RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE TEXAS EXONERATION REVIEW COMMISSION

Recently the Texas Exoneration Review Commission released a report in which it made the following recommendations for the police and prosecutors to abide by in criminal investigations and prosecutions:

ELECTRONIC RECORDING OF INTERROGATIONS

I. Require either audio or audiovisual electronic recording of interrogations by law enforcement agencies when investigating all felony cases.

II. Require recording to begin when the suspect enters the interrogation room.

III. Enforce compliance with new recording requirements by permitting the admission of an unrecorded statement only if the judge finds good cause for the failure to electronically record the statement, and establishing a presumption that an unrecorded statement is inadmissible as evidence if the judge finds that no good cause exception applies.

FALSE ACCUSATION/INFORMANT REGULATION

I. Require prosecutor offices to have written policies on tracking and disclosure of impeaching information on jailhouse informants.

II. Permit the admissibility of jailhouse informants’ complete criminal history, including criminal charges that were dismissed or reduced as part of a plea bargain.

III. Require prosecutor offices to establish an internal system to track the use of jailhouse informants including, but not limited to, cases in which the jailhouse informant offered testimony and the benefits provided in those cases.

FAULTY EYEWITNESS IDENTIFICATION

I. Require training for law enforcement officers on eyewitness identification procedures.

II. Require making juries aware of prior identifications of the suspect by the witness when an in-court identification is made.

III. Require law enforcement agencies to adopt the Bill Blackwood Law Enforcement Management Institute of Texas Model Policy.

FORENSIC SCIENCE PRACTICES

I. Encourage the Texas Forensic Science Commission to investigate and consider promulgating policies regarding the use of drug field tests used by law enforcement agencies.

II. Encourage the Texas Forensic Science Commission to investigate and consider promulgating policies regarding the process of crime scene investigations.

III. Recommend that crime labs in all cases moving forward complete testing of substances in all drug cases regardless of the results of a drug field test, and that crime labs go back through previous cases in which the collected substance was not confirmed by lab testing.