Bill Would Restrict Informant Testimony in Death Cases
Anthony Graves was wrongly convicted and sent to death row in 1994 based largely on the testimony of an alleged accomplice in the fiery murders of six people. The accomplice, while on the execution gurney, admitted he was the lone killer. Ten years later, in 2010, Graves was exonerated.
Like Graves, Muneer Deeb, Michael Toney and Robert Springsteen were sentenced to death after trials that involved the testimony of their cellmates or alleged accomplices. Their convictions were all overturned.
State Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, has filed a bill, HB 189, that aims to prevent wrongful death sentences in cases that ...
Comments (4)
Dylan Osborne via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Informants are overused in our system. How can it not be a conflict of interests?
Renee E. Babcock via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Perhaps prosecutors shouldn't rely so much on informants then. After all, it's not like informants often have their own agenda...
Jose B. Gonzalez via Texas Tribune on Facebook
If anyone in a court room has a strong motive to lie & should be viewed by jurors as completely unreliable - its a witness who has cut a deal with the prosecutor in exchange for their testimony... This type of testimony should be barred from the court rooms...
Phillip Baker
This needs to be done. It's just one more piece if the massive reform of our justice system needs sp badly. And once again DA's claim they'll be hamstrung if required to make such evidence more sound. If a form of evidence has played such a big role in convicting people later exonerated, then it must be changed. Yes, DA's and cops will reflexively squall and whine about how it'll tied
their hands, but they always say that. Then they adjust, and the sky did not fall. They also claim that prosecutorial abuse is "rare", so their credibility is low already.