Connecticut § 54-86p - Hearing re reliability and admissibility of jailhouse witness testimony in criminal prosecutions.

§ 54-86p. Hearing re reliability and admissibility of jailhouse witness testimony in criminal prosecutions.

Sec. 54-86p. Hearing re reliability and admissibility of jailhouse witness testimony in criminal prosecutions. (a) In any criminal prosecution of a defendant for a violation of section 53a-54a, 53a-54b, 53a-54c, 53a-54d, 53a-70, 53a-70a or 53a-70c, upon a motion of the defendant before the start of a trial on any such offense, the court shall conduct a hearing at which hearsay or secondary evidence shall be admissible to determine whether any jailhouse witness's testimony is reliable and admissible. The court shall make a prima facie determination concerning the reliability of such testimony after evaluation of the evidence submitted at the hearing and the information or material disclosed pursuant to subdivisions (1) to (5), inclusive, of subsection (a) of section 54-86o, and may consider the following factors:

(1) The extent to which the jailhouse witness's testimony is confirmed by other evidence;

(2) The specificity of the testimony;

(3) The extent to which the testimony contains details known only by the perpetrator of the alleged offense;

(4) The extent to which the details of the testimony could be obtained from a source other than the defendant; and

(5) The circumstances under which the jailhouse witness initially provided information supporting such testimony to a sworn member of a municipal police department, a sworn member of the Division of State Police within the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection or a prosecutorial official, including whether the jailhouse witness was responding to a leading question.

(b) If the prosecutorial official fails to make a prima facie showing that the jailhouse witness's testimony is reliable, the court shall not allow the testimony to be admitted.

(c) For the purposes of this section, “jailhouse witness” means jailhouse witness, as defined in section 54-86o.

(P.A. 19-131, S. 2; 19-132, S. 7.)

History: P.A. 19-132 amended Subsec. (a) by adding provision re hearsay or secondary evidence admissible at hearing, adding reference to prima facie determination, replacing “reliability of the witness” with “reliability of such testimony”, adding reference to evidence submitted at hearing, and adding “may consider” re factors, and amended Subsec. (b) by replacing “show by a preponderance of the evidence” with “make a prima facie showing”.

See Sec. 51-286 re tracking use of testimony by jailhouse witnesses.

Subsec. (a): Trial court misunderstood “information” to include its own prior credibility assessment; trial courts must rely on objective criteria, to which all parties would have access through discovery process, in considering information disclosed pursuant to Sec. 54-86o(a)(5) for purpose of making prima facie reliability determination under Subsec. 349 C. 417.