Robert Phillips
- Ref # CAB00076
- January 01, 2017
Recording Interrogations and Penal Code § 859.5
Recording Interrogations and Penal Code § 859.5
Robert C. Phillips
Deputy District Attorney (Ret.)
January, 2017
As of January 1, 2017, with an amendment to Penal Code § 859.5,[1] it is now the law in California that any interrogation of a murder suspect, at least when questioned by law enforcement and done while in a “fixed place of detention,” “shall be electronically recorded in its entirety.”[2] Section 859.5 had already set out a recording requirement for juvenile murder suspects, effective since January 1, 2014.[3] This statutorily imposed, discretion eliminating requirement is now universal, no matter who the ....
