Evidence Commons^™

The Special Threat Of Informants To The Innocent Who Are Not Innocents: Producing “First Drafts,” Recording Incentives, And Taking A Fresh Look At The Evidence, Robert P. Mosteller

Faculty Scholarship

Fabricated testimony by informants often plays an important role in convictions of the innocent. In this article, I examine the particularly problematic situation of defendants who are innocent of the particular crime charged but are not strangers to crime. As to such defendants, potential informants abound among crime associates, and they have a ready story line that authorities are preconditioned to accept. Independent proof, which could be an antidote, will predictably be lacking. Indeed, that the informant has exclusive, critical knowledge often leads the prosecution to offer particularly tempting deals.

I focus on the case of Lee Wayne Hunt, a …

Giles V. California: A Personal Reflection, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

In this Essay, Professor Friedman places Giles v. California in the context of the recent transformation of the law governing the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. He contends that a robust doctrine of forfeiture is an integral part of a sound conception of the confrontation right. One reason this is so is that cases fitting within the traditional hearsay exception for dying declarations can be explained as instances of forfeiture. This explanation leads to a simple structure of confrontation law, qualified by the principle that the confrontation right may be waived or forfeited but not subject to genuine exceptions. …