{"id":25769,"date":"2019-04-04T15:13:10","date_gmt":"2019-04-04T21:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=25769"},"modified":"2019-04-04T15:13:10","modified_gmt":"2019-04-04T21:13:10","slug":"regulations-for-use-of-jailhouse-informants-clears-first-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=25769","title":{"rendered":"Regulations for use of jailhouse informants clears first round"},"content":{"rendered":"

A bill that would require increased transparency in the use of jailhouse informants was advanced from general file April 4.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Adam Morfeld<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LB352, as introduced by Lincoln Sen. Adam Morfeld, would require each prosecutor\u2019s office to maintain a record of each case in which testimony is provided by a jailhouse informant and any benefit or plea deal offered to the informant.<\/p>\n

Morfeld said the bill hopefully would curtail false jailhouse testimony, which he said has played a role in 159 wrongful convictions in the U.S. since 1989.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe expectation of a reduced sentence or other benefits creates a strong incentive to lie, which can cause a tragic ripple effect in the criminal justice system,\u201d he said. \u201c[False jailhouse testimony] harms innocent people and allows actual perpetrators to escape justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morfeld introduced an amendment, adopted 43-0, which replaced a Judiciary Committee amendment and became the bill.<\/p>\n

Under the amended bill, if a prosecutor intends to use the testimony of a jailhouse informant, he or she would be required to provide certain information to the defense, including:
\n\u2022 the informant\u2019s known criminal history;
\n\u2022 any benefit requested, offered or provided to the informant in exchange for testimony;
\n\u2022 the specific statements the defendant allegedly made to the informant that would be used against the defendant;
\n\u2022 other cases in which the informant testified or intended to testify; and
\n\u2022 any case in which the informant recanted testimony against a defendant.<\/p>\n

A prosecutor who offers any benefit or plea deal to a jailhouse informant first would be required to notify any victim of a crime committed by the informant.<\/p>\n

Lincoln Sen. Mike Hilgers spoke in support of the amended bill. He said it would help strengthen protections within the context of the current legal system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important aspect … is to ensure the defendant has due process and, in order to have that, it\u2019s important that they have notice,\u201d he said. \u201cIf they have notice, then they have the opportunity to … get discovery or move to strike the [jailhouse informant] testimony.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senators voted 42-0 to advance the amended bill to select file.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bill that would require increased transparency in the use of jailhouse informants was advanced from general file April 4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25759,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[148],"class_list":["post-25769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-judiciary","tag-sen-adam-morfeld"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/LB352Morfeld4-4-19a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25769"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25770,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25769\/revisions\/25770"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}