is Offered.

The state Legislature should limit the use of testimony by jailhouse
informants in criminal trials, according to the latest report issued
by a blue ribbon commission examining problems of wrongful
convictions in California.

The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice said
lawmakers should enact a statute barring convictions based on the
testimony of an in-custody informant, unless the account is
corroborated by independent evidence.

Similar corroboration should also be required for jailhouse informant
testimony presented in the penalty phase of a capital murder case,
according to the 20-member commission, which is chaired by former
California Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp.

The recommended controls, if adopted, would parallel current state
law mandating corroboration if testimony by a defendant's accomplices
is to be introduced.

Jailhouse informants have been implicated in a number of wrongful
convictions, including 46% of those reviewed in a study by professors
at Northwestern University Law School, the report noted. Critics say
it is all too easy for informants to gather information about their
fellow inmates' charges and fabricate testimony to persuade
prosecutors to offer them leniency on their cases.

Of the 117 death penalty appeals pending in the state public
defender's office, 17 featured testimony by in-custody informants and
six included testimony by informants out on bail or otherwise in
"constructive custody."

Consequently, the commission said "confidence in the reliability of
testimony of arrested or charged informant witnesses is a matter of
continuing concern to ensure that the administration of justice in
California is just, fair and accurate."

In addition, the commission recommended that "whenever feasible,
express agreements in writing should describe the range of
recommended rewards or benefits that might be afforded in exchange
for trustful testimony by an arrested or charged informant."

At a hearing in late September, John Spillane, the chief deputy
district attorney in Los Angeles County, and Gigi Gordon, director of
the Post Conviction Assistance Center in Los Angeles, said that the
Los Angeles County district attorney's office had dramatically
reduced its use of jailhouse informants in the wake of a massive
scandal in the late 1980s.

After informant Leslie Vernon White told reporters how easy it was to
concoct testimony and get a break in his cases, a special grand jury
was convened in Los Angeles and took testimony from 120 witnesses,
including six self-professed jailhouse informants.

The grand jury issued a report stating that the district attorney's
office had "failed to fulfill the ethical responsibilities required
of a public prosecutor" in its use of jailhouse informants.

In the scandal's aftermath, the district attorney's office adopted
policy guidelines "to strictly control the use of jailhouse
informants as witnesses," the commission report noted. The policy
requires "strong corroborative evidence," consisting of more than the
informant's apparent familiarity with details of the crime thought to
be known only to law enforcement.

The office also maintains a central index of jailhouse informants who
have offered to be or who have been used as witnesses, Spillane told
the commission in September.

Spillane said that no jailhouse informant testimony had been approved
in Los Angeles County in the last 20 months, and on only 12 occasions
in the last four years.

However, the commission indicated in the report issued late Monday
that the picture was far from clear in other parts of the state.

Only nine of 58 district attorney's offices in the state responded to
inquiries from the commission about their practices on jailhouse informants.

"I am shocked that years after the Los Angeles informant scandal
demonstrated the problems with informant testimony, only nine
district attorney offices in the state have written policies
addressing the issue," Natasha Minsker, an attorney for the American
Civil Liberties Union of Northern California who testified at the
September hearing, said Tuesday.

Four other large counties -- Orange, San Bernardino, Santa Clara and
Ventura -- have adopted written policies similar to Los Angeles', and
all restrict use of jailhouse informants. But according to the
report, only the Orange and Santa Clara county district attorneys
offices have a policy that requires maintaining a central file of all
data about informants.

Other commission recommendations for district attorney's offices
across the state include:

. Adopt a written policy requiring a supervisor's approval for using
in-custody informant testimony.

. Maintain a central file preserving all records on in-custody informants.

. Record all interviews with in-custody informants.

The commission's recommendations were unanimously approved, said
Santa Clara University law professor Gerald Uelmen, the commission's
executive director.

In addition to Van de Kamp, the members include California Atty. Gen.
Bill Lockyer, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, Los Angeles Police
Chief William J. Bratton, three district attorneys, three public
defenders, the attorney who heads the state's habeas corpus resource
center, two attorneys in private practice, two law professors, a
former judge, a rabbi and a real estate developer.