Texas Representative Harold Dutton recent­ly filed a bill that would pre­vent pros­e­cu­tors in death penal­ty cas­es from using tes­ti­mo­ny from infor­mants or from alleged accom­plices of the defen­dant if the tes­ti­mo­ny was obtained in exchange for lenien­cy, immu­ni­ty or oth­er spe­cial pro­vi­sions. If passed, the bill would make Texas among the first states to ban such tes­ti­mo­ny. Alexandra Natapoff, a pro­fes­sor at Loyola of Los Angeles Law School, said, ​“The use of crim­i­nal infor­mants is a mas­sive source of error in our most seri­ous cas­es…. Criminal infor­mants have strong incen­tives to lie and very few dis­in­cen­tives to lie, because crim­i­nal infor­mants are almost nev­er pun­ished.” Anthony Graves, the most recent death row inmate to be exon­er­at­ed in Texas, was con­demned pri­mar­i­ly because of the tes­ti­mo­ny of an alleged accom­plice, who lat­er admit­ted to com­mit­ting the crime alone. 

Robert Springsteen and Michael Toney, who were also exon­er­at­ed in recent years, were sen­tenced to death after tri­als in which tes­ti­mo­ny of their cell­mates or alleged accom­plices played a promi­nent role. In fil­ing the bill, Rep. Dutton assert­ed, ​“The truth of the mat­ter is all the sys­tems we have in place to pro­tect inno­cent peo­ple from being con­vict­ed sim­ply haven’t worked.”

(B. Grissom, ​“Bill Would Restrict Informant Testimony in Death Cases,” Texas Tribune, November 28, 2012). See Innocence.

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