WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has made it harder for defendants to keep their comments to jailhouse informants from being used against them at trial.
The justices, by a 7-2 vote, said a defendant’s statement to an informant can be used to poke holes in trial testimony, even if it was elicited in violation of the Constitution.
Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the court’s opinion, which said prosecutors could not use the informant to prove their case, but only to impeach inconsistent testimony.
“In every other context, this court has held that tainted evidence excluded from the prosecution’s case in chief is admissible for impeachment, and no distinction here alters that balance,” Scalia said in a statement read from the bench.
The case arose after Donnie Ray Ventris and Rhonda Theel were charged with the 2004 murder of Ernest Hicks and other crimes. Theel pleaded guilty to robbery in exchange for dropping the murder charge and testifying against Ventris.
Police had put an informant in Ventris’ cell before the trial, and Ventris confessed to him that he’d shot Hicks in the head, taken about $350, his keys, wallet and vehicle.
But during the trial, Ventris testified that Theel was solely responsible for the crimes. Police used the informant to contradict Ventris’ story.
Ventris was convicted of aggravated burglary and aggravated robbery. But Kansas’ high court ruled that a defendant’s statement to an informant could not be used at all.
Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg agreed with the lower court ruling. “Even though the jury apparently did not credit the informant’s testimony, the Kansas Supreme Court correctly concluded that the prosecution should not be allowed to exploit its pretrial constitutional violation during the trial itself,” Stevens said.
The case is Kansas v. Ventris, 07-1356.
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