Missouri Senate

Introduced

EYEWITNESS IDENTIFICATION PROCEDURES (491.500 & 545.275)

Under this act, each law enforcement agency that uses eyewitness identification procedures must adopt written policies governing the procedures by Jan. 1, 2015. The agency must submit the policies to the Department of Public Safety and biannually review the policies.

A list of practices that may be included within the policies is provided.

The court must consider failure to comply with the statute or the law enforcement agency's procedures for eyewitness identifications during any hearing on a motion to suppress identification evidence and when hearing claims of eyewitness misidentification.

When evidence of compliance or noncompliance with the statute or the policies is presented at trial, the court must instruct the jury that it may consider the compliance, or lack thereof, when judging the reliability of an identification.

This act allows a defendant to obtain a pretrial hearing on a motion to suppress eyewitness identification evidence upon demonstrating the existence of certain evidence that could lead to a mistaken identification. The burden then shifts to the state to prove the identification is reliable.

A non-exhaustive list of factors for the court to consider when determining whether to hold a hearing or approve the motion is provided.

The judge must approve the motion to suppress if he or she finds that a substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification exists.

This act provides that expert testimony on eyewitness identifications is admissible at the hearing and at trial.

In addition, if eyewitness identification evidence is admitted at trial, the court must instruct the jury on how to assess the reliability of the identification or on any factors in the particular case that might raise the risk of a misidentification.

CUSTODIAL INTERROGATIONS (590.700)

Under current law, custodial interrogations must be recorded when feasible. This act removes the phrase "when feasible".

Current law allows law enforcement officers to not record custodial interrogations when the suspect requests the interrogation not be recorded or the equipment fails or is not available at the location of the interrogation. This act repeals the exception regarding the suspect requesting the interrogation not be recorded and provides that, if the equipment fails or is not available, the law enforcement agency must demonstrate a good faith effort to maintain recording equipment for interrogations to be in compliance with the statute.

In addition, this act repeals the current penalty for failure to comply with the statute that allows the governor to withhold funding from the noncompliant law enforcement agency and a provision that prohibits compliance with the statute from being raised in a criminal trial.

Under this act, statements made during an unrecorded interrogation are presumed to be inadmissible in a criminal proceeding unless one of the statutory exceptions exists. The presumption may be overcome by a preponderance of the evidence that the statement was voluntarily provided and is reliable. The jury must be instructed that it may consider credible evidence of compliance or noncompliance with the recording requirements to determine whether the defendant's statement was voluntary and reliable.

This act also requires the preservation of electronic recordings of interrogations until the offender can no longer appeal a conviction or when prosecution of the offense is barred by law.

BIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE PROCEDURES (650.056, 650.070, & 650.075)

Current law requires investigating law enforcement agencies to preserve all DNA evidence leading to a conviction of certain types of felonies. This act modifies that list of felonies. Under this act, any biological evidence gathered during an investigation of the specified felonies must be preserved by the agency until any offender who was convicted and sentenced to prison as a result of the investigation has been released from prison. Biological evidence gathered during an investigation of first degree murder must be retained until twenty years after the offender has been executed or upon being pardoned or otherwise found innocent.

This act requires the evidence to be retained in a manner that preserves any possible DNA evidence for further testing. If the crime remains unsolved, the evidence must be preserved until the prosecuting attorney authorizes its destruction.

This act requires law enforcement agencies to develop written guidelines for the identification, collection, and preservation of biological evidence. In addition, crime labs are required to establish testing procedures.

Under this act, procedures are established for situations in which DNA testing will consume an entire biological sample.

This act is similar to SB 162 (2013).

MEGHAN LUECKE