Senate Bill No. 655
(By Senator Chafin)
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[Introduced February 23, 2004; referred to the Committee on the
Judiciary.]
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A BILL to amend the code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, by
adding thereto a new article, designated §62-1E-1, §62-1E-2
and §62-1E-3,
all relating to criminal procedure generally;
creating the "Custodial Interrogation Evidence Protection
Act"; requiring certain statements made by suspects in a
custodial setting to be recorded; and providing exceptions.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That the code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, be amended
by adding thereto a new article, designated §62-1E-1, §62-1E-2 and
§62-1E-3, all to read as follows:
ARTICLE 1E. CUSTODIAL INTERROGATION EVIDENCE PROTECTION ACT.
§62-1E-1. Short title.
This article may be cited as the "Custodial Interrogation
Evidence Protection Act."
§62-1E-2. Legislative findings.
The Legislature finds that:
(1) Law-enforcement personnel in investigating alleged
violations of the criminal laws of this state often question
persons suspected of offenses in a custodial setting and often
obtain important evidence thereby;
(2) Often valuable court time and prosecutors' time is wasted
litigating issues surrounding the statements including claims of
inaccuracy and denial of the statement altogether; and
(3) Advances in technology now allow law-enforcement an
available and affordable tool to significantly limit legal disputes
over whether a suspect was provided notice of applicable
constitutional rights and the existence of or context of statements
made or alleged to be made through recording the custodial
interrogations.
§62-1E-3. Memorialization of statements of suspects taken in a
custodial setting; admissibility; hearing.
(a) After the effective date of this section, whenever any
law-enforcement officer, while engaged in an active criminal
investigation, obtains a statement in a custodial interrogation
from a person being investigated for an alleged violation or the
criminal laws of this state, he or she shall make an audio
recording or video recording with sound capability of the
statement. Failure to comply with the provisions of this section
creates a presumption that the statement is inadmissible. The
statement may be admitted if, after a hearing on the matter, the
court finds by clear and convincing evidence that the failure to comply with the provisions of this section was a good faith
omission or that the recording equipment was inoperable or
reasonably unavailable and that the content of the unrecorded
proffered statement is an accurate recital of the information
provided by the defendant and is otherwise admissible.
(b) As used in this section "custodial interrogation" means
questioning initiated by a law-enforcement officer after a person
has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his or her
freedom of action in any significant way.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to ensure accuracy of
statements made by suspects in a custodial setting by requiring the
statements to be recorded and providing exceptions.
This article is new; therefore, strike-throughs and
underscoring have been omitted.
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