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| Calif. OKs Eavesdropping on Inmates |
| By AP |
| Published: 05/08/2002 |
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Overturning a 20-year-old California precedent, the state's Supreme Court said yesterday that authorities may eavesdrop on inmate conversations and use those exchanges in court. The unanimous decision placed California in line with federal guidelines that, under most circumstances, allow eavesdropping in jailhouse settings. 'We're now playing the same sheet of music as the feds,' said William Kuimelis, a California deputy attorney general. The ruling, however, does not overturn guidelines generally protecting privileged communications between attorney and client. Instead, the ruling sanctions monitoring all non-privileged communications. California's justices reversed their precedent on grounds that state lawmakers in 1994 said it was OK for authorities to snoop on inmates' communications. Those incarcerated, lawmakers said, did not have an expectation of privacy similar to those not behind bars. Monday's ruling was the first time the Legislature's 1994 law was tested before the justices. It trumps a 1982 decision by the state Supreme Court that said prisoners retained many of the privacy rights of free people. The case before the court concerned Christine Loyd, who was convicted of killing her mother in 1991 and of murdering an acquaintance in 1994. Authorities found that Loyd killed for her mother's pension checks and may have killed the acquaintance three years later to cover it up. She was sentenced to 55 years imprisonment and fought to have the charges dismissed because of the eavesdropping. While jailed awaiting trial, Alameda County prosecutors instructed officers to tape her telephone communications and all non-telephonic communications with visitors except those with a lawyer. A lower court condemned the taping but upheld the convictions on grounds they did not assist in winning a prosecution. Alan Schlosser, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney, said it was unfair for Loyd's communications to be monitored because she was an innocent woman awaiting trial. |
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